This is an excellent essay outlining the post-Roe privacy threat model. (Summary: period tracking apps are largely a red herring.) Taken together, this means the primary digital threat for people who take abortion pills is the actual evidence of intention stored on your phone, in the form of texts, emails, and search/web history. Cynthia Conti-Cook’s … Read More “Post-Roe Privacy” »
Category: medicine
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Susan Landau wrote an essay on the privacy, efficacy, and equity of contract-tracing smartphone apps. Also see her excellent book on the topic. Powered by WPeMatico
At a hospital. Powered by WPeMatico
Researchers are synthesizing squid proteins to create a face mask that better survives cleaning. (And you thought there was no connection between squid and COVID-19.) The military thinks this might have applications for self-healing robots. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I … Read More “Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Proteins for a Better Face Mask” »
Seems like thermal imaging is the security theater technology of today. These features are so tempting that thermal cameras are being installed at an increasing pace. They’re used in airports and other public transportation centers to screen travelers, increasingly used by companies to screen employees and by businesses to screen customers, and even used in … Read More “Thermal Imaging as Security Theater” »
I was quoted in BuzzFeed: “My problem with contact tracing apps is that they have absolutely no value,” Bruce Schneier, a privacy expert and fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, told BuzzFeed News. “I’m not even talking about the privacy concerns, I mean the efficacy. Does anybody think … Read More “Me on COVID-19 Contact Tracing Apps” »
This one isn’t even related to contact tracing: On March 17, 2020, the federal government relaxed a number of telehealth-related regulatory requirements due to COVID-19. On April 3, 2020, California Governor Gavin Newsom issued Executive Order N-43-20 (the Order), which relaxes various telehealth reporting requirements, penalties, and enforcements otherwise imposed under state laws, including those … Read More “California Needlessly Reduces Privacy During COVID-19 Pandemic” »
The trade-offs are changing: As countries around the world race to contain the pandemic, many are deploying digital surveillance tools as a means to exert social control, even turning security agency technologies on their own civilians. Health and law enforcement authorities are understandably eager to employ every tool at their disposal to try to hinder … Read More “Privacy vs. Surveillance in the Age of COVID-19” »
The TSA is allowing people to bring larger bottles of hand sanitizer with them on airplanes: Passengers will now be allowed to travel with containers of liquid hand sanitizer up to 12 ounces. However, the agency cautioned that the shift could mean slightly longer waits at checkpoint because the containers may have to be screened … Read More “TSA Admits Liquid Ban Is Security Theater” »
The world is racing to contain the new COVID-19 virus that is spreading around the globe with alarming speed. Right now, pandemic disease experts at the World Health Organization (WHO), the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and other public-health agencies are gathering information to learn how and where the virus is spreading. … Read More “Security of Health Information” »