The Nest home alarm system shipped with a secret microphone, which — according to the company — was only an accidental secret: On Tuesday, a Google spokesperson told Business Insider the company had made an “error.” “The on-device microphone was never intended to be a secret and should have been listed in the tech specs,” … Read More “The Latest in Creepy Spyware” »
Category: privacy
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The Wired headline sums it up nicely — “Facebook Hires Up Three of Its Biggest Privacy Critics“: In December, Facebook hired Nathan White away from the digital rights nonprofit Access Now, and put him in the role of privacy policy manager. On Tuesday of this week, lawyers Nate Cardozo, of the privacy watchdog Electronic Frontier … Read More “Facebook’s New Privacy Hires” »
Good essay: “Advancing Human-Rights-By-Design In The Dual-Use Technology Industry,” by Jonathon Penney, Sarah McKune, Lex Gill, and Ronald J. Deibert: But businesses can do far more than these basic measures. They could adopt a “human-rights-by-design” principle whereby they commit to designing tools, technologies, and services to respect human rights by default, rather than permit abuse … Read More “Human Rights by Design” »
In my book Data and Goliath, I write about the value of privacy. I talk about how it is essential for political liberty and justice, and for commercial fairness and equality. I talk about how it increases personal freedom and individual autonomy, and how the lack of it makes us all less secure. But this … Read More “How Surveillance Inhibits Freedom of Expression” »
The US Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board is looking for a director. Among other things, this board has some oversight role over the NSA. More precisely, it can examine what any executive-branch agency is doing about counterterrorism. So it can examine the program of TSA watchlists, NSA anti-terrorism surveillance, and FBI counterterrorism activities. The … Read More “The PCLOB Needs a Director” »
Interesting paper: “Open Data, Grey Data, and Stewardship: Universities at the Privacy Frontier,” by Christine Borgman: Abstract: As universities recognize the inherent value in the data they collect and hold, they encounter unforeseen challenges in stewarding those data in ways that balance accountability, transparency, and protection of privacy, academic freedom, and intellectual property. Two parallel … Read More “Privacy and Security of Data at Universities” »
IoT devices are surveillance devices, and manufacturers generally use them to collect data on their customers. Surveillance is still the business model of the Internet, and this data is used against the customers’ interests: either by the device manufacturer or by some third party the manufacturer sells the data to. Of course, this data can … Read More “Are the Police Using Smart-Home IoT Devices to Spy on People?” »
Ross Anderson has some new work: As mobile phone masts went up across the world’s jungles, savannas and mountains, so did poaching. Wildlife crime syndicates can not only coordinate better but can mine growing public data sets, often of geotagged images. Privacy matters for tigers, for snow leopards, for elephants and rhinos and even … Read More “Privacy for Tigers” »
If you’re an American of European descent, there’s a 60% you can be uniquely identified by public information in DNA databases. This is not information that you have made public; this is information your relatives have made public. Research paper: “Identity inference of genomic data using long-range familial searches.” Abstract: Consumer genomics databases have reached … Read More “How DNA Databases Violate Everyone’s Privacy” »
The international digital human rights organization Access Now (I am on the board) is looking to hire a Chief Security Officer. I believe that, somewhere, there is a highly qualified security person who has had enough of corporate life and wants instead of make a difference in the world. If that’s you, please consider applying. … Read More “Access Now Is Looking for a Chief Security Officer” »