Facebook is making a new and stronger commitment to privacy. Last month, the company hired three of its most vociferous critics and installed them in senior technical positions. And on Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg wrote that the company will pivot to focus on private conversations over the public sharing that has long defined the platform, even … Read More “Judging Facebook’s Privacy Shift” »
Category: privacy
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Data & Society just published a report entitled “Workplace Monitoring & Surveillance“: This explainer highlights four broad trends in employee monitoring and surveillance technologies: Prediction and flagging tools that aim to predict characteristics or behaviors of employees or that are designed to identify or deter perceived rule-breaking or fraud. Touted as useful management tools, they … Read More “On Surveillance in the Workplace” »
This system claims to detect suspicious behavior that indicates shoplifting: Vaak, a Japanese startup, has developed artificial intelligence software that hunts for potential shoplifters, using footage from security cameras for fidgeting, restlessness and other potentially suspicious body language. The article has no detail or analysis, so we don’t know how well it works. But this … Read More “Detecting Shoplifting Behavior” »
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” »
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?” »
