Happy new year. . . .
December 31, 2007
December 27, 2007
www.yourstreet.com : mapping news
Text Source: TechnologyReview by Erica Naone
A new startup called YourStreet is bringing hyper-local information to its users by collecting news stories and placing them on its map-based interface, down to the nearest street corner. While there have been many companies that combine information and maps, YourStreet is novel in its focus on classifying news by location. (See "A New Perspective on the Virtual World.")
When a user opens the site, it detects her location and shows a map of that area, stuck with pins that represent the locations of news stories, user-generated content called conversations, and people who have added themselves to the map. The user can zoom in or out of the map or look at another location by entering a place name or zip code into a search bar. CEO and founder James Nicholson says that what sets YourStreet apart is its extensive news service: the site collects 30,000 to 40,000 articles a day from more than 10,000 RSS feeds, mostly from community newspapers and blogs. "We're not relying on the users to provide us with articles," Nicholson says. The stories featured on the site aren't of a specific type, and users will find the locations of murders marked alongside the locations of upcoming music shows. Stories featured on the site are teasers, and, if a user clicks to read further, she will be directed back to the source of the information.
December 23, 2007
EDPS Opinion on RFID: major opportunities for Information Society but privacy issues need to be addressed with more ambition
The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) today issued his Opinion on the Commission's communication on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in Europe that was released in March 2007. The Opinion deals with the growing use of RFID chips in consumer products and other new applications affecting individuals.
The EDPS welcomes the Commission's Communication on RFID as it addresses the main issues arising from the deployment of RFID technology while taking account of privacy and data protection considerations. The EDPS agrees with the Commission that it is appropriate in the first phase to leave room for self-regulatory instruments. However, additional legislative measures may be necessary to regulate RFID usage in relation to privacy and data protection.
Peter Hustinx, EDPS, says: "RFID systems could play a key role in the development of the European Information Society but the wide acceptance of RFID technologies should be facilitated by the benefits of consistent data protection safeguards. Self-regulation alone may not be enough to meet the challenge. Legal instruments may therefore be required to guarantee that the technical solutions to minimise the risks for data protection and privacy are in place."
More specifically, the EDPS calls on the Commission to consider the following recommendations:
- the provision of a clear guidance, in close cooperation with relevant stakeholders, on how to apply the current legal framework to the RFID environment;
- the adoption of a Community legislation regulating the main issues of RFID-usage in case the effective implementation of the existing legal framework fails;
- such measures should notably lay down the opt-in principle at the point of sale as a precise and undeniable legal obligation;
- the identification of "Best Available Techniques" which will play a decisive role in the early adoption of the privacy-by-design principle.
December 17, 2007
Brain Sensor for Market Research
Market researchers have long sought people's assessments of not-yet-released advertisements and products. But when people recall how they felt during a commercial, for instance, they often can't accurately describe what their reactions were at each moment in the 30-second spot. Now a San Francisco startup called Emsense claims that it has the tools needed to monitor a person's true reactions during an entire commercial or video game.
The company has developed a sensor-laden headset that tracks brain activity using a single electroencephalography sensor (EEG) at the forehead, and other sensors that monitor breathing rate, head motion, heart rate, blink rate, and skin temperature--all of which can be indicators of whether a person is engaged or excited. In addition, says Hans Lee, chief technology officer at Emsense, his team has built proprietary algorithms that find meaning from the data collected by the sensors. Founded in 2004, the company was originally developed to build an EEG-based video-game controller. (See "Connecting Your Brain to the Game.") Recently, though, the team found that using its technology for market research is more lucrative. And, as the political season ramps up, the company is testing its system internally on campaign ads.
December 13, 2007
Finding Yourself without GPS
by Kate Greene
Text Source: Technology Review
Google's new technology could enable location-finding services on cell phones that lack GPS.
As more mobile phones tap into the Internet, people increasingly turn to them for location-centric services like getting directions and finding nearby restaurants. While Global Positioning System (GPS) technology provides excellent accuracy, only a fraction of phones have this capability. What's more, GPS coverage is spotty in dense urban environments, and in-phone receivers can be slow and drain a phone's battery.
To sidestep this problem, last week Google added a new feature, called My Location, to its Web-based mapping service. My Location collects information from the nearest cell-phone tower to estimate a person's location within a distance of about 1,000 meters. This resolution is obviously not sufficient for driving directions, but it can be fine for searching for a restaurant or a store. "A common use of Google Maps is to search nearby," says Steve Lee, product manager for Google Maps, who likened the approach to searching for something within an urban zip code, but without knowing that code. "In a new city, you might not know the zip code, or even if you know it, it takes time to enter it and then to zoom in and pan around the map."
December 11, 2007
Evolving Privacy Concerns
Facebook user Sean Lane bought a special gift for his wife. But his secret plans were ruined when information about his purchase was published through the social-networking site's new advertising system, Beacon.
Privacy concerns surfaced shortly after Beacon launched a month ago, prompting the activist group MoveOn, for example, to start a Facebook group protesting Beacon and to organize an online petition.
Stories such as this have many users concerned about their privacy. Last week, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg issued an apology and released a control that lets users turn off the system. But last weekend, experts at Yale Law School's symposium on reputation economies in cyberspace said that Facebook's privacy woes may not be over.
Beacon works by making use of partnerships that Facebook has formed with other websites, including Blockbuster and the New York Times.
December 10, 2007
Your Personal Genome
A new wave of products targeting the blossoming personal-genomics industry has recently become available. The first commercial whole-genome sequencing service was launched last week by startup Knome, based in Cambridge, MA. (See "Get Your Genome Sequenced for $350,000.") Three other companies--deCode Genomics, based in Iceland; and the much-hyped startups 23andMe and Navigenics, both based in California--recently announced consumer services for genome-wide DNA analysis. While the technologies and business strategies of the companies vary, they all aim to give consumers a picture of their genetic risk for disease.
November 25, 2007
Take your health data "off the market"
Patient Privacy Rights is launching a Campaign for Prescription Privacy, to introduce to the public perhaps one of the easiest health privacy concepts to grasp. Nearly all of us take a prescription medication at some point in our lives. Nowadays, our drugs are as good as our diagnosis. Most Americans think it is their right to keep information like their drug regimen private. It’s easy to understand why you would want to prevent others from knowing that you take Paxil, Zoloft, Xanax, Viagra, Cialis, birth control, Valtrex, or AZT—just to name a few.
But the reality is you can’t. Even if you pay cash. All 51,000 pharmacies in the U.S. sell your PHI to insurance companies and underwriters, pharmaceutical companies and other dataminers. Arguably, the data can be bought and sold by anyone who wants to purchase it.
Sign the Petition to "Take Your Prescription Data Off the Market!"
November 13, 2007
Sharing, Privacy and Trust in Our Networked World
Text & Image source: OCLC Website
Founded in 1967, OCLC Online Computer Library Center is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world's information and reducing information costs. More than 60,000 libraries in 112 countries and territories around the world use OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend and preserve library materials.
The OCLC has elaborated a report that is based on a survey (by Harris Interactive on behalf of OCLC) of the general public from six countries—Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States—and of library directors from the U.S. The research provides insights into the values and social-networking habits of library users.
The practice of using a social network to establish and enhance relationships based on some common ground—shared interests, related skills, or a common geographic location—is as old as human societies, but social networking has flourished due to the ease of connecting on the Web. This OCLC membership report explores this web of social participation and cooperation on the Internet and how it may impact the library’s role, including:
- The use of social networking, social media, commercial and library services on the Web
- How and what users and librarians share on the Web and their attitudes toward related privacy issues
- Opinions on privacy online
- Libraries’ current and future roles in social networking
More info:
Social networking was also discussed at the OCLC Symposium “Who’s Watching YOUR Space?” at ALA Midwinter 2007, while property law and privacy rights were discussed at the OCLC Symposium: “Is the Library Open?” at ALA Annual 2007.
November 08, 2007
Social Networking – How to avoid a digital hangover
Source Text: ENISA Web Site
ENISA is launching its first Position Paper on Security Issues and Recommendations for Online Social Networks at the echallenges conference in the Hague, 25 Oct. Social Networking is like a ‘digital cocktail party’: a powerful mixture of human social instincts and web 2.0 technology which is revolutionising the Internet. ENISA emphasises the many benefits of Social Networking but identifies 15 important threats. This leads to 19 recommendations on how Social Networking can be made safer.
ENISA’s Position Paper emphasises the commercial and social benefits of a safe and well-informed use of Social Networking Sites (SNS). “Safer Social Networking is ‘win-win’ for all: both users and SNS providers” says the Executive Director of ENISA, Mr Andrea Pirotti.
Several SNS are now among the top 10 most visited websites globally. The commercial success of the multi-billion Euro SNS industry depends heavily on the number of users it attracts. Combined with the strong human desire to connect, this encourages design and online behaviour where security and privacy are not always the first priority.
Users are often not aware of the size or nature of the audiences accessing their information and the sense of intimacy created by being among digital friends often leads to a ‘digital hangover’ – disclosures and digital “memories” that cannot be forgotten the morning after.
For full list of threats and recommendations, please refer to the Position Paper http://www.enisa.europa.eu/doc/pdf/deliverables/enisa_pp_social_networks.pdf
November 06, 2007
Privacy in Japan
Thursday 14 February 2008 15:30 - 17:00
Dr Andrew A. Adams, School of Systems Engineering, The University of Reading
Location: Oxford Internet Institute, 1 St Giles, Oxford, OX1 3JS. This event is open to the public. If you would like to attend please email your name and affiliation, if any, to: events@oii.ox.ac.uk
Dr Adams has just spent nine months visiting Meiji University in Tokyo, funded by a Global Research Award from the Royal Academy of Engineering. He has been studying the legal and social approach to privacy of electronic data in Japan and will present some of the results of his study.
There is a myth amongst researchers that there is no such thing as 'Privacy' in Japan. Dr Adams refutes that and shows that the advent of networked information processing of personal data has brought Japanese attitudes to information privacy to a highly similar position to Western attitudes.
Grounded in the social and psychological literature about Japan, this work explains the emergence of Japanese legal protection for personal data in recent years.
October 31, 2007
Privacy Enhacing Technologies
Privacy Enhancing Technologies: How to create a trusted Information Society
21 November 2007 London, UK
On May 2nd the European Commission adopted a Communication "Promoting Data Protection by Privacy enhancing Technologies (PETs)" in which it calls for stepping up research in and development of PETs. In this context, the outcome of this event will be taken into consideration by the European Commission in its formulation of upcoming work programmes for funding calls in this area of the FP7-ICT programme and will influence the direction of future research in the fields of privacy and technology.
October 19, 2007
STS "Surveillance and You" Civic Forum
“Surveillance” is a commonly heard word in our society today. Everyone has some knowledge of the topic and typically a strong opinion be it positive or negative on the impacts of surveillance. A Civic Forum focused on the societal impacts of surveillance was held on the UT Austin campus on March 31; the event was attended by over 60 participants. Austin community members came to the Civic Forum to express their opinions and concerns, listen to the expert panel, and simply converse with fellow citizens about this important issue.
The STS “Surveillance and You” Civic Forum was an event designed to bring together stakeholders from several different societal groups including members of the general public, private sector, government and academia. Participants were mixed in terms of gender, ethnicity, age, occupation, and experience with knowledge level about the issue of surveillance. Everyone walked in the door with at the very least and opinion and this blend created an environment rich in dialog and information sharing from many perspectives.
Privacy vs. Surveillance
Upon arrival at the Civic Forum, attendees were reminded of the “costs” of privacy and the ubiquity of surveillance, through participation in a “Privacy Economy.” In exchange for $5 worth of “Anonymity Dollars” participants were given the option to give their digital fingerprint. Attendees were given a badge with an IP address instead of a name. For another Anonymity Dollar a participant had the option to purchase their true name or they could opt to stick with the IP Address. For a few more Anonymity Dollars they could purchase alias name badges such as “Harry Potter” or “Lois Lane” or a white mask to cover their face to fully protect their privacy at the Forum. The “Privacy Economy” brought into sharp focus the issues of surveillance, privacy, what we as individuals are willing to sell in order to be able to participate in our monitored environments, and the fact that maintaining privacy can be costly.
October 17, 2007
Goodbye Privacy
Ars Electronica is an organization based in Linz, Austria, founded in 1979 around a festival for art, technology and society that was part of the International Bruckner Festival.
“Goodbye Privacy” was the theme of this year’s Ars Electronica, the festival extraordinaire of art, technology and society in Linz, Austria. September 5–11, 2007, the focus was on these late-breaking phenomena of a new culture of everyday life being played out between angst-inducing scenarios of seamless surveillance and the zest we bring to staging our public personas via digital media.
Mobile and ubiquitous—no longer just here and now, but being present wherever you want to be, whenever you want to be. These long-nurtured yearnings that have been projected so euphorically onto new technologies have now materialized into the reality of our time. A reality that is woven from a network in which every user is a node, every exit simultaneously an entrance, every receiver a transmitter too.
At any time, at any place, we’re capable of switching into telematic action mode, of reaching anyone and being accessible by all. With the aid of our avatars, blogs and tags, we assume digital form and adopt more or less imaginative second identities. Emerging at a rapid clip are completely new types of the public sphere featuring new rules of play and (sometimes even) new hierarchies. But it’s not merely technology, information and communication that have become omnipresent. To a much greater extent, it’s we ourselves: traceable at all times and anywhere via our cellphone’s digital signature that makes it possible to pinpoint our location to within a few meters; classifiable via the detailed and comprehensive personality profiles that we unwittingly leave behind as the traces of all our outings in digital domains.What’s occurring in the wake of these developments is a far-reaching repositioning and reevaluation of the political, cultural and economic meaning of the public and private spheres.
October 08, 2007
Bluetooth & privacy
According to Silicon Republic the Information Commissioner in the UK has effectively ended its regulation of Bluetooth technology leading to fears of spamming, the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC). And in Ireland is currently considering incorporating Bluetooth usage into our data protection acts.
The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) in the UK will now no longer cover Bluetooth technology despite the fact that it is a wireless technology operating on a short-range radio and brings with it all the vulnerability of these connections.
A spokesperson for the office of the Data Protection commissioner said: “We are currently engaging in a debate about this at the moment. The key issue for us is whether and to what extent personal information is involved in the transfer.”
Read the full article at Silicon Republic
The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) in the UK will now no longer cover Bluetooth technology despite the fact that it is a wireless technology operating on a short-range radio and brings with it all the vulnerability of these connections.
A spokesperson for the office of the Data Protection commissioner said: “We are currently engaging in a debate about this at the moment. The key issue for us is whether and to what extent personal information is involved in the transfer.”
Read the full article at Silicon Republic
August 31, 2007
Databases Must Balance Privacy With Utility
Article published in ScienceDaily: Databases must balance privacy with utility, says professor
Agencies like the U.S. Census Bureau produce a voluminous amount of data, much of which is of tremendous value to social scientists and other researchers. But the data also includes personal information that, under the law, must be protected and could be harmful were it to fall into the wrong hands.
Thus, organizations that maintain such databases need to devise ways to protect individuals' privacy while preserving the value of the information to researchers, writes Carnegie Mellon University Statistics Professor George Duncan in a commentary in the Aug. 31 edition of the journal Science.
Agencies like the U.S. Census Bureau produce a voluminous amount of data, much of which is of tremendous value to social scientists and other researchers. But the data also includes personal information that, under the law, must be protected and could be harmful were it to fall into the wrong hands.
Thus, organizations that maintain such databases need to devise ways to protect individuals' privacy while preserving the value of the information to researchers, writes Carnegie Mellon University Statistics Professor George Duncan in a commentary in the Aug. 31 edition of the journal Science.
Duncan said traditional methods of "de-identifying" records, such as stripping away Social Security numbers or birthdates, are inadequate to safeguard privacy because a person who knows enough about the data pool could use other characteristics to identify individuals. Duncan, for example, is the only person who holds a Ph.D. in statistics and teaches in Carnegie Mellon's H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management, so any data set that included that information, even with Duncan's name removed, could be used to determine his identity.
Read the full article
Read the full article
June 20, 2007
European Data Protection Law
In the updated edition of his text, Kuner sets out the difficulty ofexpansion into EU markets for US businesses that have not taken themessage of data privacy protection seriously. US businesses intent onexploiting the information age through new EU markets or creating moreefficiency in existing European markets must effectively convert theirbusiness models to comply with EU data protection laws. The various EUdata directives create minimum standards that each member state mustthen adopt though the passage of new laws. However, this model doesallow member states to adopt stronger measures for data protection.There is a process for industries to establish self-regulatory codesunder Article 27(1) of the General Directive, but according to theauthor the process is so cumbersome that few industries have createdthem. He sees the process as taking too long to complete, and the"uncertain legal status" of the measures once adopted.
May 24, 2007
May 21, 2007
An Empirical Approach to Understanding Privacy Valuation
It is a paper by Luc Wathieu who is an associate professor in the Marketing unit at Harvard Business School.
What do consumers value and why? Researchers on privacy remain stumped by a "privacy paradox." Consumers declare that they value privacy highly, yet do not take steps to guard it during transactions. At the same time, consumers feel unable to enact their preferences on privacy. Clearly, scholars need a more nuanced understanding of how consumers treat information privacy in complex situations. To test the hypothesis that there is a homo economicus behind privacy concerns, not just primal fear, Wathieu and Friedman conducted an experiment based on a real-world situation about the transmission of personal information in the context of car insurance. Their experiment was based on a previous case study about marketing processes that use membership databases of trusted associations (such as alumni associations) to channel targeted deals to members through a blend of direct mail and telemarketing. Key concepts include:
Contrary to some research, the chief privacy concern appears based on data use, not data itself.
There is consumer demand for social control that focuses on data use.
Sophisticated consumers care about economic context and indirect economic effects.
May 07, 2007
Stop REAL ID: Reject National Identification
45 organizations representing transpartisan, nonpartisan, privacy, consumer, civil liberty, civil rights, and immigrant organizations have joined to launch a national campaign to solicit public comments to stop the nation's first national ID system: REAL ID.
The groups joining in the anti-REAL ID campaign are concerned about the increased threat of counterfeiting and identity theft, lack of security to protect against unauthorized access to the document's machine readable content, increased cost to taxpayers, diverting of state funds intended for homeland security, increased costs for obtaining a license or state issued ID card, and because the REAL ID would create a false belief that it is secure and unforgeable.
This effort builds on the momentum that is signaling broad opposition to the REAL ID in the states. Montana has become the fifth state, following Maine, Idaho, Arkansas, and Washington, to prohibit cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security in implementing the REAL ID national identification system.
Under the Act, states and federal government would share access to a vast national database that could include images of birth certificates, marriage licenses, divorce papers, court ordered separations, medical records, and detailed information on the name, date of birth, race, religion, ethnicity, gender, address, telephone, e-mail address, Social Security Number for more than 240 million with no requirements or controls on how this database might be used. Many may not have the documents required to obtain a REAL ID, or they may face added requirements base on arbitrary and capricious decisions made by DMV employees.
May 02, 2007
Respectful Cameras
A new type of video surveillance protects the privacy of individuals.
By Brendan Borrell at Technology Review
A camera developed by computer scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, would obscure, with an oval, the faces of people who appear on surveillance videos. These so-called respectful cameras, which are still in the research phase, could be used for day-to-day surveillance applications and would allow for the privacy oval to be removed from a given set of footage in the event of an investigation.
"Cameras are here to stay, and there's no avoiding it," says UC Berkeley computer scientist Ken Goldberg. "Let's figure out new technology to make them less invasive." According to a 2006 report prepared by the New York Civil Liberties Union, the number of publicly and privately owned video cameras in Lower Manhattan increased by a factor of five between 1998 and 2005, and several thousand cameras are in place in Greenwich Village and Soho alone. The United Kingdom, however, holds the record for video surveillance. In a report filed on Tuesday, the information commissioner there estimates that there are four million video-surveillance cameras in the United Kingdom--that's one for every 14 people. Goldberg thinks of the respectful cameras as a compromise between advocates for privacy and those concerned about security.
April 19, 2007
Colleges face dilemma: privacy vs. public safety
The shooting rampage by a Virginia Tech undergrad has intensified debate about how college administrators and campus counselors balance student privacy against public safety.
"That's a fine line," said Mary Beth Collins, director of the Student Health and Counseling Center at Portland State University. What a student tells a counselor remains confidential by law and professional ethics -- except when there is evidence of possible life-threatening harm "to self or others." In those cases, counselors have a "duty to protect" threatened lives.
Cho Seung-Hui, whom police have identified as the killer of 32 other people and himself on the Virginia campus, had a history of disturbing behavior and was briefly sent to a psychiatric hospital under court order because he was deemed dangerous, officials reported Wednesday.
April 17, 2007
Health Information Privacy Conference
Article published at CTV.ca
Canadian Press
REGINA -- The case of a medical office clerk who illegally checked the health records of her lover's wife was cited as an inappropriate breach of health information at a groundbreaking meeting on privacy.
The story was told to about 140 health and privacy experts gathered in Regina on Monday for the first Prairie health information privacy conference.
"This person did it. They accessed another person's very personal health records involving cancer and lab results and biopsies," Alberta privacy commissioner Frank Work said of the medical clerk.
April 16, 2007
The European e-Identity Conference
ENISA, the European Network and Information Security Agency and eema, Europe's leading independent, industry association for e-Identity and e-Security are coorganising a two-day event on electronic identity. In two parallel tracks, more than 100 experts will discuss how to employee, citizen and private identities.
ENISA's track will focus on social networking, Web of Trust and authentication interoperability,while the eema stream will concentrate on more general business aspects of electronic identity.
April 10, 2007
Cybercrime: Digital Cops In A Networked Environment
Cybercrime: Digital Cops in a Networked Environment, by J. M. Balkin (New York University Press, 2007).
Contributors: Jack M. Balkin, Susan W. Brenner, Daniel E. Geer, Jr., James Grimmelmann, Emily Hancock, Beryl A. Howell, Curtis E.A. Karnow, Eddan Katz, Orin S. Kerr, Nimrod Kozlovski, Helen Nissenbaum, Kim A.
Taipale, Lee Tien, Shlomit Wagman, and Tal Zarsky
"The Internet has dramatically altered the landscape of crime and national security, creating new threats, such as identity theft, computer viruses, and cyberattacks. Moreover, because cybercrimes are often not limited to a single site or nation, crime scenes themselves have changed. Consequently, law enforcement must confront these new dangers and embrace novel methods of prevention, as well as produce new tools for digital surveillance - which can jeopardize privacy and civil liberties. Cybercrime brings together leading experts in law, criminal justice, and security studies to describe crime prevention and security protection in the electronic age. Ranging from new government requirements that facilitate spying to new methods of digital proof, the book is essential to understand how criminal law-and even crime itself-have been transformed in our networked world."
April 03, 2007
FCC Adopts Tougher Phone Record Privacy Rules
Photo by unapersonaThe FCC has issued an order aimed at toughening up protections for consumers' personal phone records after revelations last year of leaks. By Reuters InformationWeek
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission issued an order Monday aimed at toughening up protections for consumers' personal phone records after revelations last year of leaks.
The FCC said carriers such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc., the two biggest telephone carriers, are prohibited from releasing customers' phone records when a customer calls the carrier except when a password is provided.
If a customer does not provide a password, carriers may not release the customer's phone call records except by sending it to the address of record or by the carrier calling the customer at the telephone number on record, the agency said.
March 23, 2007
RFID tags
Privacy and security need to be built into radio frequency identification tags before they become widespread, the European Commission said, announcing it would publish guidelines later this year.
RFID chips can be used to automatically identify and verify passports, luggage, livestock or pharmaceuticals and have a wide range of potential uses, from telling doctors what medicines patients have been given to instantly pointing out expired food.
European Commission RFID Website
March 16, 2007
Privacy, Identity, and Anonymity in Web 2.0
Via Spyblog I have found Ralf Bendrath blog. Both of them very interesting
Ralf Bendrath blog is about thoughts and observations of a privacy, security and internet researcher and activist.
Ralf was one of the speakers of Privacy, Identity and Anonymity in Web 2.0 (Slides are available)
SpyBlog I think it is the most completed website about UK privacy.
Text from Spyblog
The Irish based Front Line Defenders charity has published a very useful free online book, entitled Digital Security & Privacy for Human Rights Defenders (9Mb .pdf 164 pages) with text mostly by Dmitri Vitaliev, but with contributions from the likes of Privacy International, Professor Ross Anderson and Stephen Murdoch from the University of Cambridge Computer Science Laboratory etc.
March 15, 2007
Commission proposes a European policy strategy for smart radio tags
European Commission Press Release
Exactly one year after launching an extensive Europe-wide public consultation on radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, the Commission has unveiled on 15 March 2007 its proposals for an RFID strategy for Europe. The Commission, in particular, proposes to address the privacy concerns of citizens to boost consumer confidence and Europe's position in a market experiencing 60% growth globally.
(15/03/2007) "From fighting counterfeits to better healthcare, smart RFID-chips offers tremendous opportunities for business and society," said Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding when presenting the Commission's strategy today at CeBIT, the world's largest annual IT fair in Hanover, Germany. "Last year I said here at CeBIT that we should stimulate the use of RFID technology in Europe whilst safeguarding personal data and privacy. The Commission's Europe-wide public consultation in 2006 identified a strong lack of awareness and considerable concern among citizens. The Commission's RFID strategy will therefore seek to raise awareness, stress the absolute need for citizens to decide how their personal data is used and ensure that Europe removes existing obstacles to RFID's enormous potential."
RFID – also called smart radio tags – is a technology which involves tags that emit radio signals as identifiers, and devices that pick up the signal and identify the tags. It has a wide range of applications and does not require direct contact or line-of-sight scanning.
Full press release
Communication : English - French - German
Consultation report
The big ones . . .
Google plans to dump search query data after some 18 to 24 months in a move designed to ease concerns over privacy, privacy advocates are saying that Google's privacy plans do not go far enough. . .
If you want to know more, read the log retention FAQ (PDF).
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Digital privacy will be one of the biggest legal issues of the century, a senior Microsoft executive predicted in a meeting with a group of University of Michigan law students last week.Brad Smith, Microsoft's senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary for legal and corporate affairs, addressed "The Role of Global Companies in the Development and Implementation of International Law" in his talk at U-M's Hutchins Hall.
March 14, 2007
SAITS
SAITS is a swedish project leadership by the Swedish Institute of Computer Science and Institutet för rättsinformatik, Stockholms Universitet. This project is supported by Vinnova.
Source Text: SAITS Project
The SAITS project will generate knowledge about the meaning and significance of the term privacy in future IT environments, how the technological development creates privacy risks as well as possibilities to protect and enhance privacy, and how regulations can control how different actors behaves in IT environments.
Privacy is a key factor in the future Swedish IT society. In order to achieve the political IT agenda that the Swedish government has set forth, privacy in IT environments needs to be both defined and supported. As an effect of convergence and the overall development of the IT society, the meaning and understanding of the term privacy will change. This will require that regulations are adapted to these changing conditions.
The SAITS project will generate knowledge about the meaning and significance of the term privacy in future IT environments, how the technological development creates privacy risks as well as possibilities to protect and enhance privacy, and how regulations can control how different actors behaves in IT environments.
The direct results of the SAITS project will be in the form of reports, seminars, and workshops that will describe privacy from a number of viewpoints. The goal of these results is to create a foundation for further work about technologies, privacy needs, and regulations.
The project will also form a national competence in the field of IT privacy. This will be manifested through the network of competence that will be developed throughout the project period.
March 13, 2007
Workshop on Surveillance & Inequality
March 16-18, 2007; Arizona State University; Tempe, Arizona, USA
This workshop will bring together a multi-disciplinary and international array of scholars studying the social implications of contemporary surveillance with a particular interest in questions of the public sphere, equality, civil liberties, privacy, and fairness. The findings of the workshops will be disseminated by means of a special issue of the journal Surveillance & Society.
March 12, 2007
Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World
Is the Internet erasing national borders? Will the future of the Net be set by Internet engineers, rogue programmers, the United Nations, or powerful countries? Who's really in control of what's happening on the Net? In this provocative new book, Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu tell the fascinating story of the Internet's challenge to governmental rule in the 1990s, and the ensuing battles with governments around the world. It's a book about the fate of one idea: that the Internet might liberate us forever from government, borders, and even our physical selves. We learn of Google's struggles with the French government and Yahoo's capitulation to the Chinese regime; of how the European Union sets privacy standards on the Net for the entire world; and of eBay's struggles with fraud and how it slowly learned to trust the FBI. In a decade of events the original vision is uprooted, as governments time and time again assert their power to direct the future of the Internet. The destiny of the Internet over the next decades, argue Goldsmith and Wu, will reflect the interests of powerful nations and the conflicts within and between them. While acknowledging the many attractions of the earliest visions of the Internet, the authors describe the new order, and speaking to both its surprising virtues and unavoidable vices. Far from destroying the Internet, the experience of the last decade has lead to a quiet rediscovery of some of the oldest functions and justifications for territorial government. While territorial governments have unavoidable problems, it has proven hard to replace what legitimacy governments have, and harder yet to replace the system of rule of law that controls the unchecked evils ofanarchy. While the Net will change some of the ways that territorial states govern, it will not diminish the oldest and most fundamental roles of government and challenges of governance.
March 09, 2007
Sociology at Microsoft
Marc Smith, the senior research sociologist at Microsoft Research, believes that now is a good time to practice his trade. Thanks to the Internet, there is unprecedented access to sociological data. And thanks to computers, sociologists are better able to sift through that data, find trends, and test models.
At Microsoft, Smith uses public Internet data to look at the social phenomenon of online communities, and he tries to make them better for people and better for business. He recently gave a presentation regarding his work at Microsoft's TechFest in Redmond, WA, an annual event at which Microsoft researchers from around the world share their latest work. Technology Review caught up with Smith to ask him about the field of cybersociology.
March 08, 2007
Gates wants new privacy law
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates asked the U.S. Congress to pass a comprehensive privacy law this year, allowing consumers to control how their personal information is used.
Gates repeated past Microsoft calls for a wide-ranging privacy law during a speech at advocacy group the Center for Democracy and Technology’s (CDT) annual gala dinner Wednesday. A comprehensive privacy law should allow consumers to control their personal data, provide transparency about what their data is used for, and require they be notified when their data has been compromised, Gates said.
Gates said he believes the United States can achieve a balance between privacy and protecting the country against terrorists and other criminals. But the balance will not be an easy one to create, he said.
While many U.S. residents would say they want as much privacy "as possible," law enforcement needs to be able to track criminals, Gates said. "These privacy issues are not as easy as you might think," he told the crowd
March 07, 2007
The Surveillance Project
The Surveillance Project is a multi-disciplinary and international collaborative initiative at the cutting edge of social science research. We are based in the Department of Sociology at Queen's University, Kingston, Canada. Our work also supports appropriate policy development and contributes to an understanding of the contemporary politics of information.
The Surveillance Project researches both the workings of large surveillance systems -- data, video, audio -- and their interactions with ordinary people -- workers, travelers, consumers, citizens. Our work impacts attitudes and policy; our academic study informs and challenges all to greater care and accountability in processing personal data.
The Surveillance Project researches the ways in which personal data are processed. We explore why information about people has become so important in the 21st century and what are the social, political and economic consequences of this trend. Questions of "privacy" and of "social sorting" are central to our concerns.
Surveillance is "any systematic attention to a person's life aimed at exerting influence over it" (James Rule). So The Surveillance Project studies everything from supermarket loyalty cards to police networks searching for suspects. We have a special interest in the surveillance aspects of post 9/11 quest for tightened security. While high-tech methods have become very significant, we also examine surveillance as face-to-face supervision or as mediated watching using video cameras.
Surveillance is not simply about large organizations using sophisticated computer equipment. It is also about how ordinary people - citizens, workers, travelers, and consumers - interact with surveillance. Some comply, others negotiate, and yet others resist. The Surveillance Project explores how expanding flows of personal data affect and are affected by everyday life.
Surveillance raises important issues such as privacy, anonymity, and trust. But because surveillance is related to risk management and to modes of governance it also involves what we call social sorting. Social groups are classified so that they can receive different treatment. So questions of social justice and democratic participation are at least as important as those of security and privacy.
March 06, 2007
UK telcos lead in online accessibility but fall down on privacy
text source: By Maggie Holland at ITPRO
Telco websites in the UK are more accessible than those in Canada or the US, but British players still need to get a better handle on privacy, according to research from The Customer Respect Group.
UK telecommunications companies are better than their North American counterparts when it comes to making their websites more accessible for people with visual impairment or mobility disabilities, according to the findings of the First Quarter 2007 Online Customer Respect Study of the Global Telecommunications Industry.
But, in contrast, we still lag behind Canada and the US when it comes to respecting the privacy of personal data, claims the report compiled by research and consultancy firm The Customer Respect Group.
Read the full article. . .
March 05, 2007
CRCS Privacy & Security Lunch Seminar
Speaker: Ivan Krstic, One Laptop per ChildDate: Wednesday, 7 MarchTime: talk 12-1, discussion 1-1:30 (lunch provided)
Maxwell Dworkin 119
Title: How do you secure 100 million laptops? A security model for the One Laptop per Child
Abstract: One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is a non-profit organization aiming to redefine learning and education for the world’s children by providing each child with a specially- developed, innovative and low-cost laptop. More than 5 million laptops will reach children in developing countries this year, with another 50-100 million in the next two years. The scale of the deployment, the laptop’s unique hardware and software stacks, and a target user group as young as 6 all present some extremely difficult challenges in providing a secure user experience. We present Bitfrost, an integrated security platform for the OLPC XO laptop designed to address these challenges.
March 02, 2007
RFID and Ubiquitous Computing
"RFID and Ubiquitous Computing"
Marc Rotenberg, EPIC Executive Director
Brussels, BelgiumMarch 12, 2007
March 01, 2007
Little Brother
Two articles:
USA TODAY. Maria Puente, writes this article: Hello to less privacy.
Oh, for the good old days when all we worried about was Big Brother government watching us. Too late: Now we have Little Brother to contend with, too — and he has a camera phone.
Little Brother could be a fed-up straphanger on a subway, a sneaky student in class, maybe a ticked-off guy in the audience. Or a vengeful ex-lover or jealous friends looking to embarrass an American Idol contestant.
FOXNEWS. by Susan Estrich. Do Old Privacy Protections Apply in Digitized, Terrorized Society?
The Washington Post summary of a soon-to-be released Government Accounting Office report says the government has already committed significant privacy violations in testing a new and highly sophisticated data mining system.
ADVISE, which stands for Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight and Semantic Enhancement, uses mathematical algorithms to look for connections in data that might reveal suspicious people, behavior, places, or relationships.
February 28, 2007
Audio and Slides available
Photo by Binitu
Slides from SWAMI (Safeguards in a world of ambient intelligence) conference are available at SWAMI website.
Audio from Symposium, Search and Seizure in the Digital Age, Stanford Law School, is available.
Slides from SWAMI (Safeguards in a world of ambient intelligence) conference are available at SWAMI website.
Audio from Symposium, Search and Seizure in the Digital Age, Stanford Law School, is available.
February 26, 2007
Privacy Blogs
http://www.concurringopinions.com
http://www.numbrx.net
http://pipeda.blogspot.com
http://politicsofprivacy.blogspot.com
http://www.hasbrouck.org/blog/index.html
http://www.privsecblog.com
http://rfidtoday.blogspot.com
http://www.theprivacyplace.org/blog/
http://blog.truste.org/
http://privacynotes.com/privacy_blog/
http://blogs.oracle.com/identityprivacy/
February 23, 2007
Privacy and Public Policy Challenges of Social Technology
Privacy and Public Policy Challenges of Social Technology
Mar 5 2007 - 12:30pm
Stanford Law School Room 280 A
Chris Kelly, Chief Privacy Officer of Facebook
The rise of social technology through sites like Facebook empowers users to model their connections with other people in the real world and allows them to share information more effectively and efficiently with their friends. Most of this sharing is unquestionably socially beneficial. But fears that some of the sharing can be harmful lead to regulatory and other efforts focusing on privacy, safety, and asserted illegal use of material protected by copyright and other intellectual property regimes.
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/node/5173
Europe's Plan to Track Phone and Net Use
Article published at Spiegel online.
A proposed law would require companies to keep detailed data about people's Internet and phone use.
European governments are preparing legislation to require companies to keep detailed data about people's Internet and phone use that goes beyond what the countries will be required to do under a European Union directive.
In Germany, a proposal from the Ministry of Justice would essentially prohibit using false information to create an e-mail account, making the standard Internet practice of creating accounts with pseudonyms illegal.
A draft law in the Netherlands would likewise go further than the European Union requires, in this case by requiring phone companies to save records of a caller's precise location during an entire mobile phone conversation.
February 22, 2007
Australia: Smart-card privacy warning for patients
Smart-card privacy warning for patients
Article published at The Australian by Adam Cresswell, Health editor
February 22, 2007
PATIENTS have been warned to be careful about loading health information on to the federal Government's proposed Access smart card, after an official taskforce looking into the card's uses warned of potential privacy breaches.
The Access Card Consumer and Privacy Taskforce yesterday called on the Government to reiterate that the card was not an electronic health record.
The taskforce set up by the Government to sort out how the card should operate said in a discussion paper released yesterday that cardholders who chose to put health information on the card's chip "must accept they are putting sensitive personal information, effectively, into the public domain".
The card is designed to replace the existing Medicare card and up to 16 other magnetic-stripe cards that give access to a range of health and other benefits, such as Centrelink and veterans' payments. The Government claims it will save $3billion in fraud over 10 years.
February 21, 2007
Scentric Launches Free Data Privacy Assessment Tool
Scentric, the provider of the world’s first universal data classification solution, today announced the availability of Scentric Destiny Enterprise Suites for Data Privacy, e-Discovery, and Compliance. Each suite combines software, services, and maintenance pre-configured to address the specific challenges of these emerging information management issues in large enterprises. Each suite starts at 25 terabytes and includes options for 50, 100 and 150 terabytes.
"Customers have told us their early experience with competitive products have been less than satisfactory primarily because of scale issues in their large environments," said Jeff Hornung, president and CEO of Scentric. "Many of the issues had to do with the need to cluster multiple devices for scale and even then, the clusters topped out at something less than an enterprise configuration. With Scentric's software-only solution, even the largest organization can achieve the scale necessary to manage large data stores with a single policy engine."
February 20, 2007
T-Rays Advance Toward Airport Screening
T-Rays Advance Toward Airport Screening
By Neil Savage at Technology Review Tuesday, February 20, 2007
A new laser design helps create usable terahertz radiation, which penetrates common materials but doesn't harm tissue.
Researchers around the world are trying to tap a barely used portion of the electromagnetic spectrum--terahertz radiation--to scan airline passengers for explosives and illegal drugs. The rays are particularly attractive: they can see through clothing, paper, leather, plastic, wood, and ceramics. They don't penetrate as well as x-rays, but they also don't damage living tissue. And they can read spectroscopic signatures, detecting the difference between, say, hair gel and an explosive.
While some commercial systems are already available for limited applications--one Japanese device scans mail for contraband drugs--a machine to scan airline passengers has been slow to evolve, mainly due to the difficulty of creating the terahertz radiation. The ideal scanner would send out a beam of t-rays at passing objects or at people a few meters away, then measure the rays reflected off the subjects and check them against a database of spectroscopic signatures. But most existing sources of t-rays only provide weak beams, which make detection slower and harder.
Read the full article
February 16, 2007
The new mu-chip by Hitachi
Image source www.pinktentacle.com
The RFID, wireless semiconductor integrated circuit that stores an ID number in its memory, was proposed about a decade ago as an alternative to the barcode. Its use, however, has so far been limited to a few applications where its advantages offset its relatively high cost.
The µ-chip is Hitachi's response to resolving some of the issues associated with conventional RFID technology. The µ-chip uses the frequency of 2.45GHz. It has a 128-bit ROM for storing the ID with no write-read and no anti-collision capabilities. Its unique ID numbers can be used to individually identify trillions of trillions of objects with no duplication. Moreover with a size of 0.4mm square, the µ-chip is small enough to be attached to a variety of minute objects including embedding in paper.
The µ-chip is Hitachi's response to resolving some of the issues associated with conventional RFID technology. The µ-chip uses the frequency of 2.45GHz. It has a 128-bit ROM for storing the ID with no write-read and no anti-collision capabilities. Its unique ID numbers can be used to individually identify trillions of trillions of objects with no duplication. Moreover with a size of 0.4mm square, the µ-chip is small enough to be attached to a variety of minute objects including embedding in paper.
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