After Google incident, Wi-Fi data collection goes on – Computerworld
Four months ago, amidst a backlash from government regulators and privacy advocates, Google stopped collecting Wi-Fi data with its Street View cars. But that doesn’t mean Google has stopped collecting wireless data altogether, and neither have other companies such as Apple.
Instead of sending out cars to sniff out wireless networks, Google is now crowdsourcing the operation, with users of its Android phones and location-aware mobile applications doing the reconnaissance work for it. In the past few months, Apple has quietly started building a similar database, leveraging its large base of users to log basic Wi-Fi data.
There are others: A Boston company, Skyhook Wireless, has been logging wireless access points for years, as has its competitor, Navizon of Miami Beach, Florida.
It’s a trend that’s been spurred by the intense interest in applications such as FourSquare and Facebook Places. As it becomes increasingly important for programs that run on your phone to know exactly where you are — to be location-aware in industry parlance — having a way of figuring out exactly where you are becomes critical. But the companies collecting this data haven’t come under much scrutiny, many users do not understand how the data is being collected or why, and security experts are just now starting to discover some of the ways that this information could be misused.
via After Google incident, Wi-Fi data collection goes on – Computerworld.
Google coughs up $8.5 million to settle Buzz privacy suit
The fallout from Google’s Buzz social networking aggregator continues: the company has agreed to settle a class action lawsuit over concerns that the service’s original configuration violated users’ privacy. While Google has made numerous changes to the service since its February launch and maintains that it did no wrong, the company has agreed to pay out $8.5 million to end the litigation.
Buzz launched in early February to a lukewarm reception, which was quickly followed by an enormous controversy over concerns that the default settings revealed private information. At the heart of the problem was an auto-follow feature meant to facilitate quick adoption. Users quickly found, however, that it could reveal their Google accounts to people they’d like to avoid. Journalists were concerned that confidential sources could be revealed to the public, while one woman noted that her private Google account was auto-followed by her abusive ex-husband.
via Google coughs up $8.5 million to settle Buzz privacy suit.
Google Street View Car Inspected by French Regulator – BusinessWeek
A car used by Google Inc. to collect data for its Street View mapping service was inspected yesterday, less than a week after France’s privacy regulator criticized the program’s resumption.
The inspection was a result of Google’s decision to begin photographing French streets before officials decided whether the company complied with orders to limit Street View’s data collection, said Yann Padova, secretary general of the National Commission for Computing and Civil Liberties.
The inspection “was done especially to verify that they stopped collecting Wi-Fi data,” Padova, 43, said in an interview today.
via Google Street View Car Inspected by French Regulator – BusinessWeek.
Canada joins APEC cross-border privacy enforcement initiative | Privacy News – PogoWasRight.org
Canada has been accepted as a participant in a new Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) mechanism for cross-border cooperation on data privacy enforcement.
The initiative – the APEC Cross-border Privacy Enforcement Arrangement – was developed to facilitate information sharing and cooperation between authorities responsible for data and consumer protection in the APEC region.
via Canada joins APEC cross-border privacy enforcement initiative | Privacy News – PogoWasRight.org.
Big Brother is searching you – Computerworld
While everyone is concerned about privacy violations from Facebook Places, government agencies may be using powerful new technology to violate 4th-Ammendment protection against unreasonable searches.
Here’s what the 4th Amendment says: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
The spirit of and the letter of this amendment is that government agencies are not allowed to go on hunting expeditions looking for violations or transgressions. If government officials want to search your property, they have to demonstrate good reason why they suspect you of committing a crime.
Let’s say a small town wanted to crack down on swimming pool permit violations. If local police went house to house, telling people they were going to look for swimming pools in everybody’s backyards, nobody would accept this because it would clearly violate the 4th Amendment. However, if you do exactly the same thing using cameras in space, it’s somehow OK.
The town of Riverhead on Long Island used Google Earth to search all back yards in the town for swimming pool transgressions.
Redacting Personally Identifiable Data From E-Filings | New York Law Journal
Electronic filing of court documents has become the norm rather than the exception both here, in New York federal and state courts, and around the country.[FOOTNOTE 1] The trend is driven by the pervasive availability of online technology to conveniently enable e-filing, as well as the generally held presumption in U.S. jurisprudence that court proceedings are public in nature and should be easily accessible to the public.
At the same time, privacy advocates, concerned about the amount of personally identifiable information easily available on the internet and the resultant increase of identity theft and other types of fraud, wish to restrict public access to certain types of data. These two somewhat contradictory philosophies intersect on the issue of whether the proliferation of electronic filing has unduly and unnecessarily exposed personally identifiable information to possible exploitation.
At issue is the requirement that attorneys redact personally identifiable information from their e-filings. The obligation of an attorney to preserve the privacy interests of those involved in litigation and administrative proceedings has arisen in a variety of circumstances, and has been touched on in academic circles.
via Law.com – Redacting Personally Identifiable Data From E-Filings.
Facebook Places could spark new privacy fire – Computerworld
With its new location-based Places feature, Facebook may have just lit the match that will ignite another round of privacy controversy.
On Wednesday, Facebook took the wraps off of Places, a smartphone-based service that enables users to tell their friends where they are, and to track friends. The service, which is slowly being rolled out to users, enables people to share their friends’ locations.
After dealing with angry and frustrated users for months this year, Facebook is jumping back into already-tumultuous privacy waters with its new location-based service.
Any location-based service will instill some trepidation in users who see it as a stalker’s best friend. Want to know where someone is? Check Places. Want to know when someone is away from home so you can break in and steal their flat-screen TV? Check Places.
via Facebook Places could spark new privacy fire – Computerworld.
Judges Divided Over Growing GPS Surveillance – NYTimes.com
The growing use by the police of new technologies that make surveillance far easier and cheaper to conduct is raising difficult questions about the scope of constitutional privacy rights, leading to sharp disagreements among judges.
A federal appeals court, for example, issued a ruling last week that contradicts precedents from three other appeals courts over whether the police must obtain a warrant before secretly attaching a Global Positioning System device beneath a car. The issue is whether the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches covers a device that records a suspect’s movements for weeks or months without any need for an officer to trail him.
The GPS tracking dispute coincides with a burst of other technological tools that expand police monitoring abilities — including automated license-plate readers in squad cars, speed cameras mounted on streetlight poles, and even the widely discussed prospect of linking face-recognition computer programs to the proliferating number of surveillance cameras.
via Judges Divided Over Growing GPS Surveillance – NYTimes.com.
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