Publication: (Un)Lawful Access, Its Potentials, and its Lack of Necessity

Posted on January 14, 2012 by Christopher

Cover of the 2011 Winston Report (Winter)

Last year I was approached by the founder and editor in chief of The Winston Report to update and publish one of my postings on Canada’s forthcoming lawful access legislation. The Report is the quarterly journal of the Canadian Association of Professional Access and Privacy Administrators (CAPAPA). The updated piece that I contributed is more compact than what I originally wrote on this site, though I think that this makes it a stronger, more direct piece. I want to publicly thank Sharon Polsky for the opportunity that she provided to me, and for being so kind as to position my piece as the lead featured article in the Winter edition of the journal. I also want to thank my tireless editor, Joyce Parsons, for her incredible work strengthening my prose. A preprint version of my contribution, which retained a creative-commons license as part of my agreement with the editor in chief, is made available to you below under the normal Creative Commons Attribution, Noncommercial 2.5 Canada license.

Download pre-print .pdf version of (Un)Lawful Access:  Its Potentials, and its Lack of Necessity.

Posted in Internet, ISPs, Privacy, Surveillance | Leave a comment

(Un)Lawful Access: Vancouver Premiere & Panel Discussion

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Christopher

Image courtesy of UnlawfulAccess.Net

I’ll be presenting at a panel discussion on Canada’s forthcoming lawful access legislation this Thursday, January 12. It looks to be a terrific panel, and includes British Columbia’s Information and Privacy Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, the BBCLA’s policy director, Michael Vonn, the producer of the documentary (Un)Lawful Access, Dr. Kate Milberry, and myself. Andrew Clement, professor at the University of Toronto and co-producer of (Un)Lawful Access will be moderating. In addition to a panel discussion, Drs. Milberry and Clement will be showing their documentary, (Un)Lawful Access, and the BCCLA will be revealing their report on lawful access. I’ve contributed research to the report, with my focus being on how lawful access powers are taken up and used by governments and authorities in the US and UK.

It should be a terrific event. If you’re in the area I highly recommend attending. Information is available at the event’s Facebook page and below: Continue reading →

Posted in Internet, Politics, Privacy, Surveillance | 3 Comments

Transparent Practices Don’t Stop Prejudicial Surveillance

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Christopher

In February I’m attending iConference 2012, and helping to organize a workshop titled “Networked Surveillance: Access Control, Transparency, Power, and Circumvention in the 21st Century.” The workshop’s participants will consider whether networked surveillance challenges notions of privacy and neutrality, exploits openness of data protocols, or requires critical investigations into how these surveillance technologies are developed and regulated. Participants will be arriving from around the world, and speaking to one (or more) of the workshop’s four thematics: Access Control, Transparency, Power, and Circumvention. As part of the workshop, all participants must prepare a short position statement that identifies their interest in network surveillance while establishing grounds to launch a conversation. My contribution, titled “Transparent Practices Don’t Stop Prejudicial Surveillance,” follows.

Transparent Practices Don’t Stop Prejudicial Surveillance

Controversies around computer processing and data analysis technologies led to the development of Fair Information Practice Principles (FIPs), principles that compose the bedrocks of today’s privacy codes and laws. Drawing from lessons around privacy codes and those around Canadian ISPs’ surveillance practices, I argue that transparency constitutes a necessary but insufficient measure to mitigate prejudicial surveillance practices and technologies. We must go further and inject public values into development cycles while also intentionally hobbling surveillance technologies to rein in their most harmful potentialities. Continue reading →

Posted in DPI, Internet, Privacy, Surveillance, Technology | Leave a comment

Respecting User Privacy in WordPress

Posted on December 23, 2011 by Christopher

Image by Surian Soosay

Automattic  has a poor record of respecting its users’ privacy, insofar as the company has gradually added additional surveillance mechanisms into their products without effectively notifying users. Several months ago when I updated the WordPress Stats plugin I discovered that Automattic had, without warning, integrated Quantcast tracking into their Stats plugin. Specifically, there was no notice in the update, no clear statement that data would be sent to Quantcast, nor any justification for the additional tracking other than in a web forum where their CEO stated it would let Automattic “provide some cool features around uniques and people counting.” This constituted a reprehensible decision, but one that can fortunately be mediated with a great third-party plugin.

In this post, I’m going to do a few things. First, I’m going to recount why Automattic is not respecting user privacy by including Quantcast in its Stats plugin. This will include a discussion about why reasonable users are unlikely to realize that third-party tracking is appended to the Stats plugin. I’ll conclude by discussing how you can protect your web visitors’ own privacy and security by installing a terrific plugin developed by Frank Goossens. Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging, Privacy, Surveillance, Technology | 5 Comments
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