Category Archives: Privacy
Update: Network Management, Packet Inspection, and Stimulus Dollars?
While Thomson takes this to (potentially) mean that ISPs and major content producers/rights holders might use this language to justify the use of packet inspection technologies, it’s possible that alternate management methods could be envisioned. … This is a real loss for any and all groups who rely on non-encrypted traffic for intelligence purposes; any drive that will get ‘common folk’ thinking about encrypting more and more of their traffic, accompanied with relatively easy ways of doing so, will substantially hinder the capture of actual content. How you read the implications of this depends on your perspective on privacy and surveillance, but it seems to me that it threatens to further escalate a ‘war’ that criminalizes huge swathes of the population for actions that are relatively harmless. Continue reading
Comment: Google Latitude
On the one hand, I think that some of the criticisms towards the ‘privacy’ features of the program have been innane – at least one privacy advocate’s core ‘contribution’ to has been a worry that individuals might be given a phone with Latitude installed and active, without knowing about its presence or activation. … What hasn’t been addressed (at least as far as I’ve read), is that the UI for the Latitude program is actually very explicit when it comes to where to adjust your privacy settings – see the image below for just how clear it is. 
Google isn’t hiding the fact that people want to adjust their privacy – it’s two ‘clicks’ away from the google maps screen (‘Options’ >> ‘Privacy’).
…Consumers are more likely to watch a video that’s a few minutes long than read a privacy policy, and will likely only watch this video if it is either put in their face, or they are actively interested in the privacy policies associated with the service. Continue reading
Update: Ontario EDL Suppliers Named
Ann Cavoukian, the Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner, announced yesterday that GND (located in Munich) would be responsible for producing Ontario EDLs. … As of yet, Peratech only has their technology working with contactless smart cards (i.e. cards with a 10 cm range), but they expect to overcome this. Ann is presently in talks with DHS to let them build the Peratech solution into the EDLs – this ‘privacy protective’ feature is not currently in the EDL spec. Continue reading
BC Privacy Commissioner Would Resign Over Longterm Surveillance
When asked by a member of the audience if he would consider resigning were this infrastructure not dismantled (and thus mirror the actions taken by Greek privacy officers when police refused to limit their use of surveillance infrastructure developed for the Athens games) he responded that he would consider it. Micheal Vonn, the policy directory for BCCLA, noted in her presentations that the Vancouver police have established a policy for ‘routine’ consent searches throughout the lower eastside area of Vancouver during the games – by her rough calculations, around 300 people would be searched each patrol. … Vonn’s information is in the Vancouver police’s business plan, which suggests that a premeditated, unwarranted, search regime may be coming to the games along with other ‘exceptional’ security measures. Continue reading
