June 9, 2019
Ding-dong | The Cat Herder, Volume 2, Issue 21
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| June 9 · Issue #37 · View online |
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Law enforcement agencies do the strangest things. 😼
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Nothing to see here. Perfectly fine. Who wouldn’t want intelligence services and government departments having a remote root around in their fridge?
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German interior ministry wants home data: “Our view is that digital traces have become increasingly important. We are talking about traces that come from connected devices such as smart fridges but also voice-controlled devices such as smart speakers” https://t.co/SeTV4tuKIJ
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Yes they did. Of course they did.
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What are the ethics of writing and speaking about the ethics of AI without revealing you’re being funded by an entity with an interest in shaping the debate around the ethics of AI? Presumably we’d need an ethicist to answer that one comprehensively.
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However, two papers identified by Spotlight, which were authored by Wachter and Mittelstadt, published since January 2018 and address approaches to algorithmic accountability, do not acknowledge that funding had been received from DeepMind. Other academics consulted for this feature said it would be normal practice to disclose any corporate funding in the realm of a paper’s topic, and if necessary to disclaim it for the sake of transparency.
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How Big Tech funds the debate on AI ethics
The Silicon Valley giants are spending billions developing AI, but they are also funding the people setting the technology’s most fundamental principles.
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The Irish Council for Civil Liberties made a submission to Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty, “using the public services card as an example of how technology impinges on the privacy rights of those living in poverty.” It’s comprehensive and pretty damning.
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The PSC is therefore not an ‘optimised citizen experience’ for those who were effectively threatened and, in many cases, had their payments cut off if they refused to agree to their personal data being included in a shared database.
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The Public Services Card: Enforced Digital Identities for Social Protection Services - Irish Council for Civil Liberties
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In a thoroughly dystopian twenty-first century spin on the neighbourhood watch concept, police forces in some parts of the United States have created a bizarre quid pro quo relationship with Amazon in which the police forces operate as a distribution and sales network for Amazon Ring doorbells in return for access to the footage recorded by the devices.
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Police departments across the country, from major cities like Houston to towns with fewer than 30,000 people, have offered free or discounted Ring doorbells to citizens, sometimes using taxpayer funds to pay for Amazon’s products. While Ring owners are supposed to have a choice on providing police footage, in some giveaways, police require recipients to turn over footage when requested.
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Amazon's helping police build a surveillance network with Ring doorbells - CNET
Its popular Ring smart doorbells mean more cameras on more doorsteps, where surveillance footage used to be rare.
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In fact, not only will the police offer you a free or cheap surveillance device, in some cases they’ll even pop around and install it for you.
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Just as Axon, maker of the Taser stun gun, equipped police forces with body cameras for free to expand its user base, Amazon is “donating” its video doorbells to communities with police partnerships, and police often install them on people’s doors.
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Spotlight: Neighborhood Crime Apps Stoke Fears, Reinforce Racist Stereotypes, And Don’t Prevent Crime - The Appeal
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The CNIL fined a real-estate company €400,000 euro for not fixing a security vulnerability in their website allowing access to user personal data and for retaining data longer than necessary. |
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- “For consumers, the time has come to say “no more.” We need to reclaim our privacy, our freedom to make choices without fear. Our data is out there, but we have the political power to prevent inappropriate uses.” Roger McNamee in the New York Times.
- “There are a whole bunch of individuals’ rights that have nothing to do with the security of their data. There are a pile of obligations that don’t relate to information security in any way.” Miss IG Geek (only slightly swearily and very eloquently) wrote ‘An open letter to the information security profession’.
- In a somewhat similar vein, Tim Turner lays out the ways in which the phrase “data privacy” muddies the waters when it comes to understanding what privacy and data protection are. “The notion of ‘Data Privacy’ obscures two vital elements of Data Protection. First, data protection is not only about private data. It is covers all personal data, private, secret, and public.”
- ““It goes far above and beyond what we already have, such as CCTV and stop-and-search. It takes us into uncharted invasive state surveillance territory where everyone is under surveillance. By its nature it is a mass surveillance tool.” Ian Sample covers Liberty’s campaign to have facial recognition banned from use in public spaces in the UK.
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Privacy Kit, Made with 💚 in Dublin, Ireland
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Law enforcement agencies do the strangest things.
😼
Nothing to see here. Perfectly fine. Who wouldn’t want intelligence services and government departments having a remote root around in their fridge?
https://twitter.com/1Br0wn/status/1136374591209824257
‘German security agencies want access to home devices’, Financial Times (€)
What are the ethics of writing and speaking about the ethics of AI without revealing you’re being funded by an entity with an interest in shaping the debate around the ethics of AI? Presumably we’d need an ethicist to answer that one comprehensively.
The Silicon Valley giants are spending billions developing AI, but they are also funding the people setting the technology’s most fundamental principles.
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties made a submission to Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty, “using the public services card as an example of how technology impinges on the privacy rights of those living in poverty.” It’s comprehensive and pretty damning.
In a thoroughly dystopian twenty-first century spin on the neighbourhood watch concept, police forces in some parts of the United States have created a bizarre quid pro quo relationship with Amazon in which the police forces operate as a distribution and sales network for Amazon Ring doorbells in return for access to the footage recorded by the devices.
Its popular Ring smart doorbells mean more cameras on more doorsteps, where surveillance footage used to be rare.
In fact, not only will the police offer you a free or cheap surveillance device, in some cases they’ll even pop around and install it for you.
The EDPB held their eleventh plenary session during the week gone by and adopted a final version of their Guidelines on Codes of conduct, a final version of the annex to their Guidelines on Accreditation, and a final version of annex 2 to their Guidelines on Certification, all following public consultations.
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The CNIL fined a real-estate company €400,000 euro for not fixing a security vulnerability in their website allowing access to user personal data and for retaining data longer than necessary.
- “For consumers, the time has come to say “no more.” We need to reclaim our privacy, our freedom to make choices without fear. Our data is out there, but we have the political power to prevent inappropriate uses.” Roger McNamee in the New York Times.
- “There are a whole bunch of individuals’ rights that have nothing to do with the security of their data. There are a pile of obligations that don’t relate to information security in any way.” Miss IG Geek (only slightly swearily and very eloquently) wrote ‘An open letter to the information security profession’.
- In a somewhat similar vein, Tim Turner lays out the ways in which the phrase “data privacy” muddies the waters when it comes to understanding what privacy and data protection are. “The notion of ‘Data Privacy’ obscures two vital elements of Data Protection. First, data protection is not only about private data. It is covers all personal data, private, secret, and public.”
- ““It goes far above and beyond what we already have, such as CCTV and stop-and-search. It takes us into uncharted invasive state surveillance territory where everyone is under surveillance. By its nature it is a mass surveillance tool.” Ian Sample covers Liberty’s campaign to have facial recognition banned from use in public spaces in the UK.
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Endnotes & Credits
Find us on the web at myprivacykit.com and on Twitter at @PrivacyKit. Of course we’re not on Facebook or LinkedIn.
Barring a disaster we’ll be in your inbox again next weekend.
If you know someone who might enjoy this newsletter do please forward it on to them.
