June 12, 2022
"if you use it in the right way" | The Cat Herder, Volume 5, Issue 22
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| June 12 · Issue #184 · View online |
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A government-mandated pregnancy database, retailers gleefully creating their own pregnancy databases and selling that information to their partners, a whistleblowing system that didn’t work all that well, subsidies for surveillance. 😼
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It is a truth universally acknowledged that a surveillance network will expand to allow use for purposes it was not originally intended for, and that incentives will be provided to grow the network further.
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“Working with our communities across Chicago is the only way we can strengthen public safety,” said CPD Community Policing Director Glen Brooks. “By registering your camera with CPD, it will help detectives solve crimes more efficiently and take violent offenders off the street quicker.”
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Chicago residents can now be reimbursed for home surveillance cameras, GPS tracker, motion sensor light costs: Lori Lightfoot - ABC7 Chicago
Chicago residents can now be reimbursed for home surveillance cameras, GPS trackers and motion sensor light costs, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said.
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These days many industries have two aspects to them. The front of house element, in this case shopping and delivery of groceries, and the behind-the-scenes trade in personal data. The latter can be lucrative enough that it can bring in enough revenue to cover losses in the former.
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The industry is not keen to talk about this part of their work, but one senior source said the data offers huge marketing potential: “If a customer buys a pregnancy test and then comes back and buys folic acid, there is a chance we know they are pregnant before their spouse does. That’s obviously a very sensitive bit of information, but it triggers a whole series of purchase decisions. It’s a powerful piece of knowledge, if you use it in the right way.” Supermarkets are packaging up data on purchasing habits and making it available to suppliers on an anonymised basis. Tesco, which receives about 1.2 million online orders a week, has migrated nine million Clubcard users onto the loyalty card’s app. Data scientists from its Dunnhumby division then slice and dice the reams of data pouring in each day.
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Rapid food delivery primed to be the next victim of the ‘tech wreck’ | Business | The Sunday Times
When a new business arrived in High Wycombe promising to deliver groceries within ten minutes of an order, local MP Steve Baker was eager to understand how
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They fear the new data could be used by police and prosecutors against women whose pregnancies end, even in cases of miscarriage, or that women could be tracked by the state if they order abortion pills or travel abroad for an abortion. “A pregnancy registry in a country with an almost complete ban on abortion is terrifying,” said Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk, a left-wing lawmaker. The matter gained attention Monday after Health Minister Adam Niedzielski signed an ordinance Friday expanding the amount of information to be saved in a central database on patients, including information on allergies, blood type and pregnancies.
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Poland, with near-total abortion ban, to record pregnancies | AP News
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The government of Poland, where a near-total abortion ban is in place, faced accusations Monday of creating a “pregnancy register” as the country expands the amount of medical data being digitally saved on patients.
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“Municipalities do not have basic data management in good order yet. Processing registers are incomplete and not up to date so that municipalities do not know sufficiently what data they are processing, for what purpose, whether the processing is lawful and secure, and with whom they are cooperating. Without a good overview, municipalities cannot properly assess the possible risks for citizens. At the same time municipalities show ambition in data-driven work and they’re trying out new technologies. This is unwise because the data whose legitimacy and reliability have not yet been verified, are being used as input for big data or algorithms. There is then a risk of unlawful or inaccurate data being used as input, which in turn can produce unlawful or inaccurate results, harming citizens.” From ‘The state of privacy at Dutch municipalities’ by Bits of Freedom / EDRi.
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“Schmetz believes it’s really important that people continue to have access to effective anti-tracking tools, particularly for blocking fingerprinting scripts. "We definitely see a lot of fingerprinting going on,” he said, noting that the ad industry has already moved beyond cookie-based tracking. “Basically that these scripts are trying to create numbers that are unique to you and are being transferred in the requests. They are not being stored on your machine but are being predictably generated every time you visit a website. … It’s very important to have tools that can block that because if you don’t, you will be tracked right. There’s no way to avoid it.” From ‘Ad-block developers fear end is near for their extensions’ by Thomas Claburn for The Register.
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“Through one lens, it was a mundane musing between two CEOs of data companies talking about how awesome it would be to have more data on something. But in the context of experiments occurring in the tech industry around hiring practices, it was two influential CEOs encouraging other entrepreneurs to create a business that would be an absolute nightmare for workers, a type of credit score for workers that could be a permanent HR file that follows workers from one job to the next, and where a worker who struggles at one job may have trouble getting another. Youakim did not respond to multiple Motherboard interview requests to elaborate on the concept.” From ‘Tech CEOs Want Every Worker to Have a Permanent, Publicly-Available Job Performance File’ by Aaron Gordon for VICE.
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Privacy Kit, Made with 💚 in Dublin, Ireland
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A government-mandated pregnancy database, retailers gleefully creating their own pregnancy databases and selling that information to their partners, a whistleblowing system that didn’t work all that well, subsidies for surveillance.
😼
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a surveillance network will expand to allow use for purposes it was not originally intended for, and that incentives will be provided to grow the network further.
Chicago residents can now be reimbursed for home surveillance cameras, GPS trackers and motion sensor light costs, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said.
These days many industries have two aspects to them. The front of house element, in this case shopping and delivery of groceries, and the behind-the-scenes trade in personal data. The latter can be lucrative enough that it can bring in enough revenue to cover losses in the former.
When a new business arrived in High Wycombe promising to deliver groceries within ten minutes of an order, local MP Steve Baker was eager to understand how
→ archived version
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The government of Poland, where a near-total abortion ban is in place, faced accusations Monday of creating a “pregnancy register” as the country expands the amount of medical data being digitally saved on patients.
The Garante, the Italian DPA, fined a hospital and its IT service provider €40,000 each for providing a system for use by whistleblowers which was not secure and private.
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The Garante also fined Uber €4.2 million a couple of weeks back.
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“Municipalities do not have basic data management in good order yet. Processing registers are incomplete and not up to date so that municipalities do not know sufficiently what data they are processing, for what purpose, whether the processing is lawful and secure, and with whom they are cooperating. Without a good overview, municipalities cannot properly assess the possible risks for citizens. At the same time municipalities show ambition in data-driven work and they’re trying out new technologies. This is unwise because the data whose legitimacy and reliability have not yet been verified, are being used as input for big data or algorithms. There is then a risk of unlawful or inaccurate data being used as input, which in turn can produce unlawful or inaccurate results, harming citizens.” From ‘The state of privacy at Dutch municipalities’ by Bits of Freedom / EDRi.
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“Schmetz believes it’s really important that people continue to have access to effective anti-tracking tools, particularly for blocking fingerprinting scripts. "We definitely see a lot of fingerprinting going on,” he said, noting that the ad industry has already moved beyond cookie-based tracking. “Basically that these scripts are trying to create numbers that are unique to you and are being transferred in the requests. They are not being stored on your machine but are being predictably generated every time you visit a website. … It’s very important to have tools that can block that because if you don’t, you will be tracked right. There’s no way to avoid it.” From ‘Ad-block developers fear end is near for their extensions’ by Thomas Claburn for The Register.
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“Through one lens, it was a mundane musing between two CEOs of data companies talking about how awesome it would be to have more data on something. But in the context of experiments occurring in the tech industry around hiring practices, it was two influential CEOs encouraging other entrepreneurs to create a business that would be an absolute nightmare for workers, a type of credit score for workers that could be a permanent HR file that follows workers from one job to the next, and where a worker who struggles at one job may have trouble getting another. Youakim did not respond to multiple Motherboard interview requests to elaborate on the concept.” From ‘Tech CEOs Want Every Worker to Have a Permanent, Publicly-Available Job Performance File’ by Aaron Gordon for VICE.
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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.
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