The Cat Herder

The Data Protection Commission published its 2019 annual report. Europe flip-flopped on facial recogn   February 23 · Issue #70 · View online The Data Protection Commission published its 2019 annual report. Europe flip-flopped on facial recognition. More about GMI. Shameless plug: Your editor is involved with a new data subject rights advocacy organisation called Article Eight Advocacy. You can read a bit more about what we’ll be doing and who else is involved at article8.ie. Last month we made a submission to the DPC’s public consultation on its regulatory strategy. You can read that here (direct link to PDF). We were mentioned in Irish Legal News during the week too. 😼 Michael Veale @mikarv European Union swiftly pivots from 'let's ban facial recognition' to 'let's create a pan-European database of facial data'. https://t.co/vhQgk8L3zO 9:11 AM - 22 Feb 2020 Let’s ban facial recognition: ‘LEAK: Commission considers facial recognition ban in AI ‘white paper’, Euractiv Let’s create a pan-European database of facial data: 'Leaked Reports Show EU Police Are Planning a Pan-European Network of Facial Recognition Databases’, The Intercept — All that Samsung users found on UK website after weird Find my Mobile push notification was... other people's details | The Register www.theregister.co.uk – Share Following a mysterious “Find my Mobile” push notification this morning, questions are swirling around Samsung after customers found other users’s login details being shown to them while trying to change their passwords. It could, it really could. Ring and Nest helped normalize American surveillance and turned us into a nation of voyeurs - The Washington Post www.washingtonpost.com – Share People who own Ring, Nest and other Web-connected cameras say they’ve reshaped their daily awareness around what’s going on at home. But all that added vigilance has come at a surprising cost. “But they were constantly defective,” a police source told De Standaard. The system often failed to detect a match - and in one case it allowed a female passenger through when she had scanned her husband’s passport. 'A fiasco': Brussels Airport scraps e-passport gates | The Bulletin www.thebulletin.be – Share Brussels Airport is scrapping its €2.4 million electronic passport gates after less than five years - because they keep malfunctioning. The 24 gates have been condemned as “a waste of taxpayers’ money” by police unions. The DPC’s annual report was published. There were numbers and statistics aplenty. There were hair-raising tales of data breaches. There were case studies. There appear to have been no formal decisions made in cases relating to complaints made under the GDPR, whose second birthday is fast approaching. Tusla, the child and family agency, grabbed many of the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Long term readers may remember we wrote about Tusla officials proudly declaring in September 2018 at the launch of a new childcare database that records would be retained “in perpetuity”. It seems in the intervening eighteen months the DPC may have made some progress in explaining to Tusla what a terrible idea this is. Tusla also confirmed that it expects to revise its current record management policy with the aim of aligning it with the necessity and proportionality principles of the GDPR. The agency is also seeking to review its use of “in perpetuity” record retention periods. Coverage ‘Lack of big tech GDPR decisions looms large in EU watchdog’s annual report’, Techcrunch ‘Tusla focus of three data compliance inquiries under GDPR’, RTÉ ‘Big tech ‘procedural queries’ delay decision on first data fines – watchdog’, Irish Times ‘Catholic Church records may be inspected over GDPR concerns’, Irish Times Dixon signals blockbuster data fines on the way, Irish Independent ‘Cianan Brennan: Dixon determined to face all challenges’, Irish Examiner “For hundreds of government agencies around the world, NEC has become a gateway to facial recognition technology. In January, London police inked a deal with NEC to deploy a live facial recognition dragnet across the city. Among dozens of other projects, NEC’s facial recognition systems will be used to verify every athlete, organizer, volunteer, and member of the press at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. The company offers agencies free facial recognition trials, according to over 1,000 pages of documents reviewed by OneZero. Municipalities can load mug shots and personal data into NEC’s software and try it out for a few months.” ‘Carnival Cruises, Delta, and 70 Countries Use a Facial Recognition Company You’ve Never Heard Of’, Dave Gershgorn for OneZero. ‘Cute videos, but little evidence: Police say Amazon Ring isn’t much of a crime fighter’. Writing for NBC, Cyrus Farivar explores the gap between the marketing and the reality for Ring. “We have Ring cameras in our community,” says Police Chief Michael Deal in the voiceover. “And we understand the value of those cameras in helping us solve crimes.” But the Winter Park Police Department hasn’t made a single arrest facilitated by footage obtained from Ring cameras since it partnered with the company in April 2018, according to a department spokesman, Lt. Edwin Santos.“ "The Irish government has failed on this front. It has failed to consider the public’s views on who should have access to this data, the impact that a company deciding on access and use of their genetic data may have on public trust, and GMI shows no signs of developing a coherent legal and ethical framework that is informed by engagement with the public.” It’s our old friends Genomics Medicine Ireland again. ‘Why has the State invested €70m in a private company to look at our genetic data?’ asks Dr. Ciara Staunton in The Journal. “The fate of these activists, meanwhile, forces America’s white-collar professionals to grapple with an uncomfortable thought: If the nation’s most sought-after workers can’t stop their employer from behaving in ways that they deplore, where does that leave the rest of us?” Noam Schelber and Kate Conger write about ‘The Great Google Revolt’ for The New York Times. —— Endnotes & Credits The elegant Latin bon mot “Futuendi Gratia” is courtesy of Effin’ Birds. As always, a huge thank you to Regina Doherty for giving the world the phrase “mandatory but not compulsory”. The image used in the header is by Krystian Tambur on Unsplash. Any quotes from the Oireachtas we use are sourced from KildareStreet.com. They’re good people providing a great service. If you can afford to then donate to keep the site running. Digital Rights Ireland have a storied history of successfully fighting for individuals’ data privacy rights. You should support them if you can. Find us on the web at myprivacykit.com and on Twitter at @PrivacyKit. Of course we’re not on Facebook or LinkedIn. If you know someone who might enjoy this newsletter do please forward it on to them. Did you enjoy this issue? In order to unsubscribe, click here. If you were forwarded this newsletter and you like it, you can subscribe here. Powered by Revue Privacy Kit, Made with 💚 in Dublin, Ireland

The Data Protection Commission published its 2019 annual report. Europe flip-flopped on facial recognition. More about GMI.

Shameless plug: Your editor is involved with a new data subject rights advocacy organisation called Article Eight Advocacy. You can read a bit more about what we’ll be doing and who else is involved at article8.ie. Last month we made a submission to the DPC’s public consultation on its regulatory strategy. You can read that here (direct link to PDF). We were mentioned in Irish Legal News during the week too.

😼

Let’s ban facial recognition: ‘LEAK: Commission considers facial recognition ban in AI ‘white paper’, Euractiv

Let’s create a pan-European database of facial data: 'Leaked Reports Show EU Police Are Planning a Pan-European Network of Facial Recognition Databases’, The Intercept

—

Following a mysterious “Find my Mobile” push notification this morning, questions are swirling around Samsung after customers found other users’s login details being shown to them while trying to change their passwords.

People who own Ring, Nest and other Web-connected cameras say they’ve reshaped their daily awareness around what’s going on at home. But all that added vigilance has come at a surprising cost.

Brussels Airport is scrapping its €2.4 million electronic passport gates after less than five years - because they keep malfunctioning. The 24 gates have been condemned as “a waste of taxpayers’ money” by police unions.

The DPC’s annual report was published. There were numbers and statistics aplenty. There were hair-raising tales of data breaches. There were case studies. There appear to have been no formal decisions made in cases relating to complaints made under the GDPR, whose second birthday is fast approaching.

Tusla, the child and family agency, grabbed many of the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Long term readers may remember we wrote about Tusla officials proudly declaring in September 2018 at the launch of a new childcare database that records would be retained “in perpetuity”.

It seems in the intervening eighteen months the DPC may have made some progress in explaining to Tusla what a terrible idea this is.

Coverage

‘Lack of big tech GDPR decisions looms large in EU watchdog’s annual report’, Techcrunch

‘Tusla focus of three data compliance inquiries under GDPR’, RTÉ

‘Big tech ‘procedural queries’ delay decision on first data fines – watchdog’, Irish Times

‘Catholic Church records may be inspected over GDPR concerns’, Irish Times

Dixon signals blockbuster data fines on the way, Irish Independent

‘Cianan Brennan: Dixon determined to face all challenges’, Irish Examiner

• “For hundreds of government agencies around the world, NEC has become a gateway to facial recognition technology. In January, London police inked a deal with NEC to deploy a live facial recognition dragnet across the city. Among dozens of other projects, NEC’s facial recognition systems will be used to verify every athlete, organizer, volunteer, and member of the press at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. The company offers agencies free facial recognition trials, according to over 1,000 pages of documents reviewed by OneZero. Municipalities can load mug shots and personal data into NEC’s software and try it out for a few months.” ‘Carnival Cruises, Delta, and 70 Countries Use a Facial Recognition Company You’ve Never Heard Of’, Dave Gershgorn for OneZero.
• ‘Cute videos, but little evidence: Police say Amazon Ring isn’t much of a crime fighter’. Writing for NBC, Cyrus Farivar explores the gap between the marketing and the reality for Ring. “We have Ring cameras in our community,” says Police Chief Michael Deal in the voiceover. “And we understand the value of those cameras in helping us solve crimes.” But the Winter Park Police Department hasn’t made a single arrest facilitated by footage obtained from Ring cameras since it partnered with the company in April 2018, according to a department spokesman, Lt. Edwin Santos.“
• "The Irish government has failed on this front. It has failed to consider the public’s views on who should have access to this data, the impact that a company deciding on access and use of their genetic data may have on public trust, and GMI shows no signs of developing a coherent legal and ethical framework that is informed by engagement with the public.” It’s our old friends Genomics Medicine Ireland again. ‘Why has the State invested €70m in a private company to look at our genetic data?’ asks Dr. Ciara Staunton in The Journal.
• “The fate of these activists, meanwhile, forces America’s white-collar professionals to grapple with an uncomfortable thought: If the nation’s most sought-after workers can’t stop their employer from behaving in ways that they deplore, where does that leave the rest of us?” Noam Schelber and Kate Conger write about ‘The Great Google Revolt’ for The New York Times.

——

Endnotes & Credits

• The elegant Latin bon mot “Futuendi Gratia” is courtesy of Effin’ Birds.
• As always, a huge thank you to Regina Doherty for giving the world the phrase “mandatory but not compulsory”.
• The image used in the header is by Krystian Tambur on Unsplash.
• Any quotes from the Oireachtas we use are sourced from KildareStreet.com. They’re good people providing a great service. If you can afford to then donate to keep the site running.
• Digital Rights Ireland have a storied history of successfully fighting for individuals’ data privacy rights. You should support them if you can.

Find us on the web at myprivacykit.com and on Twitter at @PrivacyKit. Of course we’re not on Facebook or LinkedIn.

If you know someone who might enjoy this newsletter do please forward it on to them.