"the pornographic equivalent of Mark Zuckerberg" | The Cat Herder, Volume 2, Issue 10
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Bank Holiday edition. Quite short.
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Government to confirm launch date of nationwide age block on pornographic content
Forcing users to pay pornography firms to track them doesn’t seem to be a clever solution to any particular problem but certainly has the potential to create a large number of entirely new problems. Here’s a link to the Wikipedia entry about the Ashley Madison data breach. Ahem.
Many of the CCTV systems surveilling public areas which have popped up in Ireland recently have Automated Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) capabilities. Do you know how many organisations your location might be shared with as you drive past one of these cameras? It’s a question worth asking and a conscientious data controller should be able to tell you.
Facial recognition researchers are sweeping up photos by the millions from social media and categorizing them by age, gender, skin tone and dozens of other metrics.
Researchers found a lot of personal data lying around unattended and appropriate it for ‘research’ purposes, much to the surprise of many. Creative Commons has shrugged and says there’s not much they can do about it.
Publicly available personal data is still subject to data protection law.
On the same beat Buzzfeed News reported that US Customs and Border Protection is “scrambling to implement this "biometric entry-exit system”, with the goal of using facial recognition technology on travelers aboard 16,300 flights per week".
The documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center state that “there were no limits on how partnering airlines can use this facial recognition data … CBP did not explain what its current policies around data sharing of biometric information with participating companies and third-party firms are”.
The Spanish data protection authority has released guidance that microtargeting in election campaigns may be against the law.
— Who Targets Me (@WhoTargetsMe) March 14, 2019
Most parties have pulled their ads ahead of the General Election on April 28th, awaiting clarification. https://t.co/lBmMeiU3wX
The European Data Protection Board published a statement during the week on the use of personal data in political campaigns (direct PDF link). It’s quite straightforward stuff:
- “Personal data revealing political opinions is a special category of data under the GDPR.”
- Transparency and the provision of adequate information to voters about political adverts is crucial
- Profiling is restricted. “a legal effect generated by automated decision-making may include affecting a person’s vote in an election.”
In the annex to the document the EDPB rounds up guidance published by some of the national supervisory authorities. The Irish Data Protection Commission published guidance for both canvassers and canvassees last November.
- ‘Is Ireland taking its role as Europe’s data watchdog seriously?’ asks Karlin Lillington in The Irish Times.
- ‘Does the GDPR really say that?’ from the Data Protection Commission. We’d previously covered one or two of these, particularly in GDP-Hair from last November.
- “What goes unexamined is the way that both surveillance and sexism in tech are functions of power in technology, and that surveillance (as well as its analog prototype, the male gaze) has a long history of affecting “the other” differently than those in power.” From Kate Losse‘s 2014 essay on surveillance, power and gender, 'The Male Gazed’.
- Hal Hodson takes a deep dive into DeepMind for The Economist in ‘DeepMind and Google: the battle to control artificial intelligence’
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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.
Barring a disaster this newsletter will be in your inbox again next weekend. See you then.
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