Words and Wordle | The Cat Herder, Volume 5, Issue 06

Does anything mean anything any more? Is nothing, not even a beloved word game, sacred? *shakes fist   February 20 · Issue #168 · View online Does anything mean anything any more? Is nothing, not even a beloved word game, sacred? *shakes fist at cloud* 😼 Words have meanings but don’t let that get in the way, Part I: Anonymous. Abeba Birhane @Abebab i'm reviewing work where authors are proposing to "anonymize face image data" in order to comply with GDPR and i'm confused as to how one can anonymize a face??? 3:20 PM - 16 Feb 2022 Irish media outlets reported on the launch of Ireland’s first frictionless shop this week. A junior minister even toddled along to wave a mobile handset at a camera. RTÉ viewers were treated to the man in Washington, now returned, telling them “the process begins with the customer downloading an app tied to their debit card”, then seconds later “the shopper remains anonymous”. The man from Paddy Power Flutter Entertainment then says “It covers all privacy levels” and “it’s very anonymous”. For the avoidance of doubt, this is not anonymous. If it were the merchant would have great difficulty in billing people. Is this something truly exciting or a promo stunt by Paddy Power and Compass Group? You decide. Most of us assumed that this was going to happen eventually. I mean, the Times dropped a cool seven-figure sum on a game that’s still free to play (at least for right now), so those profits would need to be recouped from somewhere. And this week, some code-savvy Wordlers stumbled onto where that “somewhere” was: a dozen different trackers shoved into places where there were literally zero before. Taking a look for ourselves, Gizmodo found that some of the trackers were from the New York Times proper, but most were used to send data to third-party players like Google. (The New York Times declined to comment on the addition of trackers to Wordle.) Wordle Has Ad Trackers Now That the New York Times Owns It gizmodo.com – Share There’s a slew of ad tracking tech on the New York Times-owned Wordle, a game once lauded for having none at all. Words have meaning but don’t let that get in the way, Part II: Principles. Clearview AI founder Hoan Ton That, channelling the apocryphal Groucho Marx quote “These are my principles. If you don’t like them I have others”, told The Washington Post “Our principles reflect the current uses of our technology. If those uses change, the principles will be updated, as needed.” For the avoidance of doubt, this is not how principles are supposed to work. This was in response to the Post getting its hands on a Clearview pitch deck aimed at prospective investors which “reveals surprising details about how the company, whose work already is controversial, is positioning itself for a major expansion, funded in large part by government contracts and the taxpayers the system would be used to monitor.” Clearview AI predicts 100 billion photos will give it worldwide facial recognition ability - The Washington Post www.washingtonpost.com – Share The facial recognition company Clearview AI is telling investors it’s on track to have 100 billion facial photos in its database within a year, enough to ensure “almost everyone in the world will be identifiable,” according to a financial presentation from December obtained by The Washington Post. [alternative link] Related: ‘Victory! More Lawsuits Proceed Against Clearview’s Face Surveillance’, Electronic Frontier Foundation D.A. officials said they don’t believe the practice of linking suspects to crimes using DNA collected from rape kits is disclosed in a waiver victims sign before an exam. Boudin said, “Even if it were mentioned somewhere in the fine print, is that an appropriate waiver to seek from a victim who’s just come in and reported a sex assault? Absolutely not.” San Francisco Supervisor Hillary Ronen said she was alerted to the alleged practice this weekend, and that she has submitted an inquiry to the City Attorney’s Office to draft legislation to prevent DNA evidence — or any sort of evidence collected from a victim’s rape kit — to be used for anything other than investigating that rape itself. San Francisco police linked a woman to a crime using DNA from her rape exam, D.A. Boudin says www.sfchronicle.com – Share The San Francisco police crime lab has been entering sexual assault victims’ DNA in a… The DPC reprimanded an unnamed employee relations firm “after personal information it posted to the Personal Injuries Assessment Board (PIAB) got stolen in transit.” Data Protection Commission: ‘A Consultancy Provider, January 2022’. — The EDPB announced its first coordinated enforcement action. “In the coming months, 22 national supervisory authorities across the EEA (including EDPS) will launch investigations into the use of cloud-based services by the public sector.” “Pegasus constitutes a paradigm shift in terms of access to private communications and devices, which is able to affect the very essence of our fundamental rights, in particular the right to privacy. This fact makes its use incompatible with our democratic values … the EDPS believes a ban on the development and the deployment of spyware with the capability of Pegasus in the EU would be the most effective option to protect our fundamental rights and freedoms … With this document the EDPS would like to contribute to the discussion on whether spyware tools like Pegasus should have any place in a democratic society. At the centre of any such discussion, should not only be the use of the technology itself, but the importance we attribute, as a society, to the right to privacy as a core element of human dignity.” From the EDPS‘s 'Preliminary remarks on Modern Spyware’. “Overall, the government has pursued its quest for online safety under the Duty of Care banner, bolstered with the slogan “What Is Illegal Offline Is Illegal Online”. That slogan, to be blunt, has no relevance to the draft Bill. Thirty years ago there may have been laws that referred to paper, post, or in some other way excluded electronic communication and online activity. Those gaps were plugged long ago. With the exception of election material imprints (a gap that is being fixed by a different Bill currently going through Parliament), there are no criminal offences that do not already apply online (other than jokey examples like driving a car without a licence). On the contrary, the draft Bill’s Duty of Care would create novel obligations for both illegal and legal content that have no comparable counterpart offline. The arguments for these duties rest in reality on the premise that the internet and social media are different from offline, not that we are trying to achieve offline-online equivalence.” From Graham Smith‘s long assessment of the UK government’s Online Safety Bill, 'Harms 4.0 - the Online Safety Bill in metamorphosis’ “Otter “shares your personal data with a whole host of people, including mobile advertising tracking providers, so it strikes me that there’s an awful lot of personal data and the potential for leakage of sources for journalists,” said Paul Rosenzweig, former deputy assistant secretary for policy in the Department of Homeland Security, and founder of Red Branch Consulting. “They also quite clearly say that they respond to legal obligation [law enforcement data requests], so any journalist who transcribes an interview with a confidential source and puts it up on Otter has got to live with the possibility that Otter will wind up giving that transcript to the FBI.” From ‘My journey down the rabbit hole of every journalist’s favorite app’ by Phelim Kine for Politico. — 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

Does anything mean anything any more? Is nothing, not even a beloved word game, sacred? *shakes fist at cloud*

😼

Words have meanings but don’t let that get in the way, Part I: Anonymous.

Irish media outlets reported on the launch of Ireland’s first frictionless shop this week. A junior minister even toddled along to wave a mobile handset at a camera.

RTÉ viewers were treated to the man in Washington, now returned, telling them “the process begins with the customer downloading an app tied to their debit card”, then seconds later “the shopper remains anonymous”. The man from Paddy Power Flutter Entertainment then says “It covers all privacy levels” and “it’s very anonymous”.

For the avoidance of doubt, this is not anonymous. If it were the merchant would have great difficulty in billing people.

Is this something truly exciting or a promo stunt by Paddy Power and Compass Group? You decide.

There’s a slew of ad tracking tech on the New York Times-owned Wordle, a game once lauded for having none at all.

Words have meaning but don’t let that get in the way, Part II: Principles.

Clearview AI founder Hoan Ton That, channelling the apocryphal Groucho Marx quote “These are my principles. If you don’t like them I have others”, told The Washington Post “Our principles reflect the current uses of our technology. If those uses change, the principles will be updated, as needed.”

For the avoidance of doubt, this is not how principles are supposed to work.

This was in response to the Post getting its hands on a Clearview pitch deck aimed at prospective investors which “reveals surprising details about how the company, whose work already is controversial, is positioning itself for a major expansion, funded in large part by government contracts and the taxpayers the system would be used to monitor.”

The facial recognition company Clearview AI is telling investors it’s on track to have 100 billion facial photos in its database within a year, enough to ensure “almost everyone in the world will be identifiable,” according to a financial presentation from December obtained by The Washington Post.

[alternative link]

Related: ‘Victory! More Lawsuits Proceed Against Clearview’s Face Surveillance’, Electronic Frontier Foundation

The San Francisco police crime lab has been entering sexual assault victims’ DNA in a…

The DPC reprimanded an unnamed employee relations firm “after personal information it posted to the Personal Injuries Assessment Board (PIAB) got stolen in transit.”

Data Protection Commission: ‘A Consultancy Provider, January 2022’.

—

The EDPB announced its first coordinated enforcement action. “In the coming months, 22 national supervisory authorities across the EEA (including EDPS) will launch investigations into the use of cloud-based services by the public sector.”

• “Pegasus constitutes a paradigm shift in terms of access to private communications and devices, which is able to affect the very essence of our fundamental rights, in particular the right to privacy. This fact makes its use incompatible with our democratic values … the EDPS believes a ban on the development and the deployment of spyware with the capability of Pegasus in the EU would be the most effective option to protect our fundamental rights and freedoms … With this document the EDPS would like to contribute to the discussion on whether spyware tools like Pegasus should have any place in a democratic society. At the centre of any such discussion, should not only be the use of the technology itself, but the importance we attribute, as a society, to the right to privacy as a core element of human dignity.” From the EDPS‘s 'Preliminary remarks on Modern Spyware’.
• “Overall, the government has pursued its quest for online safety under the Duty of Care banner, bolstered with the slogan “What Is Illegal Offline Is Illegal Online”. That slogan, to be blunt, has no relevance to the draft Bill. Thirty years ago there may have been laws that referred to paper, post, or in some other way excluded electronic communication and online activity. Those gaps were plugged long ago. With the exception of election material imprints (a gap that is being fixed by a different Bill currently going through Parliament), there are no criminal offences that do not already apply online (other than jokey examples like driving a car without a licence). On the contrary, the draft Bill’s Duty of Care would create novel obligations for both illegal and legal content that have no comparable counterpart offline. The arguments for these duties rest in reality on the premise that the internet and social media are different from offline, not that we are trying to achieve offline-online equivalence.” From Graham Smith‘s long assessment of the UK government’s Online Safety Bill, 'Harms 4.0 - the Online Safety Bill in metamorphosis’
• “Otter “shares your personal data with a whole host of people, including mobile advertising tracking providers, so it strikes me that there’s an awful lot of personal data and the potential for leakage of sources for journalists,” said Paul Rosenzweig, former deputy assistant secretary for policy in the Department of Homeland Security, and founder of Red Branch Consulting. “They also quite clearly say that they respond to legal obligation [law enforcement data requests], so any journalist who transcribes an interview with a confidential source and puts it up on Otter has got to live with the possibility that Otter will wind up giving that transcript to the FBI.” From ‘My journey down the rabbit hole of every journalist’s favorite app’ by Phelim Kine for Politico.

—

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.