Surveilled — Issue 38
Surveilled
Issue 38
A weekly summary of what I’ve found interesting at the intersection of economics, finance and technology.
Headlines
Facial Recognition Is Already in the Wild — Facial recognition app Clearview has been in the news quite consistently over the past few weeks. The company makes a tool that hoovers up photos posted online, for example on social media platforms, and uses them to enable identification of anyone caught in the net, through an app. Initially the company stated only law enforcement had access to its service, which is bad enough, but now it turns out that they were giving “test” accounts to prospective investors and friends, with predictably dire consequences. As is depressingly common by now, the company doesn’t appear to see anything wrong with this. Another argument for regulation. Read (NYT $)
Location Data Aggregator Has Contracts with Law Enforcement Agencies in the US — Part 1: Babel Street’s Locate X product aggregates data from popular mobile apps to track the movement of people’s phones. The company has signed contracts with several law enforcement agencies to provide them with that location data. Read (Protocol)
Tracking His Ride Made This Cyclist a Crime Suspect — Part 2: a cyclist became a suspect in a crime investigation because the local police department subpoenaed Google for all location data in a radius around the crime scene. It’s hard to think of a better reminder of the dangers of constant location tracking and all the abuses that are possible through easy access to it. Read (NBC News)
Electronic Frontier Foundation Sounds the Alarm on Schools Spying on Their Students — The writeup provides a great overview of the risks associated with constant surveillance and the flimsy excuses provided by the schools. In addition, the EFF prepared a guide to privacy for students, which contains a wealth of common sense advice, applicable to everyone really (especially in the workplace, for example.) Read (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
Singapore Introduces a “Security Label” for Smart Home Devices — Singapore introduced the labelling scheme to promote secured products, amid other measures aimed at reducing cybersecurity risks for the population. Interesting approach, which may become more widespread. Read (ZDNet)
Context
“Tech bros” who repent and start calling out the privacy-invading and user-manipulating behaviour of their former employers are being forgiven too quickly, at the expense of activists who have been labouring for years. Read (The Conversation)
This interview with Trump’s social media manager Brad Parscale doesn’t reveal anything new but drives home the magnitude of the operation. Read (New Yorker)
That’s it for this week’s edition. As always, thanks for reading and please forward this to anyone who you think might be interested, it would be much appreciated.