Privacy

Credit Freezes and Personal Information

This entry was posted in Constitution Law Libertarianism Privacy Regulation on by

Kevin Drum has this right though he does not go quite far enough:

I have an idea to fix this: don’t take three days to unfreeze the report. In fact, I have a better idea: by default, personal credit reports should never be shown to anyone until the credit reporting agency contacts the consumer independently and receives permission to do so. This could be by phone, internet, or mail.

I proposed something related but more generalized a while back:

No institution or business, government or private, can be allowed to collect or distribute, for free or for fee, any information about an individual without that individuals specific consent on a per incident basis and if the distribution is for a fee then that individual must be compensated at a rate agreeable to the individual.

We must give back control of personal information to the owner of that information: the involved individual. Right off the top I can’t think of any acceptable exception to this.
In the other direction and something I did not address in the earlier post:

Individual consumers of goods and services may disclose evaluative and price information about their transactions with individuals and entities who regularly offer goods and services to consumers. Individuals and businesses engaged in commercial activity may disclose price and evaluative information about their activities as long as this information can not be related to an individual connsumer. Private institutions or businesses may collect and disseminate this information for free or for fee except as noted above.

Thus you can evaluate and provide pricing information about your doctor, lawyer, service station, hardware store, etc., by name but not vice versa.
The general principles here are: 1) individuals own information specifically related to them; 2) therefor individuals can not be prevented from releasing seller specific evaluation or information so long as that information is truthful and non-libelous; and 3) for these purposes corporations, partnerships or other commercial associations of individuals are not individuals.

Fingerprinting to Use Library Computers

This entry was posted in Culture Economics Information Law Enforcement Patriot Act Privacy on by

I don’t think I’d like to see this become a trend:

The Naperville (Ill.) Public Library board approved a $40,646 contract May 18 with a local technology firm to install fingerprint scanners on its public internet computers. The scanners, to be installed this summer, will replace the current system of requiring patrons to enter their library-card and PIN numbers to prove their identity, the Chicago Tribune reported May 20.

There are a couple of things that concern me about this. First, our fingerprints should not start showing up in multiple databases. Yea, these folks say the special encoding can not be reverse engineered but I don’t see anything that says the the fingerprint itself is not retained. And, even if it is not retained initially what are the safeguards to assure it never is retained and just how will you know?
Secondly, the linked articles talks about a law enforcement request for login records. Surely this information along with the logs detailing online activity are deleted in real or near real time. If not, then patrons should be insisting on this. The most that should be retained is the information that an unidentified patron used a computer for x minutes on such and such a day. Anything more than that should be considered a breach of privacy.
Maybe lots of folks will respond with this approach:

West said the library is requiring a fingerprint to set up computer access, although patrons who object could ask a staff member to log them on to a computer.
“I’m sure we won’t turn anybody away who refuses to use the technology, but in all honesty, it will be more cumbersome,” West said.

And the increased manpower cost will lead Naperville to return to easily used cards. If it leads them to become increasingly restrictive then, I suspect, it will simply hasten their marginalization in an increasingly digital world where the bulk of the written material created will be available to us in our living room, the local park, coffeeshop or where ever else we choose.
Via beSpacific.

Morford Has 2nd Thoughts on Real ID

This entry was posted in Constitution Libertarianism Privacy US Politics War on Terrorism on by

Mark Morford tries a glass half full view of Real ID:

Ah, but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this is just rampant paranoia talking and it’s just a silly piece of harmless legislation and Real ID is overall a genuinely good and useful idea that will ultimately make us safer and more secure. You think?
Because hasn’t BushCo proven to be reliable and honest and just reeking with integrity about privacy and security issues so far? Hasn’t the USA Patriot Act been just a wondrous boon to police and CIA and our sense that we are trusted and cared for by our government? Aren’t we all feeling just so much safer with this most secretive, least accountable administration at the helm?
After all, why not trust the government on this? Why not put our faith in the goodly Homeland Security Department? Maybe Real ID really is patriotic and constructive and it will be a smooth and secure and completely inviolable system, one that protects citizens while giving them a new sense of freedom to move about the country with carefree flag-waving ease, safe in the knowledge that their big, snarling gummint is watching over them like a protective mother bear — as opposed to, say, a female praying mantis, who greedily screws her lover, and then, of course, eats him alive.

Really, this raving bit of incompetence by congress and the president is adequate reason to toss them all out of office. This is really one party no one should attend and if it means boycotting the airlines until they scream in anguished pain to get this stuff stricken from what passes for law then so be it.

Google Web Accelerator

This entry was posted in Google Privacy Technology on by

This is something I won’t be using!
First, pages download just snappily on my broadband connection, thank you.
Second, just why would I want to give these folks even more information about my browsing habits than they already get when I use them for searches? Their privacy disclaimer is particularly disingenuous:

5. How does using Google Web Accelerator affect my privacy?
Google Web Accelerator receives much of the same kind of information you currently send to your ISP when you surf the Web:
* Google will receive your requests for unencrypted pages (those with “HTTP:”, not “HTTPS:”, at the beginning of the URL), along with information such as the date and time of the request, your IP address, and computer and connection information

As you all know this can be a lot of information and they conveniently do not say anything about not gathering the info in the cookie they left on your system the last time you used anything Google.
You do delete your Google cookies regularly, don’t you?
Via beSpacific.

Thumbprint Privacy

This entry was posted in Business US Capitalism Economics Information Privacy on by

I wonder how many customers have read the privacy policy of the tanning salons that require a thumb print before selling you a tan? Probably not many. Or perhaps folks that frequent tanning salons don’t care about privacy, potential identity theft, or their thumbprint potentially ending up in a Choicepoint, hacker, or doj database.
The evidence, sadly, points to the latter: if folks cared then these businesses would either be closed or would have already revised their POS systems.
Via Politech.