Author Archives: Ronald Leenes

Sheer perfection

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John Brownlee about the iPad as a solved design problem:

“There are incremental refinements to look forward to, sure–some clock cycles here, some dropped ounces there–but if Apple’s goal was to create a window, they have finally gotten to the point where they have stripped nearly everything away from that window’s design besides the glass.

This why it’s very difficult to imagine that an iPad five or 10 years from now will look, feel, or even function very differently from the ones we have right now. It’s also why all the tablets of Apple’s competitors at CES feel even more irrelevant than ever. Once you perfect the design of a window down to its essence, the only thing that matters about it anymore is the vista it overlooks.”

I so agree. (although creating Worpress posts on the iPad is a nightmare, still).

Facial recognition nightmare (begins)

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C’net on an upcoming app for Android, iOS, and Google Glass called NameTag that will allow you to photograph strangers and find out who they are — complete with social networking and online dating profiles.

As founder Kevin Alan Tussy [li] says:

“People will soon be able to login to www.NameTag.ws and choose whether or not they want their name and information displayed to others. It’s not about invading anyone’s privacy; it’s about connecting people that want to be connected. We will even allow users to have one profile that is seen during business hours and another that is only seen in social situations. NameTag can make the big, anonymous world we live in as friendly as a small town.”

Sure, just what we needed, not.

“In the US, it will also match the photo against over 450,000 entries in the National Sex Offender Registry and other criminal databases.”

Wow, that’s a relief. So it’s safe to talk to your NameTagged strangers.

Worst part, according to C’net it is opt-out.

“It’s a little unclear, but what that seems to indicate to us is that, if you want to keep your privacy — and your option to identify yourself — intact, you’ll need to create a NameTag profile — opt-out, not opt-in.”

What a surprise.

Open-source intelligence and privacy by design

Aside

Koops, E.J., Leenes, R.E., & Hoepman, J.H. (2013). Open-source intelligence and privacy by design. Computer Law and Security Review, 29(6), 676-688 more.

Abstract

As demonstrated by other papers on this issue, open-source intelligence (OSINT) by state authorities poses challenges for privacy protection and intellectual-property enforcement. A possible strategy to address these challenges is to adapt the design of OSINT tools to embed normative requirements, in particular legal requirements. The experience of the VIRTUOSO platform will be used to illustrate this strategy. Ideally, the technical development process of OSINT tools is combined with legal and ethical safeguards in such a way that the resulting products have a legally compliant design, are acceptable within society (social embedding), and at the same time meet in a sufficiently flexible way the varying requirements of different end-user groups. This paper uses the analytic framework of privacy design strategies (minimise, separate, aggregate, hide, inform, control, enforce, and demonstrate), arguing that two approaches for embedding legal compliance seem promising to explore in particular. One approach is the concept of revocable privacy with spread responsibility. The other approach uses a policy mark-up language to define Enterprise Privacy Policies, which determine appropriate data handling.

Both approaches are tested against three requirements that seem particularly suitable for a ‘compliance by design’ approach in OSINT: purpose specification; collection and use limitation and data minimisation; and data quality (up-to-dateness). For each requirement, the paper analyses whether and to what extent the approach could work to build in the requirement in the system. The paper concludes that legal requirements cannot be embedded fully in OSINT systems. However, it is possible to embed functionalities that facilitate compliance in allowing end-users to determine to what extent they adopt a ‘privacy-by-design’ approach when procuring an OSINT platform, extending it with plug-ins, and fine-tuning it to their needs. The paper argues that developers of OSINT platforms and networks have a responsibility to make sure that end-users are enabled to use privacy by design, by allowing functionalities such as revocable privacy and a policy-enforcement language.

Constitution-Free Zone

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Poor Americans, it gets worse than this. The American Civil Liberties Union has determined that

“that nearly 2/3 of the entire US population (197.4 million people) live within 100 miles of the US land and coastal borders. The government is assuming extraordinary powers to stop and search individuals within this zone. This is not just about the border: This ‘Constitution-Free Zone’ includes most of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas.”

US-constitution-free-zone

Is the end of the ‘reasonable expectations of privacy’ doctrine near?

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NY judge Edward Korman has ruled that searching (laptops) at the border is not really an an invasion of privacy (because everyone knows they may be searched):

“The invasion of privacy occasioned by such a border search, however, like the search of luggage, briefcases, and even clothing worn by a person entering the United States, is mitigated by other factors….. As Professor LaFave observes, because “the individual crossing a border is on notice that certain types of searchers are likely to be made, his privacy is less invaded by those searches.” …. Thus, “[t]he individual traveler determines the time and place of the search by his own actions, and he thus has ample opportunity to diminish the impact of that search by limiting the nature and character of the effects which he brings with him.”

As Techdirt’s Mike Masnick observes:

“This seems problematic on multiple levels. First, if we go by the idea that there’s less of a privacy violation because you know it’s coming, then that gives the government the right to ignore the 4th Amendment so long as it tells you ahead of time that it’s going to ignore the 4th Amendment. Even the Supreme Court in Smith v. Maryland — the infamous case concerning the 3rd party doctrine — states that such a scenario is ridiculous, and that just because you know that you’re going to be searched, it doesn’t automatically make the search reasonable.”

[via Techdirt]

The reasonable expectations doctrine in my view is awkward because of its inherent slippery slope. Maybe the Supreme Court gets a chance to follow up on Jones and set new standards.