Wired: A Guide to Getting Past Customs With Your Digital Privacy Intact »
Boingboing: How to legally cross a US (or other) border without surrendering your data and passwords »
EFF: Border Security Overreach Continues – DHS Wants Social Media Login Information »
The broadly defined clause 30 of the Digital Economy Bill contains provisions for a “single gateway to enable public authorities, specified by regulation, to share personal information for tightly constrained reasons agreed by parliament, where its purpose is to improve the welfare of the individual in question. To use the gateway, the proposed sharing of information must be for the purpose of one of the specified objectives, which will be set out in regulations.”
Ars Technica: UK government’s huge citizen data grab is go—where are the legal safeguards? »
By the way, this discussion has been going on for decades…
https://youtu.be/ThzKQdlGbDw
New legislation in Austria:
EDRi: Proposed surveillance package in Austria sparks resistance »
Smile to pay. Customer recognition. Airport screening. These are some of the functionalities that face recognition brings to camera surveillance nowadays.
It will also allow for tracking people, building sociograms, can be integrated with different databases, behavioral analytics, and mass surveillance networks.
How will EU data protection be noticed for ordinary people? Euronews puts the question to Jan Philipp Albrecht, Green member of the European Parliament from Germany.
The improvement in substance is that there’s far more transparency under the new rules, which means that you will have more detailed information policies about what your data are processed for, which purposes if they are given to others, and there will be also in general more possibilities to get a view of which data are there about you. And you have new rights like data portability and the right to be forgotten. So it will be far easier for consumers to control their personal data.
CNN: White House discussing asking foreign visitors for social media info and cell phone contacts »
(But, actually, this is nothing new.)
Update, more input from EFF » Fear Materialized: Border Agents Demand Social Media Data from Americans »
This is interesting. US President Trumps executive order on »public safety« directs all federal agencies to exclude non-US citizens / non-permanent residents from the Privacy Act protection from mass surveillance.
It is very unclear what this will lead to when it comes to transfer of European personal data to the US. Under the so-called EU-US Privacy Shield, such data shall enjoy adequate privacy protection. There is already criticism that the arrangements in this agreement are too weak. And today’s executive order might invalidate them altogether.
If so, there can be no transfer of personal data from the EU to the US. This would have far-reaching consequences for US companies, from e.g. retail business to social networks.
The EU Commission seems to hope for special US legislation related to the Privacy Shield. But the question is if the above executive order doesn’t trump any such schemes.
/ HAX
Update / more input:
• Techcrunch: Trump order strips privacy rights from non-U.S. citizens, could nix EU-US data flows »
• Engadget: Trump signs executive order stripping non-citizens of privacy rights »
• EU Observer: Trump’s anti-privacy order stirs EU angst »
• Techdirt: Already Under Attack In Top EU Court, Privacy Shield Framework For Transatlantic Data Flows Further Undermined By Trump »
Kosinski and his team continued, tirelessly refining their models. In 2012, Kosinski demonstrated that from a mere 68 Facebook likes, a lot about a user could be reliably predicted: skin color (95% certainty), sexual orientation (88% certainty), Democrat or Republican (85%). But there’s more: level of intellect; religious affiliation; alcohol-, cigarette-, and drug use could all be calculated. Even whether or not your parents stayed together until you were 21 could be teased out of the data. (…)
The process is identical to the models that Michal Kosinski developed. Cambridge Analytica also uses IQ-Quiz and other small Ocean test apps in order to gain access to the powerful predictive personal information wrapped up in the Facebook likes of users. And Cambridge Analytica is doing precisely what Kosinski had warned about. They have assembled psychograms for all adult US citizens, 220 million people, and have used this data to influence electoral outcomes.
Antidote Zine: Trump Knows You Better Than You Know Yourself »
Update, another piece, at Motherboard: The Data That Turned the World Upside Down »
The ePD has two functions. Firstly, it provides additional clarity and predictability to allow the principles in the general legislation to be implemented in the complex environment of communications. Secondly, it serves as the EU legislative instrument to give meaning to the fundamental right to freedom of communications. (…)
The process of consultation and polls have shown that citizens are concerned about their privacy and about how companies make use of their personal information online. Although the Commission has rightly identified and addressed most of the key issues and objectives in the proposal, strong forces seem to have watered down the text considerably, compared to the earlier version that was leaked in December 2016.
EDRi » e-Privacy Regulation: Good intentions but a lot of work to do »
An evenly split federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that it won’t revisit its July decision that allowed Microsoft to squash a US court warrant for e-mail stored on its servers in Dublin, Ireland. The 4-4 vote by the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals sets the stage for a potential Supreme Court showdown over the US government’s demands that it be able to reach into the world’s servers with the assistance of the tech sector. (…)
In its petition for a rehearing, the government said Microsoft didn’t have the legal right to defend the privacy of its e-mail customers, and that the July ruling isn’t good for national security.
Ars Technica: US has no right to seize data from world’s servers—court ruling stands »
