EPIC Sues To Get More Info About Google/NSA Relationship

This headline in the Los Angeles Times caught my eye today. Now, I wrote about the original story surrounding the shady relationship between notorious privacy villain - Google - and notorious civil liberties violator - the National Security Administration - back in February of this year.

Now, we've got some movement on it, as evidenced by the privacy rights group Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) suing the spy agency because it won't divulge information about its reported agreement to help the Internet company defend itself against foreign cyber attacks.

Before we get to the article, let me refresh your memory on the story, using some of what I wrote back in February:

"It's inarguable that Google is rapidly becoming the official technology sponsor of the nation and globe. For the sake of argument, let's just accept this as truth, and assume this company's reach and breadth will only grow. With that in mind, it becomes paramount - and beholden on all those that relish privacy - to keep a close eye on this global leader's attention to privacy as it relates to their technological innovations."

My problems with the NSA are too numerous to detail here for you now, but let's just say they aren't known for their deep respect for privacy or the fourth amendment. In other words, we have the largest search engine company in the world teaming up with the federal agency in charge of global electronic surveillance...and what they're doing is confidential. Hmmm....

Noah Shachtman of Wired magazine makes some important points to consider:

The NSA and its predecessors also have a long history of spying on huge numbers of people, both at home and abroad. During the Cold War, the agency worked with companies like Western Union to intercept and read millions of telegrams. During the war on terror years, the NSA teamed up with the telecommunications companies to eavesdrop on customers’ phone calls and internet traffic right from the telcos’ switching stations. And even after the agency pledged to clean up its act — and was given wide new latitude to spy on whom they liked – the NSA was still caught “overcollecting” on U.S. citizens.
According to The New York Times, the agency even “tried to wiretap a member of Congress without a warrant.”

All of which makes the NSA a particularly untrustworthy partner for a company that is almost wholly reliant on its customers’ trust and goodwill. We all know that Google automatically reads our Gmail and scans our Google Calendars and dives into our Google searches, all in an attempt to put the most relevant ads in front of us. But we’ve tolerated the automated intrusions, because Google’s products are so good, and we believed that the company was sincere in its “don’t be evil” mantra.

That’s a lot harder to swallow, when Google starts working cheek-to-jowl with the overcollectors. The company pinkie-swears that its agreement with the NSA won’t violate the company’s privacy policies or compromise user data. Those promises are a little hard to believe, given the NSA’s track record of getting private enterprises to cooperate, and Google’s willingness to take this first step.

So what exactly is the agreement between these two behemoths? That, unfortunately, isn't really clear - unless you believe those oh so trustworthy "anonymous sources". Here's what the New York Times had to say about the deal:

By turning to the N.S.A., which has no statutory authority to investigate domestic criminal acts, instead of the Department of Homeland Security, which does have such authority, Google is clearly seeking to avoid having its search engine, e-mail and other Web services regulated as part of the nation’s “critical infrastructure.”

...

On Jan. 12, Google announced a “new approach to China,” stating that the attacks were “highly sophisticated” and came from China. At the time, it gave few details about the attacks other than to say that a theft of its intellectual property had occurred and that a primary goal of the attackers had been to gain access to the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. In reaching out to the N.S.A., which has extensive abilities to monitor global Internet traffic, the company may have been hoping to gain more certainty about the identity of the attackers.

In other words, there's a lot still "unknown" here, outside of a few anonymous sources assuring us there will be no disclosures of proprietary data, on say, the tens of millions of google users. I'd also argue that it brings some perhaps some undesired, but needed attention on the Constitution subverting ways of the NSA.

As Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington-based policy group, noted: “Google and N.S.A. are entering into a secret agreement that could impact the privacy of millions of users of Google’s products and services around the world."

He also believes the agreement covers much more than the Google hack, particularly in light of the fact that the search giant and intelligence agency were in talks prior to Google discovering that it had been hacked, stating, “What they’ve told you is that this is about an investigation of a hack involving China. I think and have good reason to believe that there’s a lot more going on.”

Wired magazine adds some needed depth to the Post and Times stories:

On Thursday, the organization filed a lawsuit against the N.S.A., calling for the release of information about the agency’s role as it was set out in National Security Presidential Directive 54/Homeland Security Presidential Directive 23 , a classified 2008 order issued by President George W. Bush dealing with cybersecurity and surveillance.

The FOIA request also seeks NSA communications with Google regarding Google’s failure to encrypt Gmail and cloud computing services. Rotenberg says EPIC wants to know what role the NSA has played in shaping privacy and security standards for Google’s services.
EPIC also filed a lawsuit against the NSA and the National Security Council, seeking a key document governing the government’s broader national cybersecurity policy, which has been shrouded in secrecy.

“We can’t afford to have secret cybersecurity policy that impacts the privacy rights of millions of internet users,” said Rotenberg.

...

Matthew Aid, NSA historian and author of The Secret Sentry, said the move troubled him. “I’m a little uncomfortable with Google cooperating this closely with the nation’s largest intelligence agency, even if it’s strictly for defensive purposes,” he told the Post.

The NSA has been embroiled since 2005 in allegations that the agency violated federal laws in conducting illegal surveillance of Americans’ phone and internet communications. Giving the agency authority over coordination of the government’s cybersecurity plan — which would include working with telecoms and other critical companies in the private sector — could put the agency in the position of surreptitiously monitoring communications.

I want to conclude by going back to Noah Shachtman of Wired magazine, and his take on the business angle in all this:

Google may need help in fighting off these hacks. But turning to Ft. Meade could wind up permanently damaging the company’s image — and the foundation of its incredible success. Already, the Russian press are talking about Google’s decision to spy with NSA, for instance. Hackers might be able to compromise some of Google’s services, for a little while. The association with the NSA could permanently cripple the company. The telegram companies and the old-school telcos were virtually monopolies; customers had nowhere to turn, if they wanted private communications. Bing and Yahoo Mail are just a click away.

There...now we're ready to look at the new developments. The Los Angeles Times reports:

The ad hoc and secretive nature of Google's arrangement with the federal spy agency also spotlights what some experts said was the lack of a clear federal plan to deal with the growing vulnerability of U.S. computer infrastructure to cyber intrusions launched from foreign countries. At risk are power grids, banks and other crucial public services.

...

The nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center, which has tangled with Google in the past over the security of its Gmail e-mail system, filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act for documents related to any agreement between Google and the NSA. The NSA denied the request, and on Monday the privacy group took the agency to court, seeking to force it to hand over records.

"As of 2009, Gmail had roughly 146 million monthly users, all of whom would be affected by any relationship between the NSA and Google," the privacy group's request said. "In order for the public to make meaningful decisions regarding their personal data and e-mail, it must be aware of the details of that relationship. Neither Google nor the NSA has provided information regarding their relationship."

There probably isn't a significant privacy concern in the NSA's dealings with Google, said Richard Clarke, a top national security official in the Clinton and Bush administrations and author of "Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About It." "But the easy way for Google and NSA to prove that is by letting an outside group come in and find out," Clarke said.

....

In a statement, NSA declined to confirm or deny its relationship with Google. "NSA works with a broad range of commercial partners and research associates to ensure the availability of secure, tailored solutions," the statement said.

A Google spokesman declined to comment Monday, but in January, the company issued a statement saying it was "working with the relevant U.S. authorities" in response to the cyber attack.

Click here for the article in its entirety.

I don't think I need to add much to all this...I don't know what may, or may not be going on between these two Goliaths. But I do know that WE should know. So cheers to EPIC for keeping on this...as will I here...

More On "Chipping" (RFID) School Children

I wanted to follow up just a bit on my last post (see below) about a preschool in Richmond digitally tracking children using microchips embedded into their jersey tops. As I wrote last Friday, the question for me comes down to whether the minor benefits associated with this monitoring outweigh the myriad of potential pitfalls associated with an ever expanding surveillance state.

My answer to this question of course was "no", its not a worthwhile trade off. The focus of my concerns in that last post was on the larger deleterious effect, I believe, constant, ubiquitous monitoring has on human consciousness itself, and worse, how it functions to stifle dissent in an ostensibly "free" society.

Now, before I get to some additional problems with chipping kids enumerated by my friend at the ACLU, Nicole Ozer, let me restate my conclusion from last week. I wrote:

"This issue is far from over. The rapid evolution of RFID technology and its uses makes it essential that we draw common sense lines now. Whether its video cameras on every street corner, RFID tags in our clothes and cars, or government wiretapping and corporate surveillance, or social networking sites like Facebook, or Smart Grid metering and in home monitoring technologies, or just about anything created by Google, the trend line is all too clear.

More concerning than any single threat posed by any single technology – including chipping children – is this larger pattern indicating that privacy as both a right and an idea is under siege.

As young people grow up with so much of their information so public and accessible to all, including government, and nearly every action they take is in some way being recorded and/or monitored, I fear their sense, appreciation and understanding of privacy will continue to fade away.

The consequences of such a loss would be profound. Yes, there are lots of more tangible, and immediate threats associated with the loss of privacy, from identity theft to intimidation to stalking. But, what concerns me most about the trajectory we're on is how does the knowledge that EVERYTHING you do is being watched and recorded effect human consciousness? Could we actually be stifling young peoples' creativity, their courage to dissent, and perhaps even their individuality, if they're conditioned at such a young age to accept being monitored and watched at all times?

Specifically, how does a lifetime of being constantly surveilled effect human behavior? Could it lessen peoples courage to stand up to authority (a prerequisite for a functioning democracy)? Is this all just another way to steadily stifle, and even eliminate dissent - dissent that is needed now more than ever?

But let me now transition to some more specific privacy threats these RFID chips pose to the children themselves. Remember, these chips function somewhat like a GPS system - and thus expose these children to stalking, tracking and identity theft.

Here's some of what the ACLU'S Nicole Ozer had to say:

While school officials and parents may have been sold on these tags as a "cost-saving measure," we are concerned that the real price of insecure RFID technology is the privacy and safety of small children. RFID has been billed as a "proven technology," but what’s actually been proven time and again (PDF) since the ACLU first looked at this issue in 2005 is just how insecure RFID chips can be:

* RFID chips in US passport cards were cracked and copied from a distance of 30-feet using $250 in parts bought from eBay (2009).
* RFID chips used in building access cards across the country were cracked and copied with a handheld device the size of a standard cell phone that was built using spare parts costing $20 (2007).
* California State Capitol RFID-based identification cards were cracked and copied and access was gained to member-only, secure entrances (2006).
* RFID chips implanted in humans were cracked and copied (PDF) (2006).
* The RFID chips used in the Dutch and British e-passport were cracked (PDF) (2006).

Without real security, RFID chips could actually make preschoolers more vulnerable to tracking, stalking, and kidnapping. Someone who wants to do children harm could potentially sit in a car across the street and scan the children’s jerseys without teachers, school officials, parents, or children ever knowing that any information has been read. And if this information can be read, it can be copied easily to a duplicate chip. A child could be taken off campus while the duplicate chip continues to tell RFID readers that the child is safely at school.

...

If the price for parents going to Head Start is that your kids are tracked and potentially made unsafe, that's not acceptable. These chips are really high powered. They can be read up to 100 meters away which means someone could pick up the signal from across the street from the center. So rather than make the kids safer they may be making them more vulnerable.

These are just the tip of the security issues—and we haven’t even touched on the core privacy concerns. The editors of Scientific American said it well back in May 2005: "Tagging … kids becomes a form of indoctrination into an emerging surveillance society that young minds should be learning to question."

At this point, we have far more questions than answers about the RFID system in use in Richmond:

* What security measures are in place on the RFID chips?
* How will data collected from the chips be used? How long will it be kept?
* Were parents given a choice whether or not to have their child "chipped?"
* Were parents told how RFID technology works, what the privacy and security risks are, and what the school has done to make sure the chips are secure and compliant with student privacy laws?
* And did the County consider these questions before they received a federal grant for this program?

You can read the rest of her blog here.

To once again reiterate what I said last week, these kinds of mechanical devices might be useful for tracking cattle, but when it comes to children, RFID’s are no substitute for teacher and school staff responsibility.

And I would add, again, that in addition to these chips exposing to children to stalking, tracking and identity theft, it all strikes me as feeling a bit too much like Orwell's 1984 or Huxley's Brave New World. It's not that I'm that frightened about how this surveillance will be used against people, though that's a real concern too, but more so, I fear how this loss of privacy and freedom negatively effects consciousness - creating a more docile, servile populace.

Tracking Preschoolers With RFID Tags?

When I read the story today about a preschool in Richmond digitally tracking children using microchips embedded into their jersey tops I was immediately reminded of legislation I worked on a few years ago partially addressing this very issue. And of course, I also had that old "slippery slope" argument immediately come to mind when I picture all these chipped kids with digital markers tracking everywhere they go as some administrator watches.

The legislation I'm referring to (and an op-ed I had published about it) would have required any school seeking to chip their students to first ask the parents for permission. Seems like a straight forward, no brainer, right? Well, that's what we thought, until the Governor vetoed the legislation, even in the face of overwhelming support in the legislature and in the public.

Before I get into more reasons why I generally don't like the idea of chipping kids for tracking purposes, let's clarify what we're talking about. Essentially, the school is tagging the children's clothes with monitoring devices that transmit a signal to sensors installed throughout their buildings, ostensibly helping administrators secure the child's whereabouts at all times. Parents will also digitally sign the child in and out of school, thereby eliminating the need for attendance records filed by hand.

Okay, so maybe there are a few pro's to such monitoring. And at least in this case, unlike the situation I wrote about in my article, the parents are at least involved and aware. The question of course is whether the minor benefits associated with this monitoring outweigh the potential pitfalls associated with an ever expanding surveillance state.

Now let's first go back to that legislation the Governor vetoed and what I wrote at the time:

In 2005 a tiny school district in Northern California inadvertently ignited a statewide debate over the appropriate use of modern technologies in the school system. The technology in question was Radio Frequency Identification, or RFID, which the district had embedded in student badges without parents' knowledge. The children were required to carry these tracking devices or suffer suspension.

Controversy erupted when parents discovered that the new badges - which function somewhat like a GPS system - exposed their children to stalking, tracking and identity theft. Worse, the children were “chipped” without parental notice or consent. The district had intended to use the technology to remotely monitor student movement on campus; even installing readers on the bathroom doors. Parents rightly objected, strongly, but it wasn’t until a media firestorm was ignited that the district backed down.

Had the district engaged parents in a conversation before installing the RFID-enhanced ID system the community’s sensitivities and concerns could perhaps have been adequately balanced with the districts goals of enhancing campus safety and improving attendance recording.

Unfortunately that’s not how it happened, but that’s how it should have happened.

Given the controversial nature of RFID technologies, and the inherent risks associated with it, school districts should be required to notify parents and get their consent BEFORE “chipping” their children.

Schools are already required to get parental permission for sex education, field trips, and in some cases, student cell-phone use on campus.

If the Sutter case illustrates nothing else, it’s that parents, not schools, should decide whether children must carry a tracking devise. Mechanical devices might be useful for tracking cattle, but when it comes to our children, RFID’s are no substitute for teacher and school staff responsibility.

Parental notification and consent would also provide an important check on district incentives to use invasive RFID-systems. Because schools receive funding based on attendance, a financial incentive exists to closely monitor student presence on campus. But there is a line that can be crossed – RFID monitors in the bathroom, for example – between sensible oversight and invasion of privacy.

Absent a countervailing force in defense of student privacy, the district’s natural tendency will be to secure its interests at the expense of the students’. Parents can only function as this countervailing force if they are granted their rightful seat at the table. Currently, no such right exists!

The Governor had an opportunity to rectify this injustice in the form of Senate Bill (SB) 29 by Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto). The legislation was specifically crafted as a response to the Sutter County incident and to ensure that in the future schools notify parents and get their consent before embedding students with RFID-enabled tracking devices.

This pragmatic measure – remarkably and painstakingly moderate so as to be in tune with the Governor’s general sensibilities - was supported by nearly every state legislator and organizations spanning the political spectrum from the ACLU to the Liberty Coalition to the Parents and Teachers Association to the Consumer Federation of California.

Nonetheless, the Governor vetoed the bill – and missed an important opportunity to ensure child safety, protect personal privacy, and defend the rights of California parents.

Now let's go to the story in California Watch about this Contra Costa situation:

Tracking microchips have become popular in recent years as the technology of choice for pet owners, prison guards and cattle wranglers. But the rapid social acceptance of such technology troubles some civil rights and privacy advocates.

....

Cedric Laurant, a lawyer with the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said this about Brittan's microchip program in 2005:

Monitoring children with RFID tags is a very bad idea. It treats children like livestock or shipment pallets, thereby breaching their right to dignity and privacy they have as human beings. Any small gain in administrative efficiency and security is not worth the money spent and the privacy and dignity lost.

Click here to read more.

This issue is far from over. The rapid evolution of RFID technology and its uses makes it essential that we draw common sense lines now. Whether its video cameras on every street corner, RFID tags in our clothes and cars, or government wiretapping and corporate surveillance, or social networking sites like Facebook, or Smart Grid metering and in home monitoring technologies, or just about anything created by Google, the trend line is all too clear.

More concerning than any single threat posed by any single technology – including chipping children – is this larger pattern indicating that privacy as both a right and an idea is under siege.

As young people grow up with so much of their information so public and accessible to all, including government, and nearly every action they take is in some way being recorded and/or monitored, I fear their sense, appreciation and understanding of privacy will continue to fade away.

The consequences of such a loss would be profound. Yes, there are lots of more tangible, and immediate threats associated with the loss of privacy, from identity theft to intimidation to stalking. But, what concerns me most about the trajectory we're on is how does the knowledge that EVERYTHING you do is being watched and recorded effect human consciousness? Could we actually be stifling young peoples' creativity, their courage to dissent, and perhaps even their individuality, if they're conditioned at such a young age to accept being monitored and watched at all times?

Specifically, how does a lifetime of being constantly surveilled effect human behavior? Could it lessen peoples courage to stand up to authority (a prerequisite for a functioning democracy)? Is this all just another way to steadily stifle, and even eliminate dissent - dissent that is needed now more than ever?

I have to say, this all starts to sound too much like Orwell's 1984 or Huxley's Brave New World. It's not that I'm that frightened about how this surveillance will be used against people, though that's a real concern too, but more so, I fear how this loss of privacy and freedom negatively effects consciousness - creating a more docile, servile populace.

As noted privacy expert Bruce Schneier recently stated:

“…lack of privacy shifts power from people to businesses or governments that control their information. If you give an individual privacy, he gets more power…laws protecting digital data that is routinely gathered about people are needed. The only lever that works is the legal lever...Privacy is a basic human need…The real choice then is liberty versus control.”

New Study: 500 Million Sensitive Records Breached Since 2005

Last week I wrote about the good news (the bad news being the Governor vetoed the same bill last year...but has hinted this year is different) regarding the California Legislature approving a bill that would strengthen the notification required when databases of personal information are compromised. The legislation has long been supported by us (i.e. Consumer Federation of California), and a host of other privacy rights organizations.

Now we all breathlessly await the Governor's decision. And, depending on how you look at it, we got some good/bad news this week from the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (PRC). The good news is their new study on data breaches could not come at a better time, as it could help convince the Governor that consumers deserve tougher and more effective notification requirements when their private data has been compromised. The bad news, as you may have guessed, is that there are way too many data breaches taking place in this country.

Now, before I get to a bit more about the bill, let's go directly to the op-ed written by Rainey Reitman of PRC on the California Progress Report (for full disclosure, I'm editor of the California Progress Report). She writes:

Employees losing laptop computers, hackers downloading credit card numbers and sensitive personal data accidentally exposed online -- the Chronology of Data Breaches shows hundreds of ways that the personal information of consumers is lost, stolen or exposed.
The Chronology of Data Breaches, a project of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse since 2005, lists incidents involving breached consumer information, such as personal medical records, credit card numbers and Social Security numbers. The most recent total, published August 24, 2010, is a wake-up call to consumers who think identity theft can’t happen to them.

Of course, 500 million is a conservative number. We generally learn about breaches that garner media attention. Unfortunately, many do not. And, because many states do not require companies to report data breaches to a central clearinghouse, data breaches occur that we never hear about. Our Chronology is only a sampling.

Data breaches of sensitive information, especially Social Security and credit card numbers, leave consumers vulnerable to identity theft. According to a 2009 Javelin Research&Strategy, individuals are four times more likely to be the victim of identity theft in the year after receiving a data breach notification letter.

Unfortunately, consumers cannot completely protect themselves from a data breach. It is up to organizations that collect data on consumers to take the steps to ensure the privacy and security of the data they collect and maintain. And it’s up to the legislature to pass laws to safeguard consumer data and provide adequate standards for reporting breaches – so that consumers will know when a data breach has placed their personal information at risk.

It goes without saying then, that these findings epitomize the need for the Governor to sign SB 1166 (Simitian). California’s current security breach notification law does not require public agencies, businesses, or persons subject to that law to provide any standard set of information about the breach to consumers. As a result, security breach notification letters often lack important information - such as the time of the breach or type of information that was breached - or are confusing to consumers.

So last year, when the Governor's veto message claimed "there is no evidence that there is a problem with the information provided to consumers", I was honestly confused. The best way to reach the correct conclusion on whether this legislation is needed is to simply ask consumers whether its more helpful to receive a letter that provides more than just a notice that your information has been breached, but also what you can do about it, when it happened (so you can check that date against your credit card statements, etc.), and other useful, SPECIFIC information.

As I wrote last Thursday, "The bottom line is that this law IS NEEDED. The past few years have demonstrated that there are some holes that still need to be plugged. According to a survey of data breach victims, 28% of those receiving a notification did not understand “the potential consequences of the breach after reading the letter.”

But, there is reason for more hope than usual, as Senator Simitian said he reintroduced his vetoed measure this year after conversations with the Governor’s office persuaded him that “a signature by the Governor seems possible this year.”

Specifying what information must be included in the notification, so that individuals might take steps to protect themselves against identity theft really is “the next logical step” to take since the Senator's initial data notification legislation, as Simitian as argued.

Current notifications of data breaches vary widely in the information they provide and in their helpfulness to individuals who are affected. Plus, as Simitian also argued, "the bill will also give law enforcement the ability to see the big picture and a better understanding of the patterns and practices developing in connection with identity theft"."

As I also wrote, "now we wait."

Airport Body Scanners: Yet Another Indignity, Privacy Violation

Everybody who has ever dropped by this blog probably has read a post of mine about these new airport body scanners that essentially see through clothing, producing images of digitally naked passengers. I don't want to reinvent the wheel today, so to find out most everything you need to know about them check out my article "The Politics of Fear and Whole Body Imaging" (from January 2010), or check out any of my past three posts on the subject, here, here, and here.

For the most part my focus has been on (see my former posts for answers to these questions) A. whether being viewed essentially naked in itself is a violation of privacy, B. whether these scanners actually make us "safer", C. whether the irrational fears of a terrorist attack warrant such a privacy invasion, D. whether these images are actually protected and won't be somehow shared or saved, and E. what forces and interests have so much to gain from pushing this ever expanding surveillance state, with ever more threats and security technologies?

But one topic I've only just begun to hone in on, and which the Boston Herald article from yesterday brings to light even further, is the pat down, body search "option" for those that refuse to go through the whole body imaging machines.

Now, before I get to the article detailing this new, and aggressive form of body searching being utilized by the Transportation Security Administration, let me re-post three comments by readers of this blog about their experience of trying to take the "pat down option" that tuned me into this potential additional problem.

Anonymous:

I flew out of Indianapolis last Friday. (Indy has had these scanners since before last Christmas.) I politely stated I'd rather not go through the body scanner, and was told I would have to "go through special screening." I thought the body scanners were OPTIONAL? So wouldn't I go through the NORMAL screening, and not "special" screening?

I went through the metal detector and was told to stand to the side and wait. The male screener asked for a female screener for a pat-down. From the other side of the machine, the female screener ROLLED HER EYES and said loudly "Oh boy." Her sarcasm was opaque.

The pat-down that followed ensured I wouldn't need my annual Pap Smear.

I am convinced the TSA would simply prefer we go through these untested, unregulated, unsafe machines for their own convenience. They are determined to make the other "screening options" so invasive that we might find the body scanner "safer" than being molested.

I will never step through one of those machines. Not EVER. There is nothing they have done to prove I can trust these machines medically, or them with my privacy. On the off hand, I don't find it optional to fly. My family is 2,000 miles away, and I have to move with military orders (husband is active duty). So what is my option? I MUST fly. It isn't a choice, and I'm not the only one who sees it that way.

And another women commented:

I am a young female who flew out of Heathrow yesterday, on a 45 minute flight to Newcaste upon Tyne. I was randomly (I say randomly,I saw the young male security guards pointing as they chose me) selected for the body scan. I have read all about these machines and had decided I would never go through one, but when I refused I was told I would not be able to travel.

I was visibly upset and did not want to do this scan, I feel it is a total invasion of my privacy. I am a businesswoman and travel regularly, but something about this invasive process really got to me. Well I had no option but to do the scan, but this morning I am still thinking about it and worrying that I will be subjected to this every time I fly. Privacy, health? It just all seems so over the top for the normal traveller like myself.

And another woman commented:

I am 33 weeks pregnant and just flew from Chicago to Orange County last night. At Chicago, I was forced to go through the imaging machine. I asked to go through the metal detector but was scolded by all of the TSA agents present that I had to go through the scanning machine. I asked if this was an xray machine and they said that it wasn't, but IT IS!! I feel violated and now I am worried about the effects of the radiation on my unborn child.

AS you can see, we're seeing a pattern here...one that appears to be a very concerted effort by airport security to force people to go through the body scanners...be it through making the alternative body search even less appetizing, shaming and embarrassing those that refuse, or simply trying to say that they have to, when the don't.

Well, it appears that those commenting on my blog were simply giving us a forewarning for what appears to be official policy.

The Boston Herald Reports:

Logan airport security just got more up close and personal as federal screeners launched a more aggressive palms-first, slide-down body search technique that has renewed the debate over privacy vs. safety.

The new procedure - already being questioned by the ACLU - replaces the Transportation Security Administration’s former back-of-the-hand patdown.

Boston is one of only two cities in which the new touchy-feely frisking is being implemented as a test before a planned national rollout. The other is Las Vegas.

“We’re all for good effective security measures,” American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts spokesman Christopher Ott said. “But, in general, we’re concerned about this seemingly constant erosion of privacy, and we wonder whether or not it’s really going to be effective.

“Accepting these kinds of searches may keep people safer in some situations, but not in every situation, and we’re encouraging people to stop and think about what is the right balance between privacy and security,” Ott said.

...

Previously, TSA screeners used patdown motions of their hands to search passengers over their clothes, switching to the backs of their hands over certain ’sensitive’ body areas, such as the torso.

But now the searches will be done using all front-of-the-hand sliding motions over greater areas of passengers’ bodies, including sensitive areas. “The pat down just (because I) was wearing jewelry seems like overkill,” one woman wrote on Logan’s Twitter account yesterday.

As I've written here before, aside from the fact that you're FAR MORE LIKELY to be hit by lightning than killed in a terrorist attack, or that these machines will simply change the tactic of any would be "terrorist" (and its debatable if they work anyway), there's also the consumer angle and the growing number of indignities we are being subjected to in the name of "safety".

If our two choices are being digitally strip searched, or aggressively felt up, then perhaps a growing consumer backlash against the machines may take shape. I should also note, early polling - and this should be no surprise when considering all the fear mongering that goes on in this country around terrorism and airports - indicated public support for these scanners in the range of 80%. Of course, that was before passengers started being more regularly subjected to them, and more information regarding the variety of threats they pose have come to light.

At the end of the day, if the flying public revolts against these scanners it will be monumentally more difficult to justify their exorbitant costs. That's why the global public revolt going on right now is hopeful, be it concerns regarding the sheer personal violation people feel to be viewed naked, to concerns over potential health "side effects", to the time time-consuming component, to the body search alternative, or to the simple fact that they don't really work and aren't needed.

I'm certain this story, and debate, isn't over...

Landmark California Privacy Bill Passes Legislature

First, the good news (the bad news only being that the Governor may veto this bill). The California Legislature has voted to strengthen the notification required when databases of personal information are compromised. Now it falls on the Governor to do the right thing - which is always a tenuous hope at best.

California’s current security breach notification law does not require public agencies, businesses, or persons subject to that law to provide any standard set of information about the breach to consumers. As a result, security breach notification letters often lack important information - such as the time of the breach or type of information that was breached - or are confusing to consumers.

This leaves consumers uncertain about how to respond to the breach or protect themselves from identity theft. SB 1166 makes relatively modest but helpful changes to the current security breach notification statutes to enhance consumer knowledge about, and understanding of, security breaches.

Unfortunately, privacy breaches occur regularly. In fact, according to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, that at least 347 million sensitive records have been compromised nationwide since 2005.

SB 1166 (Simitian) would amend California's security breach notification law stating that any public agency, person or business required to issue a security breach notification to more than 500 residents must submit the notification electronically to the Attorney General. This measure also requires that the notification be written in plain language and include contact information regarding the breach, the types of information breached, and the date, estimated date, or date range of the breach.

Additionally, SB 1166 would also require that an entity providing substitute notice also provide notice to the Office of Information Security and Privacy Protection.

Now, its difficult to understand how anyone could be against this. It's about as common sense of an approach as one could come up with in response to the growing problem and reality of data breaches. Its rather simple really, if you are the victim of a data breach, and your private information may have been stolen, you deserve some basic information that will help you most effectively respond.

But here's why I am concerned. The Governor vetoed an almost identical bill last year stating (and notice the complete lack of any evidence to support his assertions...because none exist):

I am returning Senate Bill 20 without my signature.

This bill would require any agency, person, or business that must issue an information security breach notification pursuant to existing law to also fulfill certain additional requirements pertaining to the security breach notification.

California’s landmark law on data breach notification has had many beneficial results. Informing individuals whose personal information was compromised in a breach of what their risks are and what they can do to protect themselves is an important consumer protection benefit. This bill is unnecessary, however, because there is no evidence that there is a problem with the information provided to consumers. Moreover, there is no additional consumer benefit gained by requiring the Attorney General to become a repository of breach notices when this measure does not require the Attorney General to do anything with the notices. Since this measure would place additional unnecessary mandates on businesses without a corresponding consumer benefit, I am unable to sign this bill.

Sincerely,

Arnold Schwarzenegger

My confusion here stems from the Governor's assertion that "there is no evidence that there is a problem with the information provided to consumers". Say what? Ask consumers whether its more helpful to receive a letter that provides more than just a notice that your information has been breached, but also what you can do about it, when it happened (so you can check that date against your credit card statements, etc.), and other useful, SPECIFIC information.

The bottom line is that this law IS NEEDED. The past few years have demonstrated that there are some holes that still need to be plugged. According to a survey of data breach victims, 28% of those receiving a notification did not understand “the potential consequences of the breach after reading the letter.”

But, there is reason for more hope than usual, as Senator Simitian said he reintroduced his vetoed measure this year after conversations with the Governor’s office persuaded him that “a signature by the Governor seems possible this year.”

Specifying what information must be included in the notification, so that individuals might take steps to protect themselves against identity theft really is “the next logical step” to take since the Senator's initial data notification legislation, as Simitian as argued.

Current notifications of data breaches vary widely in the information they provide and in their helpfulness to individuals who are affected. Plus, as Simitian also argued, "the bill will also give law enforcement the ability to see the big picture and a better understanding of the patterns and practices developing in connection with identity theft".

Now we wait...

Article: "How Facebook Betrayed Users and Undermined Online Privacy"

Before I get to a really thorough, well thought out article in Alternet by author and writer Allan Hunt Badiner entitled "How Facebook Betrayed Users and Undermined Online Privacy" let's just briefly zip through a few of the reasons the social networking site has become synonymous with lack of privacy.

Privacy violation highlights include:

• Made users' friends lists public - resulting in a complaint to the FTC and ultimately a modification.
• Refused to allow people to permanently delete their accounts and personal information from the site.
• Installed "Beacon" (no longer in use) - a technology that tracks user's online purchases and informed their friends without permission.
• Released new privacy settings that are actually less private – allowing more "publicly available information" that can't be controlled, making it easier for it to collect location data on users and sell that data to third parties, including your list of friends and their information, as soon as you visit their websites—without asking your permission, recommending to users to loosen their privacy settings, default settings are all set to the LEAST private setting and remain buried behind too many layers of menus, and the new controls still fail to explain what the applications can really see.
• Facebook reportedly receives up to 100 demands each week from government agencies seeking information about its users.
• Even if your Facebook profile is "private," when you take a quiz or run any other application, that app can access almost everything in your profile: your religion, sexual orientation, political affiliation, pictures, and groups. And these apps may have access to most of the info on your friends' profiles too—which means if your friend takes a quiz, they could be giving away your personal information, even if you've never used an app.
• The company recently admitted that in some circumstances – in direct contradiction to its promise – it sent the user name of Facebook members to its advertising partners. This in turn can be used to glean a person's name, interests, and list of friends.
  Some people report that they are able to see the public "events" that Facebook users have said they will attend – even if they person is not a "friend" on the social network.

So now you have some of the backstory, now let's get to some choice clips from the article:

Facebook is both an infomediary and an intermediary. It occupies a pivotal position as the preeminent hub in the new information economy, and it is also the primary custodian of more information than has ever before been collected about human beings. As intermediaries and hosts for our communications with lovers, family members, friends, and colleagues, social network providers have access to extremely sensitive information, including data gathered over time and from many different individuals.

Despite Homeland Security, Google Analytics, and Facebook’s Data Team, people still hold to the ideal that they are free and have choice in their own lives. It is reasonable to expect Facebook to respect this democratic ethic and voluntarily assume a kind of fiduciary duty to its users. This kind of duty has to come before the realization of Facebook’s dreams for reengineering mobile communications and the web to become a more people-centric and integrated community. The Facebook motto, “Making the world open and connected,” may need to be thought through more carefully in terms of how they “make” it happen, and in what ways the citizens of the world want it to be “open” and “connected.”

While Mark Zuckerberg may believe in a concept called “radical transparency,” Peter Eckersley, senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has called for Facebook “to stop acting as if they have a mission to make all of our private lives public.”

Electronic Frontier Foundation is also promoting a Bill of Privacy Rights for Social Network Users, including the right to be clearly informed about the options for privacy, what information is being shared to whom, and notified when any legal entity requests information about them. The bill also declares that users retain control over the use and disclosure of their data, and that they should have the right to have all personal data removed from social network servers if they decide to leave the service.

…

Privacy is on the front burner for a reason: social network providers are eager to have the income from marketers and advertisers that help them sell their products in the most efficient way possible. This means that the data users are so eager to keep private has value. The Faustian bargain people make with social networks—your personal information for a platform to share it on—has been changing. Facebook and other networks are collecting far more information about their users than ever before.

That information, and aggregated versions of it, can and is being sold to marketers one way or another. Once you share your data on a network—even with your friends—you cease to own it. The social networks are scrambling to provide clever “products” and ways for you to input more and more personal information on their servers. In the scale of what they are collecting, the benefit to users who have given up most of their privacy is negligible.

Why should users give Facebook their information, preferences, relationship flow chart, and the ability to infer what it isn’t told directly? Users have almost no control over how information about them is used, or who ends up with the rights to use it in the future. But imagine how much users would share if they were building for themselves an income stream with their data. Imagine if Facebook revolutionized the industry and partnered with users to monetize their personal information, and in so doing the users took a share of it.

Trust is crucial for the sustained success of social networks. It may seem to Zuckerberg that Facebook users are tolerating the erosion of it well and keeping their accounts. But as soon as a viable alternative begins to pick up momentum, a mass exodus could ensue. Facebook could easily and quickly become the new MySpace. First, the early adopters achieve a critical mass at another new networking site. Then, the next wave of the techno savvy looking to bail start to migrate. And a little while later, only mom and dad are left on Facebook wondering where the kids went.

Viable alternatives are already springing up. A new network has been touted in the media that allows users to fully control the information they share by setting up their own personal servers, called “seeds.” Raphael Sofaer, co-founder of Diaspora, says that centralized networks like Facebook are not necessary. “In our real lives, we talk to each other,” he said. “We don’t need to hand our messages to a hub.”

Facebook’s growth curve is so strong that the recent privacy flaps seem not to have affected the numbers, but that can be deceptive. The biggest threat to Facebook is what Augie Ray, senior analyst at Forrester Research, calls “death by a thousand privacy cuts.” Messages about how Facebook has turned on its users and betrayed their trust are flooding the feed, and a new application called PrivacyDefender, a tool that automatically configures your Facebook privacy settings, is doing brisk business. The accumulation of lawmaker concerns, high-profile deleters, organizations raising consumer awareness, and security bugs (such as those found in Yelp) can create growing and important problems for Facebook.

Click here to read the article in its entirety.

If you're looking for specific ways Facebook could improve privacy, I suggest checking out the open letter sent to the company by a coalition that included the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the ACLU of Northern California, and the Center for Democracy and Technology, Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Action, Consumer Watchdog, Electronic Privacy Information Center Privacy Activism, Privacy Lives and the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.

The letter urged Facebook to make a host of important privacy improvements that would better protect users. Here's some specific examples of what the letter requested:

1) Fix the “app gap” by empowering users to decide exactly which applications can access their personal information.
2) Make “instant personalization” opt-in by default -
3) Do not retain data about specific visitors to third party sites that incorporate “social plugins” or the “like” button unless the site visitor chooses to interact with those tools.
4) Provide users with control over every piece of information they can share via Facebook, including their name, gender, profile picture, and networks.
5) Protect Facebook users from other threats by using an HTTPS connection for all interactions by default.
6) Provide users with simple tools for exporting their uploaded content and the details of their social network so that users who are no longer comfortable with Facebook’s policies and want to leave for another social network service do not have to choose between safeguarding their privacy and staying connected to their friends.

Facebook: The Embodiment of the Opt-Out vs. Opt-In Debate

As I have written before, "This is a landmark privacy debate with broad implications. The company has been actively undermining user privacy in the name of the almighty dollar for years now. Its opt-out model embodies the current debate over privacy in the information age.

The real question that must be answered is whether the individual owns his or her private information, or do companies like Facebook? If our personal information is truly "ours", then anyone wanting to use it must come ask us for it first (Opt-In), just like when somebody wants to use something else that we own.

This growing privacy debate is all the more important because the public is entrusting increasing amounts of private information to websites and online social networks.

As a San Francisco Chronicle editorial noted a few months back, “Opting in is always better than opting out. Facebook's privacy policy is 5,830 words of legalese - longer than the U.S. Constitution (minus amendments). It's cruel and unrealistic to ask more than 400 million users to navigate it; far better would be to allow people to "opt in" to data sharing.”