Month: February 2021

Employers Can Wipe Data From Personal Devices Used for Work

By Rachel Looker

If you use your personal device for work-related business and think your information is safe, the outcome of a 2014 federal lawsuit in Texas may make you reconsider.

Saman Rajaee was hired to provide sales and marketing for Design Tech Homes, a custom builder in Houston, according to court documents.

The job required constant email access — and the company provided him with no smartphone. Rajaee used his personal device to connect to the company’s server. 

When Rajaee gave his two weeks’ notice, he was immediately terminated. Days later, his iPhone 4 was wiped remotely and reset to factory settings.

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Deutsche Bank Report Ignites Debate on Blacks and Privacy

By Nora Macaluso

When Deutsche Bank, the global financial-services company, issued a recent report recommending that Big Tech invest $15 billion over five years to help bridge the racial technology gap, it included the finding that just one in 20 African Americans cited privacy as their primary concern relating to technology. 

Privacy, the September report suggested, might be a “luxury” in light of more pressing inequities keeping Blacks and Hispanics out of the workforce.

Researchers told Digital Privacy News that data was lacking on privacy and people of color.

“I’ve been doing a big literature review,” said Elissa Redmiles, research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems in Germany.

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‘It Is Everywhere’

Mainland Chinese Fear Growing Use of Face Recognition 

By Patrick McShane

Facial-recognition technology is now one of the fastest-growing and most widely dispersed technologies in the world.  

But nowhere has high-resolution facial recognition become more prevalent than inside the People’s Republic of China.

The world’s second-largest economy has built a vast high-tech surveillance state unlike anywhere in the world.

According to experts in the global technology-surveillance industry, China has approximately 170 million close-circuit cameras around the nation, including at 200 airports.

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Facebook Reverses Australian News-Sharing Ban

By Robert Bateman

In a change of policy, Facebook will allow Australian users to view and share news content the platform, reversing a decision made last week in response to the country’s proposed News Media Bargaining Code.

The code, expected to pass into Australian law later this month, would require Facebook and Google to pay news media outlets whenever users shared links or snippets of content on the platforms.

In a news release Monday, Campbell Brown, Facebook’s vice president of global news partnerships, said the company had reached a deal with the Australian government that would allow it to “retain the ability to decide if news appears on Facebook,” and would no longer “automatically be subject to a forced negotiation.”

News-sharing capabilities would be resumed “in the coming days,” Brown said.

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Q&A: Author April Falcon Doss

‘You Shouldn’t Have to Be a Privacy Expert’ to Understand Data Rights

By Rachel Looker   

Author April Falcon Doss has spent decades in the data-privacy and cybersecurity sphere.   

Currently a partner at Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr in Washington, Doss chairs the law firm’s cybersecurity and privacy practice and co-chairs its congressional investigations practice.  

She also spent more than a decade at the U.S. National Security Agency, as associate general counsel for intelligence law. Doss also served as the senior minority counsel for the Russia investigation for the Senate Intelligence Committee.  

A graduate of Yale University and the University of California at Berkeley, Doss is the author of “Cyber Privacy: Who Has Your Data and Why You Should Care,” released in November.  

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Smart Mirrors Handy, Fun — But Are a Data-Gathering Bonanza

By Rob Sabo

In 2017, luxury retailer Neiman Marcus introduced smart-mirror technology to its makeup counters and fitting rooms, following a path blazed by Ralph Lauren and Mango and later joined by Macy’s, J.C. Penney and other industry leaders.

Smart-mirror technology provides consumers with 360-degree views of outfits or cosmetics without trying them on.

They also are a data-gathering bonanza, experts told Digital Privacy News.

“The retail sector, especially luxury brands, are investing in smart mirrors because they get direct access to a user’s body,” said Veronica Miller, cybersecurity expert at VPN Overview in the Netherlands.

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‘Working From Home Can Be Deadly’

COVID Pushes Up HIPAA Violations Last Year to Second-Straight Record

By Myrle Croasdale

U.S. health care data-privacy violations soared 26% last year, federal data show, setting a record high for the second-straight year.

Breaches involving 500 patient records or more reached 647 in 2020, versus 512 incidents in the year before, according to the U.S. Office for Civil Rights (OCR).

Year-over increases had been gradual until the past two years, the data showed. Hacking and IT incidents accounted for the majority of the reported violations, according to OCR.

Part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, OCR enforces privacy rules created by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which was enacted in 1996.   

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Privacy Advocates Outraged by UK Supermarket’s Face Cameras

By Robert Bateman

U.K. supermarket chain the Southern Co-op is using facial-recognition technology to address shoplifting, a move that privacy advocates argued violated shoppers’ privacy rights.

The supermarket has been using facial-recognition cameras, provided by the security firm Facewatch, in 18 of its stores across the south of England since 2018, a company spokesperson told Digital Privacy News.

The cameras scan the faces of anyone walking into the store and retains biometric data derived from the facial images of people suspected of having committed a crime.

“To see a supposedly ethical company secretly using rights-abusive tech like facial recognition on its customers in the U.K. is deeply chilling,” said Silkie Carlo, director of U.K. privacy advocacy group Big Brother Watch.

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Q&A: Author Janna Malamud Smith

‘People Are Giving Up a Lot of Autonomy’

By Samantha Stone  

Last of two parts. 

In 1997, psychotherapist Janna Malamud Smith published “Private Matters: In Defense of the Personal Life.” 

She used examples from history and literature to explore the concept of privacy and to describe why we need it. 

There’s also a dose of insight from Smith the therapist, who notes how the drive to heal can push private matters voluntarily into the public sphere. 

In the last of a two-part interview, Smith, 69, told Digital Privacy News how relinquishing privacy could invite harm.

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Q&A: Author Janna Malamud Smith

Without Privacy, ‘You Don’t Have the Space to Make the Choices You Want to Make’ 

By Samantha Stone  

First of two parts. 

Long before smartphones, Facebook or airport security agents peering inside duffel bags, Janna Malamud Smith wrote about privacy as necessary to human well-being. 

But what does privacy look like — and how much is enough?  

Smith’s book, “Private Matters: In Defense of the Personal Life,” was first published in 1997. 

It explores privacy from the perspective of a psychotherapist — and, not incidentally, the daughter of a high-profile literary figure. 

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Ransomware Attacks Up, But Victims Not Reporting to Police

By Patrick W. Dunne

Ransomware attacks were the most-observed cyberthreat last year — in part because of COVID-19 and more employees working from home — but many victims did not report the attacks to authorities, mostly out of fear of reprisal, experts told Digital Privacy News.

“We got about 2,700 ransomware cases in 2019,” said Keith Wojcieszek, a former U.S. Secret Service agent and managing director of the cyber risk practice at Kroll, the New York cybersecurity firm that recently released survey findings on the issue.

“That number increased by 100% in 2020,” he added. “COVID-19 and work-from-home orders played a huge role in ransomware’s prevalence.”

Ransomware attacks computer systems and locks data with encryption. Hackers then demand payments to release the information — often sending news releases to media outlets or stock exchanges, “shaming” victims should they not pay.

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New FAA Drone Rules Raise Fears Among Operators, Hobbyists

By Christopher Adams

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recently announced final rules governing the use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), implementing changes to the agency’s Remote ID requirement and establishing policies regarding small, unmanned aircraft flying over people and operating at night.

While unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) commercial operators and hobbyists had been eager for these rules to become final — and the new ID regulation seems to be welcomed by the drone community — the changes have initiated some privacy concerns, experts told Digital Privacy News. 

The most alarming is the public availability of a drone operator’s location, which is under widespread attack by privacy advocates, as it could endanger the physical safety of UAV pilots.

“Now, the bigger implication for operators comes in the neighborhood of privacy — and this is a very serious concern,” said Ryan Latourette, director of regulatory affairs at Great Lakes Drone Co., based in Stevensville, Mich.

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Baltimore Grounds Police ‘Spy Planes’ as Court Battle Looms

By Hamil R. Harris

Privacy advocates are praising a decision by Baltimore city officials to deny funding to a controversial police aerial surveillance program — effectively killing the alleged crime-fighting weapon — but a federal court will decide the ultimate fate of the effort next month.

The five-member Baltimore City Board of Estimates voted unanimously last Wednesday to not renew the city’s contract with Ohio-based Persistent Surveillance Systems (PSS) because Baltimore Police Department officials said it was not conclusive that the program was effective.

“There is no doubt that Baltimore continues to suffer from a violence epidemic,” Democratic Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott told Digital Privacy News in a statement.

“However, unproven experiments and gimmicks designed to simply appease communities in the short term will not provide our residents with the coordinated strategy nor trauma-responsive care that they need and deserve.”

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Clearview’s Biometric Database Ruled ‘Illegal’ in Canada, EU

By Robert Bateman

Clearview AI’s biometric database was declared unlawful in Canada earlier this month, just a week after a similar decision by German regulators.

The New York-based tech firm has amassed a vast collection of more than three billion facial images by scraping publicly available data.

Clearview’s algorithmic software derives “faceprints” from these images, creating a trove of biometric information that is searchable by the company’s clients, including U.S. law-enforcement agencies.

In a Feb. 3 news release, announcing the outcome of a yearlong investigation, Canada’s Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC) concluded that Clearview’s practices represented “mass surveillance” and were “illegal.” 

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Q&A: Ames Grawert, Brennan Center for Justice

We Must Be ‘Serious About Giving People a Second Chance’

By Mary Pieper

Ames Grawert is senior counsel and the John L. Neu justice counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University Law School.

He is a coauthor of a recent study, “Conviction, Imprisonment and Lost Earnings: How Involvement with the Criminal Justice System Deepens Inequality.” 

The study describes how criminal convictions negatively affect an individual’s finances for a lifetime because of the stigma that prevents them from finding quality jobs.

Grawert told Digital Privacy News that those who have been convicted in the past must have the opportunity to make a new start.

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GDPR Fines Up 40% Last Year

By Robert Bateman

Penalties for breaching EU data-protection laws have increased by nearly 40% over the past 12 months, suggesting that the bloc is taking a tougher stance on privacy violations within its borders. 

But some experts told Digital Privacy News that the EU had some way to go before Europeans’ rights were protected adequately.

“Much of the talk before the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) took effect was about a penalty regime that allowed regulators to issue fines in the millions — and, in some cases, billions — of euros,” said Edward Machin, privacy and cybersecurity lawyer at Ropes and Gray in London.

“Those expecting large penalties straight out of the gate were disappointed, however, and the first 18 months of the GDPR’s life largely passed without event.

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Parents Allege Bias in Proctoring Technology

By Vaughn Cockayne

When Rafiq Kalam Id-Din II realized the extent of the use of proctoring technology at universities that he considered racially biased and invasive, he knew — as an educator, parent and person of color — he could no longer stay silent.

“This abrupt move to online caught everyone off guard,” Kalam Id-Din, who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., told Digital Privacy News. “Because in the pursuit of efficiency, people gave up true efficacy and empathy.”

Kalam Id-Din is the founder and managing partner of the Ember Charter Schools for Mindful Education, Innovation and Transformation in Brooklyn.

He is among 2,000 parents who joined recently with Fight for the Future, a Boston nonprofit digital-rights activist group, to call on McGraw Hill to end its relationship with the software maker, Proctorio.

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Experts: Amazon Pharmacy Poses Risks Due to Holes in HIPAA

By Maria Marabito

Amazon has launched its online pharmacy, Amazon Pharmacy, but experts told Digital Privacy News that the service could jeopardize user privacy — as federal HIPAA protections might fall short in safeguarding sensitive health information.

“Nothing requires Amazon to keep medical information private in the true sense of the word, because HIPAA authorizes broad sharing of data between health care entities and their business associates,” said Twila Brase, a registered nurse who is president and cofounder of the Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom (CCHF) in St. Paul, Minn.

“Thus, the promise of HIPAA is security after and during the data transfer.”

But Amazon said in its privacy policy that it must comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act because it involved protected health information.

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Q&A: Blogger Bruce Schneier

‘There Is No Appetite to Curtail Surveillance Capitalism’

By Jackson Chen

Last of two parts.

Bruce Schneier has penned an extensive collection of his musings on topics ranging from cryptography to encryption to digital-security issues to mass surveillance.

In “Data and Goliath” (2015) Schneier offered an extensive look at how governments and companies conduct mass surveillance and how it affects peoples’ daily lives.

In the last of a two-part interview, Schneier, 58, told Digital Privacy News that tech monopolies must be broken up to give customers better choices.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

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Q&A: Author Bruce Schneier

‘We Need to Think of Privacy as a Right and Not as Property’

By Jackson Chen

First of two parts.

Privacy is an essential part of how people act freely, according to Bruce Schneier, a security technologist who works with Harvard University, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Tor Project and others.

Schneier, 58, has been writing about security issues since 2004 — and, despite the rapid technological leaps since then, he remains current on crucial privacy issues.

In the years since, private companies have grown accustomed to gathering consumer data, while governments are finally starting to look at privacy regulation.

In the first of a two-part interview, Schneier told Digital Privacy News that one key principle must be understood by these organizations: Privacy is not property but a human right. 

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