Privacy Has Its Roots in Outrage

By C.J. Thompson

Nabiha Syed is a media attorney and president of The Markup, an independent news website dedicated to illuminating concerning privacy issues.

“Part of our mission is to help people understand exactly how their privacy is being affected by technology,” she told Digital Privacy News.

The need for new privacy laws and regulation are primary components of a landscape that has never been more complex, cluttered — and, in many ways — cloaked.

But Syed remains encouraged by the current wave of public activism, as it is exactly what’s needed to provoke meaningful privacy protections. 

Continue reading “Q&A: The Markup’s Nabiha Syed” →

The Public Needs to Know Where Their Data Has Been

By Emilie Rodriguez

The Adobe data breach occurred in October 2013, the largest known at the time. Hackers exposed user account information, created a source code leak, and stole nearly 3 million encrypted customer credit card records.

An estimated 38 million users were affected.

After the incident, Troy Hunt, an Australian internet security professional, started the website “Have I Been Pwned” (HIBP).

Continue reading “Q&A: HIBP’s Troy Hunt” →

Privacy and Encryption Make Us Safer

By Jeff Benson

Last of two parts.

Sen. Ron Wyden is well aware that Washington isn’t monolithic.

The legislator works in a capital city stacked with regulatory bodies and law-enforcement agencies with their own agendas.

In today’s Digital Privacy News interview, the senior senator from Oregon discusses pushing the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to crack down on shady data brokers, the debate over creating encryption backdoors for the FBI — and why government agencies shouldn’t be able to buy personal data they’d otherwise need a warrant to get.

Continue reading “Q&A: Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.” →

‘There Really Is an Opportunity to Pass Meaningful Privacy Legislation’

By Jeff Benson

First of two parts.

Sen. Ron Wyden moved from the U.S. House of Representatives to the Senate in 1996 on the most analog of agendas: He was a big proponent of wood products, an industry that forested Oregon dominated.

Yet his move coincided with the advent of the digital age.

Before his House term ended, he crafted what became known as Section 230, which gave websites the power to moderate user-generated content while protecting them from libel laws applicable to newspapers.

The law helped turn internet companies into big business.

Now, Wyden is grappling with how to keep Big Tech from abusing citizens’ privacy.

Last year, he introduced the Mind Your Own Business Act, which would hold big-tech companies responsible for protecting users’ personal data — and impose criminal penalties for CEOs who lie to Congress or regulators about privacy.

Continue reading “Q&A: Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.” →

Your Social Security Number Isn’t a Secret

By Lisa Rabasca Roepe

After roughly half of Americans’ Social Security numbers were compromised in the 2017 Equifax breach, Jeremy Grant, founder of the industry group, the Better Identity Coalition, proposed a way to stop identity theft.

His plan: Tell banks and credit agencies to stop using Social Security numbers to authenticate individual identity.

Instead, government agencies, such as state motor-vehicle departments or the Social Security Administration, could confirm a person’s identity — at the individual’s request. 

Continue reading “Q&A: Better Identity Coalition’s Jeremy Grant” →

Face Technology Could Stymie First Amendment-Protected Activities

By C.J. Thompson

“You are probably in a criminal face-recognition network,” is a chilling statement from “The Perpetual Line-Up: Unregulated Police Face Recognition in America,” a 2016 report by the Center on Privacy & Technology at the Georgetown University School of Law.

Given the high participation and law-enforcement surveillance at recent demonstrations against police brutality, the statement likely is true now for even more people.

As the report documented, facial-recognition regulation is spotty to nonexistent across the growing number of police departments that employ it.

The document included 30 recommendations that have served as a reference for lawmakers as demands for regulation and oversight have increased.

Continue reading “Q&A: Georgetown Law’s Clare Garvie” →

How Your Death Affects Your Privacy

By Bree Brouwer

Speaker and psychologist Elaine Kasket is a longtime scholar of death in the digital age.

Her recent book — “All the Ghosts in the Machine: The Digital Afterlife of Your Personal Data” — addresses modern privacy challenges from birth to beyond death.

Kasket told Digital Privacy News that privacy proponents should know everything possible about their digital afterlife and how to manage it.

Continue reading “Q&A: Psychologist Elaine Kasket” →