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Privacynotes Digest
Security Protecting Privacy is Good for Business
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Published by: Mike Banks Valentine Privacynotes
privacy@privacynotes.com www.privacynotes.com
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January 23, 2003 Final Issue
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.....IN THIS DIGEST.....
// -- MODERATOR COMMENT -- //
Goodbyes
// -- PRIVACY NEWS -- //
"The Latest in Privacy Issues"
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// -- MODERATOR COMMENT -- //
I've enjoyed my stint immensely and hope to continue close monitoring
of Privacy issues, as I've always done, but will publish occasional
articles here at the PrivacyNotes site in the future instead.
I invite subscribers to stay in touch.
Farewell and keep informed, first by reading this week's Privacy
news links below!
Mike Banks Valentine
// -- PRIVACY NEWS -- //
Moderator note: There are two ways to access previously listed
privacy news stories. One is to visit Privacynotes archives, the
other (simpler) way is to visit
http://privacynotes.com/privacy_news.html
where I also keep a privacy news archive.
Senator Russ Feingold is introducing legislation that would
stop U.S. government data-mining activities directed at U.S. citizens
pending Congressional authorization. The bill targets the controversial
Total Information Awareness (TIA) program of the U.S. Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Senator Ron Wyden introduced
yesterday an amendment to an omnibus spending bill that would
suspend funding for TIA pending Congressional review. Nine organizations,
including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), ACLU, the
Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Center for Democracy
and Technology, and the Free Congress Foundation, sent a letter
opposing TIA to the leaders of the House Armed Services Committee
on Tuesday.
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/TIA/20030115_pr.php
RSA Security Inc. is developing an online identity management
technology that, for the first time, puts the control of personal
data in the hands of users. The technology, known as Nightingale,
is set to be unveiled at the RSA Conference in San Francisco in
April. With the system, users would store their personally identifiable
information on their local PC, likely in encrypted form, and grant
access to it on a site-by-site basis, according to company officials.
Users would then be able to give each site access to a subset
of their data, appropriate for whatever transaction they're looking
to conduct.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,837722,00.asp
If you're thinking of becoming a customer of Royal Bank of Canada,
be prepared to have your name cross-checked against a massive
database of money launderers, criminals and other suspicious individuals.
Canada's largest bank has quietly invested in a private U.S. database
firm created last year to conduct in-depth background checks on
new and existing financial clients. It's all part of a sector-wide
effort to crack down on fraud and comply with post-9/11 anti-terrorism
regulations, such as the U.S.A. Patriot Act. Privacy advocates
say the irony is that RDC aggregates public information to create
a private database that the public can't access. And with this
public information, RDC creates reports for its clients that the
public may not be allowed to check for inaccuracies.
http://makeashorterlink.com/?W20216723
As the tools of warfare generally outstrip the ability of medical
technology, so, too, has our ability to destroy privacy exceeded
the protections offered by the Constitution and the political
short-sightedness of Congress. And it is in the power, and is
therefore the ethical responsibility, of the IT community to slow
or even stop some of the worst excesses planned by Attorney General
John Ashcroft. It's also imperative that IT make its case for
privacy to our elected officials. Several initiatives are currently
in the works to stop the federal government's equally odious Total
Information Awareness program, and there should be more. Don't
be one of the people who helped make George Orwell's "1984" a
reality in 2003.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,835408,00.asp
Reflecting increased alarm about a Pentagon plan to find terrorists
by trolling the electronic records of all Americans, several senators
took steps Thursday to rein in the project and halt other ``data
mining'' efforts until Congress can review the implications on
civil liberties. Sens. Dianne Feinstein, Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii,
and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., drafted an amendment Thursday night to
the $390 billion federal spending bill now being considered by
Congress to temporary stop the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness
project.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/4969039.htm
The Growth of an American Surveillance Society." This report
grew out of our sense here at the ACLU that in order to make progress
on the privacy issue, we have to shift the terms of the debate.
When viewed in isolation, many new privacy invasions seem harmless
to many Americans, who don't see why they should care that (for
example) someone is recording the date and time that they drive
through a tollbooth. To understand the privacy issue one has to
look at the big picture to understand that each new piece of information
collected about us, no matter how seemingly harmless, is increasingly
being added together with thousands of other data points to create
an extremely intrusive, high-resolution picture of our lives.
http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacy.cfm?ID=11573&c=39
E-Loan's CEO is defying his industry, putting $1 million of
his own money into trying to qualify a privacy-protection initiative
for the California ballot. Chris Larsen thinks banks, credit card
companies and other financial services firms are shortsighted
when they fight efforts to strengthen protection of consumers'
personal financial information. In general, Larsen doesn't think
much of the financial services industry at all, predicting that
technology will eventually turn it into a dinosaur. So perhaps
it should be no surprise that Larsen, who happens to head an Internet-based
lending company, is defying his own industry by pumping $1 million
of his own money into a proposed initiative for 2004 aimed at
increasing consumer control over their data.
http://makeashorterlink.com/?J16426C13
SHOPPERS may want to think twice before indulging in another
carton of ice cream. The shopping cart might give them away.At
two California stores, in Moraga and Cameron Park, the Safeway
grocery chain is testing a cart that uses infrared tracking to
learn more about people's buying habits. Infrared sensors on the
cart and elsewhere in the store keep a record of customer movement,
even how long they linger in each aisle. "If you're in the produce
section, or the deli or frozen foods, it knows where you are,"
said Brian Dowling, a Safeway spokesman. Customers can swipe their
Safeway club card through a box mounted on the cart, which quickly
consults a database of recent purchases, Mr. Dowling said. He
added that customers liked the system because it offered savings
tailored to their needs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/16/technology/circuits/16safe.html
"If you're going to the cleaners, the P.D.A. will know when
you're getting close and can send a signal to let them know you'll
be pulling up so they can get your shirts," he said. "If you're
going home, it can automatically turn on the heat when you're
a mile away from the door." But he acknowledges that this type
of convenience comes with a potentially significant trade-off:
information about people's everyday movements can be very valuable.
"Our company is starting to get noticed, and after people looking
for jobs, the greatest number of calls we get are from people
who want to buy our data," Mr. Holzman said. "But that's not our
business. We don't store the data about where people go, and we
don't sell it."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/16/technology/circuits/16loca.html
http://www.darpa.mil/iao/iaotia.pdf
