Iran uses surveillance tech to enforce the hijab law, while Tesla captures and analyzes highly personal footage from its vehicle cameras.
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It’s no secret that many companies and governments try to collect as much personal information as possible. This might be because they believe this will improve the results of their analyses, or simply “just in case” they need something at a later date. According to a new paper from the digital rights organization, Access Now, … Continue reading “How data minimization can protect privacy and reduce the harms of collecting personal information”
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Trying to detect welfare fraud, where people claim benefits they are not entitled to, is not new. Nor is it unreasonable: taxpayers rightly want to know that their money is going to those who truly need it. But a natural tendency by the authorities to turn to computers to help with the process of spotting … Continue reading “Algorithmic bias: how automated decision making has become an assault on privacy – and what to do about it”
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This blog has written a number of times about the growing threat that low-cost, rapid DNA sequencing represents for privacy. The increased use of genetic material by the police to identify suspects poses particular problems. A recent case in the US involving a DNA sample raises a new issue. Because of its importance, both the … Continue reading “Code is law: why software openness and algorithmic transparency are vital for privacy”
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Back in 2017, Privacy News Online wrote about a massive police system being built in China that would allow “predictive policing” – the ability to spot criminals before they even commit a crime. As we warned then, China often turns out to provide an early glimpse of what will later happen in the West, and … Continue reading “AI-based predictive policing systems widely used in US and UK, despite concerns about privacy, and flaws in the approach”
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For all the theoretical concerns about the limitations of facial recognition systems, there’s nothing like personal experience to hammer the point home. That was confirmed recently when the ACLU ran an interesting experiment using Amazon’s cloud-based Rekognition system, which Privacy News Online discussed a couple of months back: Using Rekognition, we built a face database … Continue reading “US politicians discover personally the pitfalls of facial recognition: is it time to ban it completely?”
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Last week, Privacy News Online reported on a worrying trend of increased surveillance in the workplace. This kind of spying includes capturing every keystroke workers make. The practice is regarded in many jurisdictions as acceptable because people are working on equipment provided by their employer, and use it to carry out tasks for the company … Continue reading “The latest threat to your online privacy: exfiltration of personal data by website session-replay scripts”
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