Most people don’t understand privacy, and that’s a huge opportunity for design; Fast Company, October 9, 2019

Mark Wilson, Fast Company; Most people don’t understand privacy, and that’s a huge opportunity for design

New research highlights just how clueless we are when it comes to digital privacy. It’s time for companies to step up and fill in the gaps.

 

"About half of Americans don’t even recognize that privacy policies are a binding contract between websites and their users in the first place.

The findings come courtesy of a new report by Pew Research, which polled 4,727 U.S. adults with a straightforward, 10-question test. It checked for basic knowledge about phishing, online advertising, and cookies. Only 20% of people answered 7 of 10 questions correctly. Just as devastating? Only 2% of people got all 10 questions right...

It’s easy to blame people in these situations. Get educated about technology already! Learn your privacy rights! Isn’t it obvious all that legalese constitutes a binding contract? But the fact is, people are pretty smart when given the right opportunity. Everyone you know understands, more or less, how to use relatively complicated platforms like email and social media. They understand both how to pull the levers and what those levers do. What they don’t understand is who might be watching those levers being pulled, why they’re allowed to be watching, and for what purpose they are watching in the first place."

'Tracking every place you go': Weather Channel app accused of selling user data; Associated Press via The Guardian, January 4, 2019

Associated Press via The Guardian; 'Tracking every place you go': Weather Channel app accused of selling user data

"“Think how Orwellian it feels to live in a world where a private company is tracking potentially every place you go, every minute of every day,” Feuer said. “If you want to sacrifice to that company that information, you sure ought to be doing it with clear advanced notice of what’s at stake.”

A spokesman for IBM, which owns the app, said it had always been clear about the use of location data collected from users and will vigorously defend its “fully appropriate” disclosures."

Why you’re getting so many emails about privacy policies; Vox, May 24, 2018

Emily Stewart, Vox; Why you’re getting so many emails about privacy policies

"The United States hasn’t given up its seat on the table, but it could certainly take a bigger role than it has in order to ensure that other countries, when they do implement regulations on tech and information, aren’t going too far.

“People are concerned about privacy, hate speech, disinformation, and we aren’t leading on solutions to these concerns that would at the same time preserve the free flow of information,” Kornbluh said. “You don’t want some governments saying, ‘We’re combating fake news,’ and compromising human rights.”"

Teaching Machines to Understand – and Summarize – Privacy Legalese; The Conversation US via Scientific American, June 24, 2017

Karuna Pande Joshi, Tim Finin, The Conversation US via Scientific American; Teaching Machines to Understand – and Summarize – Privacy Legalese

"As computer science researchers, we are working on ways artificial intelligence algorithms could digest these massive texts and extract their meaning, presenting it in terms regular people can understand."

IoT Devices Becoming More Important in Criminal Investigations; Inside Counsel, June 1, 2017

Amanda Ciccatelli, Inside Counsel; IoT Devices Becoming More Important in Criminal Investigations

"In addition, an area of the law which will evolve because of IoT being utilized in court is privacy law. Fitbit's privacy policies clearly state that they will cooperate with a legal subpoena or warrant. Moreover, they outline that user’s information will be stored unless the account is completely closed, and even then, the information will only be destroyed per the company's regular maintenance schedule. Accordingly, users have consented to this application.

She explained, “Users of IoT need be cognizant of the fact that these very personal devices, worn by us every minute of the day or listening in our homes, come at a very real privacy cost…If IoT is in use, users must balance the risk that their data will be used in court."

How to Protect Your Privacy as More Apps Harvest Your Data; New York Times, May 1, 2017

Brian X. Chen, New York Times; How to Protect Your Privacy as More Apps Harvest Your Data

"Opt out for good

Deleting your app from your phone or computer often isn’t enough. You’ll remove data from the device itself, but not from the company’s servers.

If you’ve lost trust in a company, make the cleanest break possible: Delete your account. In the case of an app like Uber, for example, you can submit a request on the company’s website to have your account deleted. Similarly, with Unroll.me, you can log in to the site and click through the settings to delete your account.

Even after doing that, you will have to reconcile with the idea that the company will probably hold on to the information you have already shared.

“Data you’ve provided to the service as part of using the service is data that they can store and continue to use,” Ms. Sandvik said. “It falls under the terms of service.”

Unroll.me head 'heartbroken' that users found out it sells their inbox data; Guardian, April 24, 2017

Alex Hern, Guardian; 

Unroll.me head 'heartbroken' that users found out it sells their inbox data

"Following the story, Unroll.me’s CEO and co-founder Jojo Hedaya wrote a corporate blogpost in which he expressed contrition. But while he said it was “heartbreaking”, he was not talking about the sale of customer data: instead, he said he felt bad “to see that some of our users were upset to learn about how we monetise our free service”.

He added: “the reality is most of us – myself included – don’t take the time to thoroughly review” terms of service agreements or privacy policies."

Pennsylvania bills aim to protect students’ data; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10/14/15

Rich Lord, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Pennsylvania bills aim to protect students’ data:

"The introduction follows by two months the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s series on student data privacy, which showed that most of the state’s largest districts did not control the flow of their kids’ information through education technology companies. Fewer than half of the districts’ vendors publicly outlined their policies for deleting student data or pledged to protect it in a merger or bankruptcy, and just 10 of 143 promised to report any breach.

The bills wouldn’t ban apps like the poster-making program Glogster, which markets to teachers and indicates in its privacy policy that it may share “personal information” with “consumer products, telecom, financial, military, market research, entertainment, and educational services companies and their third party service providers.” But the districts would first need to notify parents, who could say no."

Listen to Pandora, and It Listens Back; New York Times, 1/4/14

Natasha Singer, New York Times; Listen to Pandora, and It Listens Back: "People’s music, movie or book choices may reveal much more than commercial likes and dislikes. Certain product or cultural preferences can give glimpses into consumers’ political beliefs, religious faith, sexual orientation or other intimate issues. That means many organizations now are not merely collecting details about where we go and what we buy, but are also making inferences about who we are. “I would guess, looking at music choices, you could probably predict with high accuracy a person’s worldview,” says Vitaly Shmatikov, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin, where he studies computer security and privacy. “You might be able to predict people’s stance on issues like gun control or the environment because there are bands and music tracks that do express strong positions.”... In its privacy policy, Pandora describes the types of information it collects about users and the purposes — music personalization and ad customization — for which the information may be employed. Although users may elect to pay $36 annually to opt out of receiving ads, advertising on the free service accounts for the bulk of Pandora’s revenue. Out of $427.1 million in revenue in the 2013 fiscal year, advertising generated $375.2 million. Pandora’s inferences about individuals become more discerning as time goes on. How we think about the ethics and accuracy of algorithms is another matter. “I’m optimistic that the benefits to society will outweigh the risks,” Professor Shmatikov says. “But our attitudes will have to evolve to understand that now everybody knows more about who we are.”"