We’re all being tracked all the time. Is it necessary?
Can we be connected without being constantly detected?
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is probably the greatest warrior in the U.S. fighting to protect your privacy. Its legions of lawyers and computer experts are constantly sifting through company policies and government legislation to see how our privacy is being compromised.
The non-profit organization’s latest battle cry is “the need for locational privacy.” It defines it as “the ability of an individual to move in public space with the expectation that under normal circumstances their location will not be systematically and secretly recorded for later use.”
The EFF released a report this week about our locational privacy and “how to avoid losing it forever:”
Innovative new technologies can make it easier to pay your bridge toll or bus fare, to search for nearby businesses from your cell phone, and to get in and out of secure areas with a card instead of a key. But these systems also pose a dramatic threat to locational privacy — your ability to move in public spaces without the systematic recording of where you are and when you are there.
In a report released today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) documents how your location information is collected by various popular electronic devices and services, and argues for concrete technological solutions that would allow you to enjoy these systems’ benefits without sacrificing your privacy in your everyday life.
via Who Knows Where You Are, And Why? | Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Get the benefits without the sacrifices? Sounds good to me!
Wired Magazine’s Threat Level blog sums up the main locational privacy threats:
* Monthly transit swipe-cards.
* Electronic tolling devices (FastTrak, EZpass, congestion pricing)
* Cellphones.
* Services telling you when your friends are nearby.
* Searches on your PDA for services and businesses near your current location.
* Free Wi-Fi with ads for businesses near the network access point you’re using
* Electronic swipe cards for doors.
* Parking meters you can call to add money to, and which send you a text message when your time is running out.
via Digitized Stalking Is the New World Order | Threat Level | Wired.com.
We leave traces of ourselves behind constantly, thanks to all the convenient digital devices we use. I am in big favor of convenience, and am willing to give up a bit of privacy in order to find the best dumpling place in my area. But if we can have both privacy AND convenience AND amazing dumplings, well, that sounds just super. The EFF says we can:
“The technical solution to preserving privacy in digital services lies in modern cryptography and careful design,” said Stanford University mathematician Andrew J. Blumberg, the white paper’s other co-writer. “It may seem counterintuitive, but using cryptography, these systems can function without collecting and storing personal data at all. The best way for systems to protect user data is not to collect it in the first place; then the information is not available for anyone to buy, steal, or obtain by subpoena — it would stay truly private.”
Read the full EFF research paper here.
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- Digitized Stalking Is the New World Order (wired.com)
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I’d be really worried if tollbooths only accepted FastTrak – if you can opt out of convenience in order to get your privacy, that seems like a fair deal. But any cell phone user who thinks that they can’t be tracked at any time is kidding themselves. If you don’t want the phone company to know where you are, turn off your phone!
A lot of current & former Berkmanites work at crazy-important digital watchdog tanks like the EFF. Few recognize just how heavy the work by dot orgs like the Internet Archive, Citizen Media Law, Joel Fights Back, etc. are. But it’s like I’ve been saying for two years now in their comments sections–put tech hippies in charge of your communications, and none but tech hippies will know or care you exist.
Also, re: EFF
They have an assortment of sssssick CC-licensed logos here: http://www.eff.org/press/logos
And “Deeplinks” is one of my favorite blog names on the net.
One more cache of sweet EFF-related logos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hughelectronic/
You don’t need to keep your phone on, just when you change locations, for “them” to know where you are. OTOH, be relieved that unless you’re interesting or famous, there’s too much cell data out there to make much sense of it for the general population. Not that basing our privacy on limitations in technology is a good thing, but it’s the way it’s been so far.