Michael Zimmer.org

A couple of stories popped up on my radar this morning related to cellphone privacy:

The New York Times has a story on advertisers increasingly collecting behavioral and locational data from consumers’ cellphone activities: “Advertisers Get a Trove of Clues in Smartphones”.
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society recently hosted a talk by Albert Gidari, a partner at Perkins Coie, on the legal dimensions of cellphone tracking: “They Know Where You Are: Location Privacy in a Mobile World” (webcast) (David Weinberger’s liveblog)

This week, Google launched Google Latitude, a new Google Maps feature that lets users share location data with friends, using either a mobile phone or through an interface on iGoogle. (see how it works here)
Unsurprisingly, concerns have arisen regarding the privacy implications of Latitude, and I, of course, have taken issue in the past with Google’s approach to (not) protecting locational privacy (as well as cellphone tracking in general).
But this time, I think Google got it right, and designed Latitude with user privacy in mind.
Here’s a quick rundown …

Following up, the DVD for the hit action/thriller movie “Eagle Eye” has been released. The second disc of the 2-disc special edition includes the commentary “Is My Cellphone Spying on Me?”, featuring reflections on technology and surveillance by the actors and producers of the film, Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Clearinghouse, and myself.
And, yes, I talk to fast when I get excited about a topic.

This post is a bleg:
I’ve been asked to film an interview that will accompany the DVD bonus material for the forthcoming (Steven Spielberg produced) action/thriller movie “Eagle Eye,” which features sophisticated surveillance technologies as one of its plot devices. The topic for the interview will be cellphone surveillance.
I’ve discussed the topic on occassion here, but am seeking any references readers might have at hand that might help me organize my thoughts on the topic.
Thanks.

[This thought piece appears on the On The Identity Trail project's blog, blog*on*nymity. Thanks to the amazing folks there for the (second) invitation to contribute to the project. -mz]
This post is an attempt to collect and organize some thoughts on how the rise of so-called Web 2.0 technologies bear on privacy and surveillance studies. After presenting a few examples of unintended consequences of Web 2.0 that bear on privacy and surveillance, I will introduce the term “netaveillance,” which might provide a useful concept around which a more robust theory of …

The Montreal Gazette has a feature story on how the combination of cellphone cameras and the World Wide Web has resulting in the rise of “cyber-shaming” – a new kind of public shaming for wrongdoers, from litterbugs and bad drivers to negligent nannies:
Hey you, the scofflaw parked illegally in the handicapped spot. Smile! You’re in cyberspace. And that goes for all you other wrongdoers out there: the jerk parked in a bike lane, the flasher on the metro, the negligent nanny, the litterbug, the loud-mouth cellphone user and the reckless …

MIT’s Technology Review has a brief article about advances in zoom technology for cellphone cameras. This adds a new dimension to the privacy and surveillance threats cellphone cameras pose.
We experienced a major advancement in camera zoom technology around the turn of the century, which spurred Warren & Brandeis to write their seminal article “The Right to Privacy.” As the sophistication of mobile and networked cameras continues to rise, what will our answer be?

I’ve been meaning to blog about the discussion at Concurring Opinions regarding the rise of “cyber-shaming” – the act of posting online elements of seemingly private conversations or events that you happened to overhear or witness. Examples include the posting of details of annoying cellphone calls overheard, uploading of cellphone camera images of men who expose themselves on subways, or blogs dedicated to posting stories and images of men who harrass women in public. New York City has recently announced that it will equip 911 emergency centers to receive digital …

The NY Times has a feature today on the prevalence of GPS-enabled cell phones for the surveillance of one’s kids. (Boost Mobile [page has audio] has also been pitching their GPS tracking features to adults so you can “know where your friends are at.”)
Unfortunately I’m much too busy writing the diss to provide any nuanced reaction (I’ll link to related posts below the jump). Suffice it to say that the word “privacy” does not appear in the Times article.

There has been a spurt of media attention paid to the privacy and surveillance concerns of GPS enabled cellphones:

GPS Surveillance Creeps into Daily Life (New Standard)
Cellphone as Tracker: X Marks Your Doubts (New York Times)
Phone service allows people to track their friends (San Francisco Chronicle)

I don’t have a lot of time to comment right now, but this excerpt from the New Standard article sums up much of my concern:
Koroknay-Palicz also sees long-term consequences of this monitoring.
“If we raise kids with no expectation of privacy, then they’re going to become …

On the heels of Microsoft’s recent release of privacy guidelines for software developers, here’s an excellent example of another company working with privacy scholars to try to protect end-user privacy when using location-based mobile devices. From ComptuerWorld:
Intel Drafts Privacy License for Mobile Device Software
Intel Corp. has attached a privacy license to its new location-aware software product, intended to protect cell phone users’ personal information as mobile devices increasingly rely on tracking technology to provide targeted services.
Installed on a smart phone or ultramobile PC, location-aware software can use GPS (Global Positioning …

The rise of camera phones, blogs and photo sharing sites like Flickr means people are frequently taking pictures of complete strangers in public places and posting them on the web. A reader asks Wired magazine if that’s a violation of privacy:
I sometimes snap pictures of strangers and post them on my blog and Flickr. Could I get into legal trouble for violating their privacy?
Snap away, shutterbug. As long as your subjects don’t have a “reasonable expectation of privacy” – meaning they’re not somewhere they’d never expect a camera to be …

Sprint recently launched its Family Locator cellphone tracking program, entering the growing market of GPS-based cellphone surveillance products. Sprint has apparently engaged in value-sensitive design of this service: The child is notified by a text message each time his or her location is provided to the parent or guardian. This level of transparency is absent from most other tracking systems.
[via Pogo Was Right]

The Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University publishes a biweekly news magazine called NYC24. The current issue is on privacy:
With 8 million people crammed into 321 square miles, privacy in New York City has always been a rare – and much valued – commodity. Now this basic right is being constricted by the onslaught of 21st Century technology. Faster, lighter, smaller and cheaper equipment have made it simple for even the most average Joe to access private information.
Electronic chips smaller than a dime that track your movements without …

Examples of surveillance and tracking via cellphone are emerging at a rapid pace lately. Business Week reports on several cell-phone tracking services available in Korea. According to the article, more than four million Koreans have signed up for services that can determine and track a cellular subscriber’s location. Some of the applications are quite interesting from a social networking and parental control perspective:
One [service], costing $3 per month, will send a message with your coordinates to friends and family periodically while you’re traveling. Another will automatically dispatch a text message …