The latest amateur surveillance and data mining story stars a suburban mom upset about the house being toilet-papered by area teens. She didn't want to involve the police, so she took the following steps: She canvassed local stores to see…
Category: Issues
Others Online: Opt-In Web Surveillance
A new service called Others Online makes obvious what Google Toolbar and other browser tools do in the background: track users web browsing activities. From their site: Others Online is a free toolbar that shows you people relevant to your…
Privacy-protected web search with Ixquick
In response to growing concerns over search engine privacy, the metasearch engine Ixquick has announced it will permanently delete all personal search details gleaned from its users from their log files. From their press release: As digital technology increasingly pervades…
More Amateur Surveillance: License Plate Scanning
We've seem to have recently turned a corner where advanced surveillance & data mining technologies are now increasingly marketed to everyday people. Wired News reports on a new vehicle license plate scanning and tracking that is being pitched to more…
Municipal WiFi is Coming, and Why Privacy Advocates Should Care
Graham Longford, a postdoc at the Community Wireless Infrastructure Research Project (CWIRP) at the University of Toronto, has contributed a nice essay on the privacy considerations of municipal wi-fi over at the On the Identity Trail blog. Graham notes many…
Read More Municipal WiFi is Coming, and Why Privacy Advocates Should Care
Driving may put toll on privacy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution features a nice article that pieces together many of the privacy concerns with new transportation technologies - a central focus of much of my research. The article notes the desire to use GPS to track vehicle movements…
NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant
I am pleased to announce that I have been awarded a Science & Society Dissertation Improvement Grant from the Division of Social and Economic Sciences of the National Science Foundation. This grant will support my dissertation research of the value…
Amnesty Blasts Google, Microsoft, Yahoo
Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have undermined the rights of Chinese to freedom of expression through their actions in China, according to Amnesty International."All three companies have, in one way or another, facilitated or colluded in the practice of censorship in…
YouTube’s new policy says “we own your content”
Recalling past issues surrounding MySpace's terms of service claiming ownership of user's uploaded content, it appears YouTube has updated their TOS with similar language. See the discussion at BoingBoing.
Spatial Data Privacy and the Law
The geospatial technology magazine, Directions Magazine, has an interesting article noting the growing privacy concerns facing the spatial technology industry, and the lack of legal guidance as to how the industry should protect a person's personally identifiable spatial (PIS) data.…
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