We need a privacy bill of rights
Who controls our data controls our lives.LinkIt's true. Whoever controls our data can decide whether we can get a bank loan, on an airplane or into a country. Or what sort of discount we get from a merchant, or even how we're treated by customer support. A potential employer can, illegally in the U.S., examine our medical data and decide whether or not to offer us a job. The police can mine our data and decide whether or not we're a terrorist risk. If a criminal can get hold of enough of our data, he can open credit cards in our names, siphon money out of our investment accounts, even sell our property. Identity theft is the ultimate proof that control of our data means control of our life.
We need to take back our data.
Our data is a part of us. It's intimate and personal, and we have basic rights to it. It should be protected from unwanted touch.
We need a comprehensive data privacy law. This law should protect all information about us, and not be limited merely to financial or health information. It should limit others' ability to buy and sell our information without our knowledge and consent. It should allow us to see information about us held by others, and correct any inaccuracies we find. It should prevent the government from going after our information without judicial oversight. It should enforce data deletion, and limit data collection, where necessary. And we need more than token penalties for deliberate violations.
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too late, we can't. For your children; multiply their identities
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated..."
I don't know why my medical data and banking data shouldn't be considered my "papers"
I'd just like habeas corpus back.
Like Takuan I am pessimistic but I don't think it's game over yet. Perhaps the fluidity of the internet will empower people. But there are some serious problems that seem to go beyond the current administration.
We really don't make the laws any more. Our congressmen and senators do not represent us, they serve powerful individuals and corporations.
On the other hand there are hopeful signs. The Netroots campaign is getting people into office. Those politicians are not beholden to special interests but to thousands who contributed $10 here or there to their coffers.
The GOP is also on it's way to a complete meltdown. This is a good thing not for Dems, but for the traditional conservatives. This fall I expect Dems to gain 50 seats in the House and 7 in the Senate. Maybe the GOP will decide to reassess it's "Southern Strategy" i.e pandering to racists and fundies and stage a comeback as a serious party instead of the laughing stock it is now.
On the other other hand there are some powerful mofo's at large. How "we" are going to demand anything I don't know.
Habeas Corpus can return you guys. It has been menaced away in the past (Alien and Sedition Acts? McCarthyism?) and edged back into play.
Come now, Takuan, Noen. Optimism.
That was optimism. Schneier Says:
we need more than token penalties for deliberate violations.
I don't see how that happens with out fundamental structural changes in the US. That isn't going to happen overnight. It will take a lot of people working over a long period. Fortunately there are people who understand what is needed and are working towards a better future. "Hope is only where despair is."
hear hear!
how about copyrighting all one's personal data, and then suing for copyright infringement?
Legislation requiring lots of data to be stored forever - every website visited, every email sent, every phone-call made by every person in the country - is just on the horizon here in the UK.
But who is the real winner from this personal information storage? Who is lobbying for it? Hedge your bets and invest in data archiving companies, folks!
Or rather, if we're effectively creating a huge subsidy for the IT industry, why not get them to do something useful rather than just store tons of data that can only leak and cause embarrassment, or be abused.
If I could get the government to make laws that forced other people to do stupid things that involved giving me money, I could probably overcome my conscience and lobby for it. This is why these systems get built. There is no overarching need for them.
There were about 30 terrorists caught since 9/11 in England, and one successful bombing and two failed attempts.
but in the UK, now "anti-terrorism" surveillance powers are used to check which primary school a particular kid goes to, what kinds of fish a fisherman catches, etc. etc.
It's the mission creep that I object to.
this is the song we need to sing.
this is the idea we need to find concrete steps for.
this is how we fight the current reality, by going around them and making them obsolete.
Trying to enforce a right to data-privacy is as useful as trying to enforce copyrights. It's not impossible anymore.
Important enough to warrant Constitutional Amendment in the USA. In Canada Right to Security of the Person probably enables the most crucial aspects of such a Right, but the Reform Party is trying to stack the Judiciary, so more clarity at a statutory level will be required from the Provinces and the Feds, seeing as Constitutional amendment in Canada ain't easy. Not that it's easy in the USA. No equal rights for woman you say? (Remember the ERA).
@PROTO OPUS #6:
how about copyrighting all one's personal data, and then suing for copyright infringement?
Hmm. While I think that may work as a distraction attack, I'm not sure that it will actually be effective. The way I understand it, a list of data is not covered by copyright - just the specific formatting. That's why phone books can proliferate. Since most of these companies that have our data either transcribed it, scanned/OCR'd it, or entered it in by hand the formatting is likely not the way it was when you last wrote it down. Plus there are all those pesky EULA-like things that one must sign for various services that give them the OK to keep/share one's data...
@TAKUAN #1:
too late, we can't. For your children; multiply their identities
I've seen this idea of "multiple identities" before. (Here on BoingBoing IIRC, but I can't find the thread.) What legal means are there for this sort of thing? My daughter is 15mo, I wouldn't mind laying the groundwork for her so she can better protect herself in the future. Heck, I wouldn't mind a few for myself!
Later,
-cajun
I'm a little unclear on what, exactly, one's "data" is. If your data is protected, can I write about you in my newspaper? What if I write about something you don't want others to know about? Where do we draw the lines about what "data" you rightly control? We certainly need to protect ourselves from the kinds of thefts and frauds associated with identity theft, but I'm skeptical about any blanket right to privacy. As a society, we can probably find our way to creating some sorts of privacy protections, but my gut wants to err on the side of openness.
Who controls data? Google controls data, and lots of it. Someone always controls the data, and it's unrealistic to think our government isn't going to take advantage of the technology that will allow for better data. If this Bill of Rights includes a Citizen Oversight of the data, fine. And if Citizen Oversight is an elected position/s, and declared a separate branch of government, fine. Because then it won't be in any great hurry to provide data on private citizens to law enforcement unless law enforcement can make a very strong case for receiving privileged information. Greg Bear: Queen of Angles.
If your data is protected, can I write about you in my newspaper?
Do you want the notes from your therapy sessions in the paper? Details of your penile enlargement product purchases? Your child's bad report card? Where did the idea come from that freedom of the press means the ability to publicly vivisect people for the enjoyment of others? Why is one person's nosiness (and that's all it is) more important than another person's quiet enjoyment of life?
There's an easy fix: pee in the information pool.
Add noise to the signal whenever you can.
Every time you have the opportunity to volunteer information, give false information.
Every time you are compelled to give true information, give truthful but irrelevant information.
If you can't avoid telling the truth, add enough false detail to it to make it a half-truth.
If you can't avoid telling nothing but the truth, at least make it sound like a lie.
Do silly and outrageous things that people will doubt when you tell them.
Play stupid, pretend you don't understand the question, and answer it wrong. Apologize for your error, then answer it wrong again.
Forget things.
Surf the net on your neighbour's open wi-fi. Open your wi-fi for your neighbour's use.
Use your credit cards to do the shopping for all the seniors and shut-ins on your street.
Join every political party that you can find.
Help your friends too -- tell false (but not incriminating) stories about them. Encourage them to do the same for you.
Other sugggestions?
As far as therapy sessions go, psychoanalysts have told me how they get around sharing patient data.
The only way data from a psychology session can be seen by anyone outside a consult with another doctor is through a court order if the patient is brought to trial over something. It's very unlikely, but if this happens, you legally must provide the info, but doing so will almost certainly mean the patient will never come to you again. So many psychoanalysts either keep two sets of notes--one clean and one with all the details--or no notes at all, to guard against that sort of eventuality, since properly a therapist should have the same rights as a family member, not to testify against his or her patient.
Imagine my surprise when I caught a glance at my NHS file a few years ago and saw it written down I used to live in a squat. To this day I have no idea where they got that information.
The paranoid scenario is the police were keeping track of people who lived in squats, and corroborated their data with NHS files, which they legally can do. But even if that were true, why would they give information to the NHS?
The only reasonable solution I can think of, and it still isn't all that reasonable, is someone at the NHS happened by my listed address and saw it was squatted. Why they would bother looking up and editing my file, still no idea.
Anyway, given that seemingly anyone can get at an NHS file, I certainly want to know what's in mine.
Complete transparency. Pass laws that require the government and corps to open up their data on you. You and everyone else has the right to see that data. If that's too much then make it like your credit report where you can see what they have if you want. But you get the see everything they have on you. None of this "sources and methods bullshit.
This would have to be immune from the politicizing we've seen in this admin. That's the more immediate problem. Bush has quite literally destroyed the Justice Dept. and packed it with his toadies. It isn't a Dem vs GOP thing, it's different this time. Bush managed to destroy the trust everyone had that regardless of party, if you were in Justice you worked toward a common set of goal. That is gone now. This needs to be fixed before anything else. It is the number one priority of the next admim. This is why it is so important that McCain not be elected, otherwise our country is well and truly done for.
Interestingly, if you request to see your credit file, the fact that you did so becomes another part of your credit file. Too many inquiries into your credit file in too brief a time frame, and you become a credit risk.
Interesting story: I worked for the ad agency employed by a certain charge card company to promote the launch of their first credit card. (A "charge card" is one you pay off each month, while a "credit card" lets you carry a balance of debt.)
The company planned to promote the credit card to their existing charge card customers, but wanted to weed out the possible bad credit risks first. They performed a mass credit check on their customer file and ferreted out the 1-2% who were too risky. Then the launch was delayed for a few weeks.
When it was time again to launch, the company chose to perform another credit check on their customer file, just to be safe. This time, 10% of their customers turned out to be bad credit risks. "Whew!" thought the company, "Good call!" Then the launch was delayed again.
A few weeks later, it was finally time to launch and, you guessed it, the company chose to perform a third credit check on their customer file in as many months. This time, over 90% of their customers showed up as bad credit risks.
Only then the company realized what it had done. Each credit check they performed was noted in the customers' credit files and, by adding three such notations to their customers' files, they made it look as if all their customers were seeking more debt than they could be expected to handle. The company had single-handedly ruined their own customers' credit ratings for the next 6-12 months.
Too bad if any of them had wanted to buy a house in that period.
I killed my credit about seven years ago by making too many inquiries. It dropped about a hundred points. It used to take forever to come back up. Now the turn around is much faster for restoring credit check credits. Funny thing. The combined limits of my four credit cards is fifteen times my annual income. I really need to keep my data private.
A few years back, I got a form letter from Amex telling me, "Congratulations! You are eligible for our new feature that allows you to pay some charges over time like a credit card". I never used the feature, and about two months later, I got a stern form letter telling me "You are no longer eligible for the pay over time feature, due to negative information in your credit report. You have been turned down for the following reason: Too many credit inquiries".
I checked my credit, and the only inquiries were the one that Amex made before offering me the completely unwanted feature, and the one that they'd made before taking it away.
We are ruled by morons.
@#22
Yes, indeed, that "certain charge card company" I wrote about was Amex. You were one of a few million Amex customers they did this to.