Network surveillance is a persistent issue that privacy advocates warn about on a regular basis. In the face of Edward Snowden’s disclosures, the public has often been concerned about how, when, and why corporations disclose information to policing, security, and intelligence services. Codenamed projects like PRISM, NUCLEON, and MAINWAY, combined with the shadowy nature of how data is collected and used, makes Snowden’s very serious revelations a hot topic to talk, write, and think about.

However, it’s important to recognize that the corporations that are entrusted with significant amounts of our personal information often independently analyze and process our information in ways that we don’t expect. In this post I discuss a patent that AT&T received a little over a year ago to analyze the personal communications of its subscribers to catch instances of copyright infringement. I begin by outlining providing information concerning AT&T’s patent. From there, I discuss other companies’ efforts to develop and deploy similar systems in Europe to shed more light on how AT&T’s system might work. This post concludes by considering a range of reasons that might have driven AT&T to file for their patent, and notes why it’s important to place patents within the broader policy ecosystem that telecommunications companies operate within instead of analyzing such patents in isolation. Continue reading →