Privacy

Forgetting, Non-Forgetting and Quasi-Forgetting in Social Networking

/ Christopher Parsons

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For the past several months I’ve been conducting research with academics at the University of Victoria to understand the relationship(s) between social networking companies’ data access, retention, and disclosure policies. One element of of this research has involved testing whether these networks comply with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act; do social networks provide subscribers access to their personal data when a subscriber asks? Another element has involved evaluating the privacy policies of major social networks: how do these companies understand access, retention, and disclosure of subscriber data? We’ve also been investigating how law enforcement agencies access, and use, data from social networking companies. This research has been supported by funding provided through the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s contributions program. All our research has been conducted independently of the Office and none of our findings necessarily reflect the Commissioner’s positions.

Colin Bennett presented a draft of one of the academic papers emergent from this research, titled “Forgetting, Non-Forgetting and Quasi-Forgetting in Social Networking: Canadian Policy and Corporate Practices.” It was given at the 2013 Computers, Privacy and Data Protection Conference. Below is the abstract of the paper, as well as a link to the Social Science Research Network site that is hosting the paper.

Abstract:

In this paper we analyze some of the practical realities around deleting personal data on social networks with respect to the Canadian regime of privacy protection. We first discuss the extent to which the European right to be forgotten is, and is not, reflected in Canadian privacy law, in regulation, and in the decisions of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. After outlining the limitations of Canadian law we turn to corporate organizational practices. Our analyses of social networking sites’ privacy policies reveal how poorly companies recognize the right to be forgotten in their existing privacy commitments and practices. Next, we turn to Law Enforcement Authorities (LEAs) and how their practices challenge the right because of LEAs’ own capture, processing, and retention of social networking information. We conclude by identifying lessons from the Canadian experience and raising them against the intense transatlantic struggle over the scope of the new Draft Regulation.

Download paper at SSRN (Download from alternate source)

How To Get Your Personal Information From Social Networks

/ Christopher Parsons / 5 Comments

Photo by Evan Long

Canadian news routinely highlights the ‘dangers’ that can be associated with social networking companies collecting and storing information about Canadian citizens. Stories and articles regularly discuss how hackers can misuse your personal information, how companies store ‘everything’ about you, and how collected data is disclosed to unscrupulous third parties. While many of these stories are accurate, insofar as they cover specific instances of harm and risky behaviour, they tend to lack an important next step; they rarely explain how Canadians can get educated on data collection, retention, and disclosure processes.

Let’s be honest: any next step has to be reasonable. Expecting Canadians to flee social media en masse and return to letter writing isn’t an acceptable (or, really, an appropriate) response. Similarly, saying “tighten your privacy controls” or “be careful what you post” are of modest value, at best; many Canadians are realizing that tightening their privacy controls does little when the companies can (and do) change their privacy settings without any notice. This post is inspired by a different next step. Rather than being inspired by fear emergent from ‘the sky is falling’ news stories, what if you were inspired by knowledge that you, yourself, gained? In what follows I walk you through how to compel social networking companies to disclose what information they have about you. In the process of filing these requests you’ll learn a lot more about being a member of these social networking services and, based on what you learn, can decide whether you want to change your involvement with particular social media companies.

I start by explaining why Canadians have a legal right to compel companies to disclose and make available the information that they retain about Canadian citizens. I then provide a template letter that you can send to social networking organizations with which you have a preexisting relationship. This template is, in effect, a tool that you can use to compel companies to disclose your personal information. After providing the template I explain the significance of some of the items contained in it. Next, I outline some of the difficulties or challenges you might have in requesting your personal information and a few ways to counteract those problems. Finally, I explain how you can complain if a company does not meet its legal obligation to provide you with a copy of your personal information. By the end of this post, you’ll have everything you need to request your personal information from the social networking services to which you subscribe. Continue reading →

Checking the Numbers Behind BC CareCard Fraud

/ Christopher Parsons / 1 Comment

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On January 7, 2013, the British Columbia government (re)announced that the province’s new identity card, the BC Services Card, would be arriving on February 15, 2013. To date, the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia has not released her analysis of the Services Card. To date, the provincial government has been particularly recalcitrant in releasing any information about the cards short of press releases. Though members of civil society are concerned about the card it remains unclear whether they can mobilize to effectively delay or stop the card: indeed, this lack of capacity is something that is explicitly recognized in government documents that were released by ICBC.

This will be the first of a few posts on the proposed Services Card. In aggregate, the posts will examine pragmatic (e.g. fraud, security, biometric privacy) and principled (access to information problems, lack of democratic discussion surrounding the cards, secret usage of citizens’ data, function creep) criticisms of the Services Card. This particular post examines the government’s misleading claims surrounding CareCard fraud. Specifically, I interrogate the government’s assertion that there are many more CareCards in circulation than there are residents and statements that fraud presently costs the province $260 million/year or more. I conclude by stating that the government ought to clearly tell citizens what is driving the cards, given that the primary driver is almost certainly not medical fraud.

Continue reading →

Brief: Social Networking and Canadian Privacy Law

/ Christopher Parsons

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Last year I was invited to submit a brief to the Canadian Parliament’s Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Committee. For my submission (.pdf), I tried to capture some of of the preliminary research findings that have been derived from social media and surveillance project I’m co-investigating with Colin Bennett. Specifically, the brief focuses on questions of jurisdiction, data retention, and data disclosure in the context of social media use in Canada. The ultimate aim of the submission was to give the committee members insight into the problems that Canadians experience when accessing the records held by social networking companies.

The project, and our research for it, has been funded through the Office of the Privacy Commissioner’s Contributions Program. Anything contained in the brief is not necessarily representative of the Office’s own positions or stances.

Abstract/Introduction:

In this submission, I highlight some of our analyses of 20 social networking sites’ privacy  policies and findings about Canadians’ ability to access their own personal information that social networking sites store. These findings let us understand how the companies running these services understand their legal jurisdictional obligations and the retention of personally identifiable information. Moreover, these discoveries let us ascertain the actual access that Canadians have to profiles that they and the identities that networking services Canadians associate with are developing. Together, these points reveal how social networking companies understand Canadians’ personal information, the conditions of data sharing, and the level of ease with which Canadians can access the information that they themselves contribute to these services. I conclude this submission by suggesting a few ways that could encourage these companies to more significantly comply with Canadian privacy laws.

Download (.pdf) “Social Networking and Canadian Privacy Law: Jurisdiction, Retention, and Disclosure“

Review: In the Plex

/ Christopher Parsons

intheplexSteven Levy’s book, “In the Plex: How Google Things, Works, and Shapes Our Lives,” holistically explores the history and various products of Google Inc. The book’s significance comes from Levy’s ongoing access to various Google employees, attendance at company events and product discussions, and other Google-related cultural and business elements since the company’s inception in 1999. In essence, Levy provides us with a superb – if sometimes favourably biased – account of Google’s growth and development.

The book covers Google’s successes, failures, and difficulties as it grew from a graduate project at Stanford University to the multi-billion dollar business it is today. Throughout we see just how important algorithmic learning and automation is; core to Google’s business philosophy is that using humans to rank or evaluate things “was out of the question. First, it was inherently impractical. Further, humans were unreliable. Only algorithms – well drawn, efficiently executed, and based on sound data – could deliver unbiased results” (p. 16). This attitude of the ‘pure algorithm’ is pervasive; translation between languages is just an information problem that can – through suitable algorithms – accurately and effectively translate even the cultural uniqueness that is linked to languages. Moreover, when Google’s search algorithms routinely display anti-Semitic websites after searching for “Jew” the founders refused to modify the search algorithms because the algorithms had “spoke” and “Brin’s ideals, no matter how heartfelt, could not justify intervention. “I feel like I shouldn’t impose my beliefs on the world,” he said. “It’s a bad technology practice”” (p. 275). This is an important statement: the founders see the product of human mathematical ingenuity as non-human and lacking bias born of their human creation.

Continue reading →

(Draft) ANPR: Code and Rhetorics of Compliance

/ Christopher Parsons

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For roughly the past two years I’ve been working with colleagues to learn how Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) systems are used in British Columbia, Canada’s westernmost province. As a result of this research one colleague, Rob Wipond, has published two articles on how local authorities and the RCMP are using ANPR technologies. Last February I disclosed some of our findings at the Reboot privacy and security conference, highlighting potential uses of the technology and many of the access to information challenges that we had experienced with respect to our research. Another, Kevin McArthur has written several pieces about ANPR on his website over the years and is largely responsible for Rob and I getting interested, and involved, in researching the technology and the practices associated with it.

The most recent piece of work to come out of our research is a paper that I, Joseph Savirimuthu, Rob, and Kevin have written. Joseph and I will be presenting it in Florence later this month. The paper, titled “ANPR: Code and Rhetorics of Compliance,” examines BC and UK deployments of ANPR systems to explore the rationales and obfuscations linked to the programs. The paper is presently in a late draft so if you have any comments or feedback then please send it my way. The abstract is below, and you can download the paper from the Social Sciences Research Network.

Abstract

Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) systems are gradually entering service in Canada’s western province of British Columbia and are prolifically deployed in the UK. In this paper, we compare and analyze some of the politics and practices underscoring the technology in these jurisdictions. Drawing from existing and emerging research we identify key actors and how authorities marginalize access to the systems’ operation. Such marginalization is accompanied by rhetorics of privacy and security that are used to justify novel mass surveillance practices. Authorities justify the public’s lack of access to ANPR practices and technical characteristics as a key to securing environments and making citizens ‘safe’. After analyzing incongruences between authorities’ conceptions of privacy and security, we articulate means of resisting intrusive surveillance practices by reshaping agendas surrounding ANPR.

Download paper from the Social Sciences Research Network

UPDATE: The paper is now published in the European Journal of Law and Technology