Category: Privacy

facial recognition surveillance

EPIC, Coalition Call for Ban on Law Enforcement Use of Facial Recognition

In a statement of concerns, EPIC and a coalition of more than 40 privacy, civil liberties, immigrants rights, and good government groups stated that “the most comprehensive approach to addressing the harms of face recognition would be to entirely cease its use by law enforcement.” The statement lists six concerns with police use of the technology that can only be addressed by halting its use. The coalition calls for a moratorium or ban on use of facial recognition and urges Congress to not preempt state or local bans in any federal legislation addressing facial recognition. EPIC recently organized a coalition letter that led to the shutdown of a DC-area facial recognition system previously used on Black Lives Matter protesters. EPIC leads a campaign to Ban Face Surveillance and through the Public Voice Coalition has gathered support from over 100 organizations and experts from more than 30 countries.

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EPIC Amicus Filing Van Buren

Supreme Court Rules Officer’s Improper Access to License Plate Record Does Not Violate Computer Crimes Law

In today’s decision in Van Buren v. United States, the Supreme Court determined that a police officer who improperly accessed a license plate record could not be held liable under a federal computer crimes law, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. EPIC highlighted the serious privacy concerns with government employees’ improper access to sensitive personal information in government databases in the amicus brief we filed in this case, and several justices echoes these concerns during oral argument. The outcome of this case highlights the urgent need for comprehensive privacy legislation. We need enforceable rules to prevent improper access to and misuse of personal information contained in both government and private databases.

The Court also did not resolve what it means for someone to have “authorization” to access a computer or to be “entitled” to access information in the computer. The Court endorsed a general “gates-up-or-down approach”—meaning an individual either has authorization to access the computer or specific information within the computer or it does not—but explicitly left open the question whether the prohibitions on access must be technical or whether they can be contract-based. The range of criminalized activities may, in some respects, still be much broader than even the Government was advocating. Certain website terms of service that prohibit specific individuals or groups from accessing the website may still be enforceable even if the individuals have no knowledge of the restrictions and the website owners do nothing else to limit access. An 18 year-old who accesses a website restricted to those over the age of 21 may violate the CFAA, but a police officer who knowingly accesses personal information to stalk and harass the individual does not.

The Court also did not clearly answer more complicated access questions about web scraping, and the Court should grant the pending petition in LinkedIn v. hiQ Labs to resolve these questions. Web scraping involves accessing a computer using a technical method that is often prohibited by a website’s terms of service and also blocked using technical barriers. EPIC filed an amicus brief in support of the petition.

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student privacy

EPIC Student Privacy Project Featured in Kennedy School Casebook

EPIC’s Student Privacy Project has been selected for inclusion in the spring 2021 Tech Spotlight Casebook, a publication of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. The casebook “recognizes projects and initiatives that demonstrate a commitment to public purpose in the areas of digital, biotech, and future of work.” The book highlights EPIC’s recent efforts to halt the use of unfair, unreliable, and invasive remote proctoring tools and the D.C. consumer protection complaint EPIC filed against online proctoring firms. “Through meticulous research, the Student Privacy Project revealed the extent to which these companies collect and process student personal and biometric data,” the casebook explains. “The complaint attempts to hold the five companies accountable for their practices by demonstrating how the data collection and processing practices may violate existing law.” The casebook also recognizes recent work around census privacy protections, community control over police surveillance, racially biased speech recognition tools, and the use of “garbage” facial recognition to identify criminal suspects. A ceremony will be held Thursday, May 20 at 1 p.m. ET.

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European Court of Human Rights NSA PRISM

Top Human Rights Court Rules UK Mass Surveillance Program Violated Privacy Rights

This week, the grand chamber of the European Court of Human Rights issued a final judgement in Big Brother Watch v. UK confirming that the UK’s intelligence agency violated the right to privacy by systematically intercepting online communications without first applying necessary safeguards. The agency’s mass surveillance program was “not in accordance with [EU] law,” which only allows governments to retain data in an effort to combat “serious crime” and requires a court or administrative body to sign off on data collection. The UK law at issue was not limited to serious crime, nor did it require independent authorization; these “fundamental deficiencies” impermissibly increased the “risk of the bulk interception power being abused.” Nevertheless, the grand chamber found that the agency’s decision to operate a bulk interception program did not itself violate human rights, and the agency’s sharing of sensitive digital intelligence with foreign counterparts–including with the NSA–was legal. Several chamber judges believed this ruling did not go far enough to condemn the sharing of wrongfully collected communications with other countries, noting the chamber “missed an excellent opportunity to fully uphold the importance of private life … when faced with interference in the form of mass surveillance.” EPIC has a strong interest in protecting the human right to privacy and has continuously opposed suspicionless mass collection of personal communications by domestic and foreign governments. EPIC participated in this case as a third-party intervenor and filed a brief describing U.S. intelligence authorities that allow the NSA to access the private communications of non-U.S. persons in violation of their rights. EPIC was also chosen by the Irish High Court to make amicus submissions in a case involving the international transfer of data from European servers to the U.S. in violation of E.U. law.

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FOIA privacy impact assessment surveillance

EPIC Seeks Privacy Impact Assessment for Postal Service Covert Surveillance Program

EPIC, through a Freedom of Information Act request and letter to the USPS Privacy Office, is seeking the required Privacy Impact Assessment for the Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP) operated by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. First revealed by Yahoo News in April, the iCOP uses Clearview AI’s facial recognition system and a suite of social media monitoring tools to surveil individuals online, including protesters. EPIC also urged the USPS Privacy Office to fully comply with the E-Government Act of 2002 by proactively publishing privacy impact assessments online. EPIC leads a campaign to Ban Face Surveillance and through the Public Voice Coalition has gathered support from over 100 organizations and experts from more than 30 countries.

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Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article.

As the decentralized revolution gains momentum and cryptocurrency adoption reaches new heights, concerns pertaining to the quality of money are too often ignored. According to a Crypto.com report, the number of bitcoin owners surpassed 71 million in January 2021, but how many of them are aware that bitcoin is not anonymous but rather pseudonymous, or recognize the pitfalls of embracing a currency lacking fungibility? While bitcoin’s provable scarcity signifies a return to the tenets of sound money, its creator’s peer-to-peer vision ultimately falls short without fungibility, because counterparty risk is created. Bitcoin’s fungibility issues come from the history that is attached to the coins. The insertion of trust into transactions by scrutinizing coin history has the potential to splinter the bitcoin network, in the process increasing fees as a result of regulatory compliance costs. More alarmingly, a transparent blockchain inevitably transforms into a surveillance chain on which reputation travels. In order to prevent censorship and protect our natural rights to privacy, a fungible currency is not a luxury, but a requirement.

Money facilitates business on the market by serving as a medium of exchange, store of value, and a unit of account. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis lists six characteristics of money: durability, portability, divisibility, limited supply, uniformity, and acceptability. The latter two of these attributes are directly impacted by a currency’s fungibility.

Fungible assets at their core are interchangeable. On the nonfungible end of the spectrum are fundamentally unique assets such as real estate and artwork. Conversely, precious metals represent physical fungible assets. Gold, for example, can be melted down and swapped without complication. As noted by Menger (1892), the adoption of gold and silver as forms of money throughout history can be partially attributed to the homogeneity of these materials. In order to satisfy Berg’s (2020) fungibility criteria, “each unit of a currency, or any commodity used in a money function, should be indistinguishable from others of the same denomination,” and “an individual unit of said currency should not be reidentifiable through time and change.”

The most widely adopted digital decentralized assets designed to serve as money are bitcoin (BTC), litecoin (LTC), and bitcoin cash (BCH). All of these cryptocurrencies, however, are nonfungible in nature. Each satoshi, the smallest BTC unit, possesses an accessible history on the network’s transparent ledger. Consequently, 1 BTC ≠ 1 BTC.

Imagine selling an automobile you posted on Craigslist to a stranger who, unbeknownst to you, earned their fortune peddling contraband on the dark web. Subsequently, you attempt to deposit the proceeds of the sale, but to your surprise, your financial institution has flagged the transaction and will not accept your “tainted” bitcoin.

According to Mises (1953), “the subjective use-value of money, which coincides with its subjective exchange value, is nothing but the anticipated use-value of the things that are to be bought with it.” Economic calculations become increasingly difficult when ambiguity pervades the medium of exchange. Fungible monies maintain their purchasing power regardless of past use, thus eliminating uncertainty…

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Amazon antitrust Antitrust attorney general consumer protection dark patterns FTC

D.C. Attorney General Files Antitrust Suit Against Amazon

D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine filed a lawsuit today against Amazon alleging that the online retail giant has violated the District of Columbia Antitrust Act. The complaint accuses Amazon of stifling competition by imposing contractual clauses that prevent third-party sellers from offering lower prices outside of the Amazon platform. The lawsuit explains that the agreements ultimately lead to higher prices for consumers and less innovation. “Amazon wins because it controls pricing across the online retail sales market, putting itself at an advantage over everyone else,” Racine told reporters. “These restrictions allow Amazon to build and maintain monopoly power.” In February, EPIC filed a complaint with the D.C. Attorney General alleging that Amazon unlawfully employs dark patterns to manipulate consumers when they attempt to cancel their Amazon Prime subscriptions. These dark patterns enable Amazon to continue collecting subscription fees and retain the personal data of misdirected subscribers. EPIC also signed onto a recent coalition letter calling for the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Amazon’s use of dark patterns in the Prime cancellation process. EPIC has long argued that anticompetitive practices and market consolidation in the technology sector pose a threat to privacy rights.

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AI

Schumer Bill Would Rapidly Escalate AI Funding but Fails to Propose AI Safeguards

The U.S. Innovation and Competition Act introduced recently by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer would earmark $53 billion for technological and AI development yet fails to propose critical safeguards for federal AI deployment. One part of the bill, the Endless Frontier Act, would significantly increase National Science Foundation funding to expand research and improve the diversity of the STEM workforce. The bill would also allocate funds for analyzing and combatting human rights violations in China and promoting “American Leadership” in AI development. Another part of the bill, the Advancing American AI Act, would incrementally improve the transparency and accountability of government AI use. Under the bill, Office of Management and Budget would be tasked with ensuring that federal contracts for AI systems address “privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties,” and each agency would be required to assemble and publish (when “practicable”) an inventory of its AI systems. However, the bill—much of which tracks recommendations by the NSCAI—fails to establish binding limitations on federal AI use and offers little protection for members of the public injured by government-operated AI systems. EPIC previously urged the Commission to recommend substantive limits on AI to protect individuals against harmful, biased, invasive, and unreliable AI systems.

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consumer Public Opinion

Poll: Vast Majority of Americans Support Online Data Protection Legislation

A new poll from Morning Consult found that 83% of voters say that Congress should pass national data privacy legislation this year. Democrats (86%) and Republicans (81%) expressed bipartisan support for Congress to prioritize a federal privacy bill. The poll also found that voters place similar amounts of responsibility on both federal and state lawmakers, as well as federal regulators, to regulate data privacy. With respect to regulating how companies collect, store, and share personal information, 72% of voters said Congress is either “very responsible” or “somewhat responsible” while 79% said the same for federal agencies and 75% for state governments. Nearly 9 in 10 adults said it was either “very” or “somewhat” important to protect their most sensitive identifiable information under a privacy law, including Social Security number (89%), banking information (89%), biometric data (88%), and driver’s license number (88%). EPIC has called for comprehensive baseline federal legislation and the creation of a U.S. data protection agency, and has advocated for strong state privacy laws.

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facial recognition surveillance

EPIC, Coalition Urge End to DC-Area Facial Recognition System

In a letter to the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, an EPIC-led coalition of privacy, civil liberties, and good government groups urged the Council to end the National Capital Region Facial Recognition System (NCR-FRILS) project and disclose all documents associated with it. In a Washington Post article covering the coalition letter, EPIC Senior Counsel, Jeramie Scott, argued that “facial recognition is a particularly invasive surveillance technology that undermines democracy and First Amendment rights.” NCR-FRILS is a facial recognition system used by police departments and government agencies in the DC, Maryland, and Virginia area. The system runs comparisons against a database of 1.4 million local mug shots. The project was never publicly announced and was only revealed during the prosecution of a Black Lives Matter protester last fall. EPIC previously submitted a series of open government requests to police departments in the DC-area seeking more information on the system.

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