COAP:Privacy

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Introduction

This page includes the program and the resources for the module on digital (or Internet) privacy.

Massive use of ICT in business and private life has led to personally identifiable information (PII), i.e. information that can be used to uniquely identify, contact, or locate a single person or can be used with other sources to uniquely identify a single individual (Wikipedia). In addition, the use of social software and in particular social networking applications like Facebook allows to draw quite extensive digital profiles of many people. This situation requires - at least in principle - that persons adopt some kind of strategy to manage this information (Jones, 2008). In addition, there should be appropriate legal frameworks to protect the citizens.

Day one

Let's see how you are tracked

Install the Lightbeam and Ghostery navigator extensions according to instructions

  • Lightbeam is a Firefox extension that will tell you who is spying on you. When you start it, it will track and visualize all third party websites that interact with your page and your browser.
  • Ghostery is a Firefox/Chrome browser plugin that “sees the invisible web - tags, web bugs, pixels and beacons. Ghostery tracks the trackers and gives you a roll-call of the ad networks, behavioral data providers, web publishers, and other companies interested in your activity.”

If you do have a Google account (Gmail), see what Google knows about you:

Quizzes on privacy

Most people don't seem to informed about the situation. See for yourself:

Santa Clara University quiz

Online Privacy Questions concerning US law (Hoofnagle et al., 2014, p. 17)
1. If a website has a privacy policy, it means that the site cannot share information about you with other companies, unless you give the website your permission.
True / False
2. If a website has a privacy policy, it means that the site cannot give your address and purchase history to the government
True / False
3. If a website has a privacy policy, it means that the website must delete information it has about you, such as name and address, if you request them to do so.
True / False
4. If a website violates its privacy policy, it means that you have the right to sue the website for violating it.
True / False
5. If a company wants to follow your internet use across multiple sites on the internet, it must first obtain your permission.
True / False
Offline Privacy Questions
6. When you subscribe to a newspaper or magazine by mail or phone, the publisher is not allowed to sell your address and phone number to other companies without your permission.
True / False
7. When you order a pizza by phone for home delivery, the pizza company is not allowed to sell your address and phone number to other companies without your permission.
True / False
8. When you enter a sweepstakes contest, the sweepstakes company is not allowed to sell your address or phone number to other companies without your permission.
True / False
9. When you give your phone number to a store cashier, the store is not allowed to sell your address or phone number to other companies without your permission.
True / False

Other privacy quizzes

Each student should take one and write down 1-2 surprising things.

Presentation of 1 or 2 cases

Discussion

  • Why does privacy matter ?

Regulations

Privacy and data projection laws in Europe, Switzerland and the EU

Information from government agencies

Protection strategies

What can a user do ?

Navigators

  • Use "private browsing features" when searching for sensitive data
  • Use blocking software if you want more privacy
  • Erase cookies when closing the browser
  • Log out of Google, Yahoo etc. when you conduct search
  • ...

Social networks

  • Never post sensitive data, anywhere.
  • Think, before you post anything publicly (or privately).
  • Remove sensitive data, then ask search engines to remove old information, e.g. using Google's remove tool. Changes must be made "at the source". (How to delete yourself from the Internet, by Seth Rosenblatt, April 2012, C|Net.
  • If online data about you violates laws, you can try to act. (e.g. Google's Legal Removal Requests. However, it will not be easy ...
  • Develop your Internet strategy, i.e. plan ahead.

Reading

Homework reading list

Instructions

  1. Each student must read one paper from the reading list below (or part of it). Work will be distributed at the end of lesson 1
  2. Please come back with the following:
    1. One important idea or fact found in the article (issues)
    2. One guideline for either institutions that collect data or individuals that provide data (found in the article)
    3. One question you would like to discuss

Copies of these papers are available through an Intranet. The instructor will give you a login + password. Otherwise, you may try to obtain them through Webster's library online service.

Defining (Internet) Privacy

  • ⇒ Privacy, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, First published Tue May 14, 2002; substantive revision Fri Aug 9, 2013
    • Student:
    • Summary: This article discusses the multiple facets of privacy. Good, but somewhat difficult reading.
    • Read all
  • ⇒ Daniel J. Solove (2006). Taxonomy Of Privacy, University of Pennsylvania Law Review.

Young people's behavior

  • ⇒ Boyd, Danah and Marwick, Alice E., Social Privacy in Networked Publics: Teens’ Attitudes, Practices, and Strategies (September 22, 2011). A Decade in Internet Time: Symposium on the Dynamics of the Internet and Society, September 2011. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1925128
    • Student:
    • This paper represents an ethnographic study on what is teen's privacy and how it is managed
    • Read at least "Privacy in Public" (last section) plus another section on a topic that is of interest.
    • boyd-marwick-2011.pdf (access restricted)
  • ⇒ Hoofnagle, Chris Jay and King, Jennifer and Li, Su and Turow, Joseph, How Different are Young Adults from Older Adults When it Comes to Information Privacy Attitudes and Policies? (April 14, 2010). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1589864 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1589864
    • Student:
    • Quote: We conclude then that that young-adult Americans have an aspiration for increased privacy even while they participate in an online reality that is optimized to increase their revelation of personal data.
    • Skim the whole paper
    • hoofnagle-et-al-2010.pdf (access restricted)
  • ⇒ Marwick, Alice E. and Murgia-Diaz, Diego and Palfrey, John G., Youth, Privacy and Reputation (Literature Review). Berkman Center Research Publication No. 2010-5; Harvard Public Law Working Paper No. 10-29. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1588163 (80 pages)
    • Student:
    • Quote: The scope of this literature review is to map out what is currently understood about the intersections of youth, reputation, and privacy online, focusing on youth attitudes and practices. We summarize both key empirical studies from quantitative and qualitative perspectives and the legal issues involved in regulating privacy and reputation. This project includes studies of children, teenagers, and younger college students.
    • Read pages 60-65
    • marwick-et-al-2010.pdf (access restricted)

Privacy on the Internet - technical issues

  • ⇒ Michal Kosinski, David Stillwell, and Thore Graepel, Private traits and attributes are predictable from digital records of human behavior, PNAS 2013 110 (15) 5802-5805; published ahead of print March 11, 2013, doi:10.1073/pnas.1218772110
    • Student:
    • Quote: We show that easily accessible digital records of behavior, Facebook Likes, can be used to automatically and accurately predict a range of highly sensitive personal attributes including: sexual orientation, ethnicity, religious and political views, personality traits, intelligence, happiness, use of addictive substances, parental separation, age, and gender.
    • See also: MyPersonality Database
    • Read the whole article
    • Kosinski-PNAS-2013.pdf (access restricted)
  • ⇒ Seda Gürses. 2014. Can you engineer privacy?. Commun. ACM 57, 8 (August 2014), 20-23. DOI=10.1145/2633029 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2633029
    • Student:
    • Quote: We cannot engineer society, but neither are our societies independent of the systems we engineer. Hence, as practitioners and researchers we have the responsibility to engineer systems that address privacy concerns.
    • Read All
    • gurses-2014.pdf (access restricted)
  • ⇒ Paul Weiser and Simon Scheider. 2014. A civilized cyberspace for geoprivacy. In Proceedings of the 1st ACM SIGSPATIAL International Workshop on Privacy in Geographic Information Collection and Analysis (GeoPrivacy '14), Carsten Kessler, Grant D. McKenzie, and Lars Kulik (Eds.). ACM, New York, NY, USA, , Article 5 , 8 pages. DOI=10.1145/2675682.2676396 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2675682.2676396
  • ⇒ Solon Barocas and Helen Nissenbaum. 2014. Big data's end run around procedural privacy protections. Commun. ACM 57, 11 (October 2014), 31-33. DOI=10.1145/2668897 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2668897
    • Student:
    • Quote: When consent is given (or not withheld) or the data is anonymized, virtually any information practice becomes permissible.
    • Read all
    • barocas-et-al-2014.pdf (access restricted)
  • ⇒ Tanmay Sinha, Vrns Srikanth, Mangal Sain, and Hoon Jae Lee. 2013. Trends and research directions for privacy preserving approaches on the cloud. In Proceedings of the 6th ACM India Computing Convention (Compute '13). ACM, New York, NY, USA, , Article 21 , 12 pages. DOI=10.1145/2522548.2523138 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2522548.2523138

Mobile apps

Privacy in Internet-supported research

  • ⇒ John Leslie King. 2015. Humans in computing: growing responsibilities for researchers. Commun. ACM 58, 3 (February 2015), 31-33. DOI=10.1145/2723675 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2723675
    • Student:
    • Quote: Open issues regarding human welfare will not be settled using an authoritarian approach. Computing researchers in universities and companies cannot do whatever they like. Doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows should be aware of science and engineering ethics. Ethical concerns must lead professional practice and regulation, not the other way around.
    • Read all
    • king-2015.pdf (access restricted)

Political action and opinions

  • ⇒ Liberty in the age of technology. ACLU, 2014, (3 pages)
    • Student:
    • Quote: Increasing government surveillance worldwide raises tough questions for democracy and civil liberty. Left unchecked, the deployment of intrusive new technologies poses a profound threat to individual privacy. What we need, says Barry Steinhardt, is stronger regulation to ensure that such technology is used fairly – by governments and businesses alike.
    • Read the whole article
    • Kosinski-PNAS-2013.pdf (access restricted)

Day two

Presentations / discussion

  • Short presentations of readings
  • Each student will present the three items (an issue, a guideline, and a question)

A common text about digital privacy

(rough draft)

Summary of issues

Minimal legal and ethical guidelines

Advice for protection

Additional resources

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