NovATIca: Annual Selection of Articles 2012/2013, Privacy and New Technologies

Gus Hosein is the Executive Director at Privacy International. For over fifteen years he has worked on the intersections of technology and human rights. He has acted as an external evaluator for UNHCR, advised the UN Special Rapporteur on Terrorism and Human Rights, and has advised a number of other international organisations. He has held visiting fellowships at Columbia University and the London School of Economics and Political Science. He has a B.Math from the University of Waterloo and a PhD from the University of London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (FRSA).

Privacy and Surveillance Primer
Aaron Martin
London School of Economics and Political Science

Abstract: Activists, scholars, and policy makers are increasingly recognizing that excessive surveillance (very often enabled by new forms of information and communications technology ICT) can be harmful to society. But in order to understand how these surveillance developments may detriment the fostering of healthy, open, and democratic societies, we must first know where to look for a conceptual basis, and even more importantly, what to look for once we’re there. This article therefore reviews key issues and concepts on privacy and surveillance for practitioners and advocates who are eager to understand and engage these multifaceted topics, particularly as debates about the benefits and risks of disclosing and sharing our data become more dynamic and significant.

Keywords: Conceptual Overview, Privacy, Surveillance, Technology.

European Data Protection and the Haunting Presence of Privacy
Gloria González Fuster (1), Rocco Bellanova (2),
(1) Law, Science, Technology & Society (LSTS) Research Group, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), (2) Centre de Recherche en Science Politique, Facutés universitaires Saint-Louis; Law, Science, Technology & Society (LSTS) Research Group, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB)

Abstract: Since it first appeared in the 1960s, the legal notion of personal data protection has been living in the shade of the term privacy. Whereas in the United States (US) the regulation of the processing of information related to individuals was solidly framed under the privacy tag as early as the beginning of the 1970s, European legal orders were witnessing the emergence of concurring labels. Eventually, a genuinely European legal construct was to see the light of day: personal data protection, now recognised as a specific fundamental right f the European Union (EU), formally different from any right to privacy.At the core of the construction of the notion of personal data protection there is an attempt to steer clear of the private v. public distinction, on the grounds that the boundary between private and public, as well as any traditional conceptualisations of privacy in terms of intimate or private space, had been rendered inoperative by emerging technologies - concretely, by automated data processing. The notion of personal data protection proposed to structure reality from a different perspective, based on the distinction between personal and non-personal - terms that European data protection laws were soon to define for their own purposes. Almost 50 years after its genesis, European personal data protection still appears to be strikingly intertwined with the evolving notion of privacy. This contribution examines European data protection from the perspective of its relation(s) with privacy, sketching out both the distance between the two notions and their different entanglements. It devotes particular attention to the ongoing review of the EU data protection legal landscape, which seems (finally) to be announcing a formal emancipation of personal data protection from privacy but is at the same ime built upon (hidden) references to it. Between claims and silences, privacy thus continues to play a role in the shaping of EU data protection. The importance of such a role is described with the help of Jacques Derrida’s insights on the functioning of the word.

Keywords: Data Protection, European Union, Law, Personal Data, Privacy.

Secrecy Trumps Location: A Short Paper on Establishing the Gravity of Privacy Interferences Posed by Detection Technologies
Mathias Vermeulen
European University Institute, Florence (Italy)

Abstract: Since 9/11 the use of detection technologies has been increasingly seen as a crucial tool to counter terrorism. The use and deployment of these tools more often than not poses an interference with the right to privacy, including tools that are used in public places. In this contribution we will claim that the location where a privacy intrusive measure takes place is less of a determinant to establish the intrusiveness of a measure to the core of the right to privacy than the secrecy of such a measure.

Keywords: Detection Technologies, GPS, Human Rights Law, Privacy, Secrecy.

Surveillance Technology and Territorial Controls: Governance and the ‘Lite Touch’ of Privacy
Darren Palmer (1), Ian Warren (2)
(1) Chair Australian Surveillance Studies Group, Criminology, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University, Geelong (Australia), (2) Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Australian Surveillance Studies Group, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University, Geelong (Australia)

Abstract: The considerable growth of surveillance technologies, dataveillance and digital information processing has occurred across many domains, including the night-time economy. We explore a particular technology (ID scanners) and the connections between this form of surveillance and associated database construction with the broader use of new forms of territorial governance. In turn, we argue that privacy, at least in the context of Australia, has limited influence on the use of new and untested surveillance technologies in contemporary law enforcement. In part, this is due to the construction of current Australian privacy laws and oversight principles. We argue this in itself does not solely account for the limitations of privacy regimes, as recent Canadian research demonstrates how privacy regulation generates limited control over the expansion of new crime prevention technologies. However, a more telling problem involves the enactment of new laws allowing police and venue operators to exclude the undesirable from venues, streets and entertainment zones. These developments reflect the broader shift to governing through sub-sovereign territorial controls that seek to leverage many current and emerging surveillance technologies and their normalisation in preventing crime without being encumbered by the niceties of privacy law.

Keywords: Alcohol, Antisocial Behaviour, Crime Prevention, Economy, ID Scanners, Night-time, Privacy.

Google: Navigating Security, Rights to Information and Privacy
Cristina Blasi Casagran (1), Eduard Blasi Casagran (2)
(1) Researcher at the European University Institute, Florence (Italy); Complutense de Madrid (2013), (2) Lawyer at Prodat, Barcelona (Spain)

Abstract: In the last few years, the rapid development of new technologies and the expansion of the Internet have required multinational businesses to adapt to both national and international laws accordingly. Thus, companies like Google, Inc. (which today are leading the net) collect and process huge amounts of personal data on a daily basis, without specific legislation to combat the current loopholes in such practices. This study analyses a number of controversial issues related to Google. First, it examines the increase in behavioural advertising, highlighting the potential impact that recent proposals in both the EU and the US could have on this form of advertising. Likewise, it studies the so-called right to be forgotten according to the EU proposal for a General Data Protection Regulation, as well as the impact that this right could have on Google. It then examines the controversy stemming from the blurry dividing line between data collected and processed by private companies (e.g. Google) for commercial purposes, and data processed by public agencies for law enforcement purposes. Finally, the study refers to the new Google privacy policy, which came into force in March 2012. The above areas of inquiry seek to illustrate the enormous power Google has at its disposal with respect to processing internet users’ personal data. As such, Google could have a major role in determining global legislative issues such as defining the borders between privacy, rights to information, and collective security.

Keywords: Behavioural Advertising, Collective Security, Data Protection, Google, Law Enforcement, Privacy, Right to be Forgotten, Right(s) to Information.

Human Traces on the Internet: Privacy and Online Tracking in Popular Websites in Brazil
Fernanda Glória Bruno (1), Liliane da Costa Nascimento (1), Rodrigo José Firmino (2), Marta M. Kanashiro (3), Rafael Evangelista (3)
(1) Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Brazil; (2) Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná (PUCPR), Brazil; (3) State University of Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil

Abstract: The Internet has made our actions and lives increasingly traceable. Data about our habits, preferences, tastes and interests can be easily collected, stored and processed on the eb, which has an inestimable value to several private parties interested in predicting our online and offline behaviors. This paper aims to shed some light on how this data collection takes place in popular websites in Brazil. In order to do so, we investigate tracking mechanisms used in five websites and two social network websites. We identify the HTTP cookies, Flash cookies and web beacons used in each of them. The trackers are analyzed in quantitative and qualitative terms, based on the practices of the companies responsible for operating them. Based on that, we discuss the contributions and limitations on the notion of privacy related to the use of trackers in the Brazilian context.

Keywords: Brazil, Cookies, Online Marketing, Online Tracking, Privacy, Web Beacons.

Social Networks and the Protection of Personal Information. When Privacy Is Not Perceived As a Right
Massimo Ragnedda
University of Northumbria, Newcastle (United Kingdom)

Abstract: On Social Networking Sites (SNS), users freely and without anxiety give sensitive and private data about which they might previously have jealously guarded. The research that I conducted at the University of Sassari (n = 1047), suggests that students have a different approach to the protection of Personal Information: lascivious online and protectionist offline. Students seem to underestimate the risk of posting data because they are unaware of the phenomenon of dataveillance. In fact, 86% said that the main visitors of their personal profile are friends, so they do not worry about data because they have nothing to hide from friends. This makes the perception of SNS more familiar and intimate and lowers social and cultural defenses against the possible intrusion of strangers in their digital world. Only 29.4% said that they often or always heed the privacy policy before registering for a site, and 54% never or rarely read the privacy policy. The role of marketing agencies that scan, match and connect data of individual users with the goal of building an accurate e-profile profile of individual users, seems not be perceived by the students. In fact only 3% imagine that those who visit personal profiles are strangers.

Keywords: Dataveillance, e-Profile, Privacy, Social Networking Sites, Surveillance.

Privacy and Body Scanners at EU Airports
Joan Figueras Tugas
Systems and Information Technology Manager at Brosa Abogados y Economistas, S.L.P.

Abstract: At the beginning of 2010, with the aim of improving aviation security controls, some airports started to use full-body security scanners, also known as body scanners or security scanners. Body scanners make a full body screening of passengers, producing detailed images of the screened person’s body in order to detect both metallic and non metallic objects that might be concealed under the clothes. Deployment of such scanners may entail an invasion of people’s privacy since they produce a detailed display of the passenger’s body with no clothing, revealing anatomical details and private parts, including medical prostheses. This article will analyse the currently existing screening technologies (millimetre wave systems -active or passive- and X-ray backscatter systems) as well as their level of deployment at EU airports, focusing on the impact they may have on passengers’ privacy. In order to harmonize the various national regulations, the European Commission has passed a proposal on the use of body scanners at European airports, scanners which shall only be used under specific conditions.

Keywords: Access Control, Airports, Body Scanners, Privacy, Security, Security Scanners.

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Last updated on 1st December 2013	Autor: Llorenç Pagés Casas
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