Samizdata

Tom Morris has taken matters into his hands and is asking British Library about its patron privacy policy… The conclusions are not favourable.

My opinion on this is pretty simple: it’s evil and needs rethinking. Patron privacy is one of the biggest issues for me. This won’t affect my use of the library (but I will not be requesting certain books from the BL – rather, I’ll be buying anything controversial or reading it at another library), though I will be making my opinion clear to them in the form of a formal letter. I will also try and get hold of this records management policy. Ideally, they should hold borrowing records only as long as is required for the books to be retrieved from the store, then delete them after the books are returned to the counter. Or, perhaps, a system where patrons can submit a form either online or in person asking that their records be wiped clean. Again, like all privacy concerns, this is simply about ensuring that what should remain private does remain private.

I am sure that the ‘if-you-have-nothing-to-hide-you have-nothing-to-be-afraid-of’ bridage would completely miss the point on this one too…

Post a review of a book or other product on Amazon.com, and the information may find its way into the company’s file on you. CNET has more on Amazon having been granted a patent for a system that gathers clues from reviews about customers’ gift-giving habits in order to suggest future gifts and reminders.

Consumer advocates worry that the company’s profiling practices may have gone too far and could exploit the giving of gifts and the sense of community that customer reviews were designed to engender.

Here’s how the proposed system works, according to Amazon’s patent claim: Amazon would gather information about gift recipients, including their names, addresses and items customers send them. The system would then try to guess their gender, age and the gift-giving occasion based on the type of present, messages written in gift cards, dates gifts are ordered, items on wish lists, and commentary in related consumer reviews.

The system appears particularly geared toward people buying gifts for children, with its ability to recommend “age appropriate” gifts.

Jason Catlett, founder of Junkbusters, a consumer watchdog, said:

They are building a speculative profile on you before you even know you’re dealing with them, because someone sends you a gift.

He’s particularly dismayed by the prospect of Amazon monitoring customer reviews for marketing purposes.

Well, so am I. But I think Catlett is onto something when he says:

People will hesitate to publish reviews if they know the result is to enlarge their profile in some secret marketing database.

Washington Post analyses erosion of online privacy, this time coming from Google:

And yesterday, the omniscient-seeming search engine Google bested itself by announcing a service to probe for information both online and in your own machine. One company official called it a “photographic memory for your computer.”

Richard M. Smith, an Internet security consultant says:

It’s this whole new world. It’s sort of like all these little details about our lives are being recorded. We love the conveniences. We love the services. But people kind of instinctively know there’s a dark side to this. They just hope it won’t happen to them.

Washington Post has an article about a test project, which aims to give frequent fliers a quicker pass through security checkpoints, is underway at four US airports. It relies on the latest biometric technologies to verify a passenger’s identity with increased precision. Digital fingerprint scans and photographs are already used to identify foreigners traveling on a visa, and U.S. officials plan to encode a facial recognition technology into passports.

The program offers the first wide application of iris-scanning technology, which had previously been used only for government employees with access to classified sites or for employees with access to nuclear facilities, said Paul Mirenda, director of field operations for LG Electronics Inc., one of the TSA’s contractors that makes the scanners. The technology takes a close-up photograph of the iris, which has more unique characteristics than a fingerprint, and applies digital codes to the photograph to store it as a bar code. The photograph and fingerprint are then stored in a file along with other information about the passenger.

But some security experts worry that terrorists could apply to become a registered traveler and score an easier pass through security checkpoints. “If you look at 9/11 hijackers, some of them would have qualified as frequent fliers. All they had to do is run a few tests and find out what the parameters were and get people registered.”

Travelers who signed up for the program yesterday said they were impressed with the technology and were eager to be afforded special privileges at the checkpoint. None of the enrollees said they had a problem with providing the government with their personal information.

A couple of interesting stories caught my eye.

First, the Queen is working hard to use legal means to include privacy clauses in the employment contracts with palace employees, in an effort to prevent leaks and protect the privacy of the Royal Family.

The new contracts cover more than 300 staff from gardeners and cleaners to the lord chamberlain, but will also affect those working for other leading members of the royal family such as the Prince of Wales whose accounts are published separately.

The move forms part of a broader royal strategy, including the appointment of a director responsible for internal security and vetting, aimed at halting the spate of damaging leaks in recent years.

It is a sign of the times that the palace requires a Director for Internal Security to provide them with a modicum of privacy.

Meanwhile, in another sign of the times, US airlines and the US government are under fire for privacy breaches during background checks.

Four airlines — including Continental, Delta, America West and Frontier — and at least two reservation systems provided the information to the government or its contractors, the acting head of the Transportation Security Administration, David Stone, told a Senate committee. Some of the companies denied that.

The agency previously had said only two airlines had done so.

Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, top Democrat on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, said the agency ”may have violated” the Privacy Act, which says the government must notify the public if it intends to collect records on people.

An agency spokeswoman, Yolanda Clark, said the Homeland Security Department’s privacy officer is investigating the agency’s involvement in the data-sharing from airlines. The information, known as passenger name records, includes credit card numbers, travel reservation details, address and telephone number. It also could mean meal requests, which can indicate a passenger’s religion or ethnicity.

The potential for abuse here seems clear, and I hope that firm action is taken to prevent a reoccurance.