CNET NEWS.COM - Sounding off: Privacy vs. free speech.
Privacy and free-speech advocates faced off Friday at a high-profile computer conference here, debating a widening rift over how public records should be made available on the Internet.
For years, records such as voter registration data, dog license information and most court filings have been freely available. Someone hoping to cull information from those files had to simply go down to the courthouse or agency in person and request the records.
But as it becomes easier to wade through--and search across--public records that contain personal data, privacy advocates are warning that your neighbors can learn all your secrets with just a few clicks of the mouse.
San Francisco Gate - Privacy advocates single out Oracle's Ellison....
CEO gets 'Big Brother Award' for proposal to use his firm's software for national ID card
Larry Ellison got an award this week that won't be displayed in an Oracle Corp. trophy case anytime soon.
The Redwood City software titan was named "worst corporate invader" in the annual "Big Brother Awards," handed out by the British advocacy group Privacy International at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference in San Francisco on Thursday night. The organization singled out Ellison for his proposal to boost national security with a national identity card system based on Oracle software.
Since September, Americans have been divided on establishing a uniform national ID system as a deterrent to terrorism. Of those surveyed in a Harris Poll in March, 59 percent supported the idea, but a Gartner survey released in the same month showed only 26 percent calling for a national ID.
Jason Catlett, an adviser to Privacy International and a Big Brother Awards judge, called Ellison's proposal "snake oil."
"Combining all transactions of Americans into one gigantic database is not going to stop terrorism. It's a blueprint for a corporate police state," he said.
An Oracle spokeswoman declined to comment. No Oracle representative stepped forward to accept the statuette, which depicts a bronze boot stomping on a human head.
San Jose Mercury News By Dan Gillmor- Want privacy? Take action.
Conventional wisdom holds that privacy and other rights are things we have to trade off against other things we desire. This is a fallacy, for the most part.
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The current debate tends to envision just two possibilities. In one, privacy is the first -- and pretty much only -- consideration. Can a business realistically do this? Not easily, if at all, and the drawbacks seem daunting even to some privacy advocates.
Another scenario is the ``forget about it'' system, which holds that privacy is gone and we might as well get used to it. In this world, you do have a choice if you don't enjoy having your every move tracked, and your data dispersed widely. But the choice is absurd, since it prevents access to the benefits of society, not just the drawbacks of lost privacy.
Is there really no way to reconcile these extremes, and come up with something that works?
There is, but we have the classic chicken-and-egg situation. The people who could make it happen -- business people -- have no incentive in the near term. The people who could order business people to make it happen -- politicians -- are beholden to the moneyed interests.
And the people who say again and again in surveys that they want their privacy, among other things they don't want to lose in tomorrow's brave new world, get lip service.
People in key federal and state positions are paying scant attention, if that. Party affiliation doesn't seem to matter. President Bush faked concern about average people's privacy, but his policies and appointments have shown a pro-business and anti-privacy bias. California's Democratic governor, Gray Davis, likewise, has talked about his belief in privacy and then moved heaven and earth to make sure that serious measures wouldn't make it through the Legislature.
New Zealand News - Technology - Bush plan to scrap e-privacy .
LONDON - US President George W. Bush is trying to reverse an agreement between America and Europe intended to ensure the privacy of people buying goods over the internet - claiming that it could be "burdensome" on US multinational businesses.
The new administration is pressing for a delay - at least - of the treaty that was hammered out last year after months of negotiation between the Clinton administration and the European Union, to safeguard the privacy of European internet users.
The Europe-wide laws on data privacy make it an offence for a European company to pass on information about customers to organisations that do not meet EU data privacy guidelines. But America was also caught in that description because it has no data privacy laws. The agreement would have defined some US internet companies as a "safe harbour" for European data, as long as they met certain standards. The US "Treasury" and Commerce Department has complained to the EU that the measure is a threat to transatlantic e-commerce, and could burden website operators with red tape.
Digital Identity World :: Identity is Center.
Slashdot | Developers - Liability and Computer Security.
Slashdot | Your Rights Online - CFP 2002 Wrapup.
Roger Clarke's CFP'2002 Notes.
These are personal notes prepared, on the fly, by a frequent participant and advisory committee-member, who has been long involved in privacy issues, in Internet policy issues, and in the community that is CFP. Because they reflect my own interests, and which sessions I attended, they vary from reasonably deep treatment of six or seven sessions, to mere mention of most of them. And - be warned - these are personal notes, unconstrained by any need to be impartial.
This document starts with an overall impression of CFP'02, followed by a partly thematic and partly sequential treatment of the various sessions.
- Activism
- Identity
- Computers, Freedom & Privacy Post 9/11
- Intellectual Property
- The Digital Divide
- The Other Sessions
- Associated Events
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