Monday, February 5, 2007

US Set on Expansion of Security DNA Collection. US Set on Expansion of Security DNA Collection. An anonymous reader dropped us a link to this New York Times article about a 'vast expansion' of DNA sampling here in the US. A little-noticed rider to the January 2006 renewal of the 'Violence Against Women Act' allows government agencies to collect DNA samples from any individual arrested by federal authorities, and from every illegal immigrant held for any length of time by US agents. The goal is to make DNA collection as routine a part of detainment as fingerprinting and photography. Privacy experts and immigrant rights groups are decrying this initiative already. Many are also skeptical of lab throughput, as FBI analysts indicate this may increase intake by as much as a million samples per year. There is already a backlog of 150,000 samples waiting to be entered into the agency's database. [Slashdot: Your Rights Online] 2:28:59 PM

TiVo and User Privacy. TiVo and User Privacy. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that TiVo is collecting and selling data on what parts of broadcasts people are rewinding for review and what commercials they are skipping. Dubbed [base "]StopWatch,[per thou] this data-collection practice reflects the growing ease with which various media and Internet service providers can collect and exploit vast amounts of information about consumers[base '] everyday habits. TiVo maintains that there is little privacy threat to end users, arguing that [base "]We don[base ']t know what any particular person is watching,[per thou] and [base "]We only know what a random, anonymous sampling of our user base is watching.[per thou] While it is probably true that they are only accessing and selling a random, anonymous sampling of usage data, the larger concern is that user data is collected and stored in the first place. The fact that they only sample a random subset of the data is only a temporary comfort (and perhaps only a temporarily self-imposed restriction). And given the aftermath of AOL[base ']s botched release of [base "]anonymized[per thou] user data, I have less comfort with TiVo[base ']s claim that the data is truly anonymous. TiVo is trying to do the right thing, but I[base ']m concerned that their execution might fail. Time will tell. (And this would make an excellent case study for any student looking to explore the privacy implications of new media technologies[sigma]hint hint) [michaelzimmer.org] 1:40:02 PM

TiVo sees if you skip those ads TiVo revealed the other day that it's offering TV networks and ad agencies a chance to receive second-by- second data about which programs the company's 4.5 million subscribers are watching and, more importantly, which commercials people are skipping. This raises a pair of troubling questions: Is TiVo, which revolutionized TV viewing with its digital video recording technology, now watching what people watch? And is it selling that sensitive info to advertisers and others? The answers, apparently, are no and no. "I promise with my hand on a Bible that your data is not being archived and sold," said Todd Juenger, TiVo's vice president and general manager of audience research and measurement. "We don't know what any particular person is watching," he said. "We only know what a random, anonymous sampling of our user base is watching." Still, privacy advocates say TiVo's new data service -- dubbed StopWatch -- reflects the growing ease with which companies could, if they so choose, collect and exploit vast amounts of information about consumers' everyday habits. "It's a constant struggle to maintain your privacy in the modern era," said Kurt Opsahl, a staff attorney at San Francisco's Electronic Frontier Foundation. "We have entered an era in which more and more information about you is being collected and maintained." He added: "In the past, you had a lot of privacy protection because information about you was too difficult to collect and sort. Now that protection is gone because computers can do it." TiVo's potential to monitor (and embarrass) millions of people was made clear in 2004 after Janet Jackson's right breast made a surprise appearance during the Super Bowl halftime show. TiVo reported that this fleeting glimpse of celebrity flesh "drew the biggest spike in audience reaction TiVo has ever measured ... as hundreds of thousands of households used TiVo's unique capabilities to pause and replay live television to view the incident again and again." 1:37:53 PM

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