Elements of Digital Privacy

Collection & Retention

The life of a Digital Native is constantly being recorded. This information about a Digital Native is retained by and accessible to others. The following are examples of what kind of data is retained, who collects it, and who can view it.

• For example, a search on Google results in a stream of information is sent to, and stored in, the Google servers. This includes the computer IP address, the date and time of the query, the browser used, and the unique cookie ID assigned to the computer. If G-mail users are logged in then Google associates this data with personally identifiable information.

• Microsoft Live Search also records the type of search you conducted (image, Web, local, etc.), while Google additionally stores your browser type and language. And when you click on a link displayed on Google, that may also be recorded and associated with your computer's IP address. While Google Inc. recently announced that it would make its search logs anonymous after 18 months' time by deleting part of the IP address and obfuscating cookies associated with search queries, Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. haven't yet made their retention policies public. AOL LLC stores this data for just one month.[1]

• Every Internet search resides on a computer somewhere. Comings and goings are monitored by security cameras. Phone calls are logged by telecommunications companies.[2]

• This Washington Post article shows a typical day of an ordinary woman and what kinds of information is collected about her.

• In 2006, AOL released the search data of over 20 million users for the public to view [3]

• ZabaSearch queries return a wealth of info sometimes dating back more than 10 years: residential addresses, phone numbers both listed and unlisted, birth year, even satellite photos of people's homes. ZabaSearch isn't the first or only such service online. Yahoo's free People Search, for example, returns names, telephone numbers and addresses. But the information is nothing more than what's been available for years in the White Pages...Far more personal information is available from data brokers, including aliases, bankruptcy records and tax liens. That access typically requires a fee, however, which has always been a barrier to the casual snooper...But ZabaSearch makes it easier than ever to find comprehensive personal information on anyone.[4]

Visibility

Technology can organize, highlight, and take out of context info that's already available online. For example, the New York Times recently reported that Rudy Giuliani's daughter supported Barack Obama on Facebook.[5] After this was reported her profile was taken down. This incident shows that much of the information on the internet is available for anyone to see. ZabaSearch provides people's full name, birth date and address.

• Facebook news feeds, Address & telephone number look-up

• Private vs. Public Domains. What happens when these boundaries are blurred? How do you legislate?

Places once thought private are now becoming public. Places once thought public are now global. On many internet sites, the default is set for the least privacy. Given the increase in accessibility to information and the decrease in privacy are there effective ways to legislate privacy rights? Legal experts provide solutions are available under the subheading 'What the Experts Think'

• Control over posting to the web - (offline to online)

(SSN being posted online as local government put (always) public records online, Google Street View, Posting and naming someone's picture on a MySpace page)

Control over reproduction/duplication

This is a tricky issue arising from the internet. Previously thought private information is now becoming public. The following are examples of people's picture/video taken without their permission and circulated throughout the internet. While in the first example the victim is not in the wrong, whereas in the other two people genuinely did immoral acts, nevertheless the issue arises: Does a person control a right to reproduction/duplication of their body and actions from the internet? As of yet, no solution has been found that does grant full autonomy to the individual.

• The Washington Post recently reported a story about Allison Stokke, whose picture was taken at a public venue and then circulated around the internet without her consent. The issue that arises is simple: Does she have a right to protect herself from unauthorized duplication of pictures of her? Currently, U.S. laws do not protect her.

• In 2006 on a bus heading to Hong Kong, a dispute occurred on the bus involving two men. The altercation was filmed by another passenger's cell phone and posted on the internet. The video became the most popular on the internet in May 2006.[6] The incident became known as "bus uncle".

• Then there's the story of Dog Poop Girl whose dog threw up on a subway car. She did not clean it up. A fellow passenger took her picture and posted it online asking for people to identify her. The Washington Post reports that "humiliated in public and indelibly marked, the woman reportedly quit her university."
  • The Dog Poop Girl case "involves a norm that most people would seemingly agree to -- clean up after your dog," wrote Daniel J. Solove, a George Washington University law professor who specializes in privacy issues, on one blog. "But having a permanent record of one's norm violations is upping the sanction to a whole new level . . . allowing bloggers to act as a cyber-posse, tracking down norm violators and branding them with digital scarlet letters."[7]

Protection against whom?

Privacy protection can be broken down to include protection from:

• a) Government: U.S. Privacy laws focus on protecting individual citizens from infringement by the government.
• b) Service Providers (Google, Facebook, ISP, etc) are not specifically regulated by U.S law on issues such as : right to keep info, distribute, sell, etc.
• c) Schools, teachers, etc - what kind of rights do students have?
• d) Employers, neighbors, health insurers, etc.