Business Vs privacy

The matter of fact way in which big companies seem to think they own and have a right to private and personal information about us is worrying. The following paragraph is lifted verbatim from a Juniper Research blog today:

The next step is to combine this with, say, healthcare data achieved through large-scale remote patient monitoring, to achieve a more accurate picture of the individual through knowledge of that individual’s peers. It may not be an exaggeration to say that we may be on the edge of a new era where individual circumstances are routinely informed through precise data analysis of a data “cloud”.
The DNA of Big Data

If you think, don’t worry, the new EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will keep our privacy safe, think again. On Friday Ross Anderson attended a GDPR lobbying meeting in London. He has thoughtfully published his notes in the Cambridge University Light Blue Touchpaper blog:

There were about 100 people present, of which only 5 were from civil society. Most were corporate lobbyists: good-looking, articulate and impressive, but pushing some jaw-dropping agendas. For example the lovely lady from the Association of British Insurers found it painful that the regulation might ban profiling that was unfair or discriminatory.
How Privacy is Lost

It’s worth reading in full – but I’m afraid it doesn’t get any better. And when you add the more direct lobbying of companies like Google and Facebook, I think we can confidently predict that the GDPR that emerges at the end – if it survives at all – is going to be vastly weaker than the one that started out last year.

91% of people trust business, but 97% don’t

Statistics – don’t you just love ‘em?

“91% of people trust business to keep data safe despite rise in breaches” is the headline announcement from Varonis today.

“Only 3% say that their data is very secure with social networks and 11% say the same about online retailers,” concluded the Economist Intelligence Unit earlier this month.

Now I’m no mathematician, but this adds up to just one thing for me: don’t believe anything anyone tells you – and that includes me. Make up your own mind because everyone else has an agenda that may not be in your best interests.

Hint: always err on the side of distrust; you may be pleasantly surprised, but you won’t be disappointed, and you’ll almost certainly be right.

Alexander Hanff talks about the legal action against Google in the UK

Coinciding with Data Protection Day – which was yesterday in case you missed it – news emerged of a new legal challenge in the UK against Google. It involves last year’s ‘Apple tracking’ incident where Google surreptitiously side-stepped the no-cookies block on Safari. Judith Vidal-Hall, one-time editor of Index on Censorship, is the first to begin legal action; and a ‘letter before action’ has been sent to Google. London-based Olswang lawyers are handling the case, and privacy activist Alexander Hanff is advising. I asked Alexander two questions:

1. Google has sought to have [a similar] US class case dismissed because, for example, “Plaintiffs Have No Standing Because They Have Alleged No Actual Injury” (http://www.scribd.com/doc/122259031/Google-Motion-to-Dismiss-Safari-Tracking-Lawsuit). Wouldn’t the same argument be even more effective under UK law?
2. If Google acted illegally, why hasn’t the ICO acted?

No case
“With regard to injury,” he said, “as you know under UK law injury does not mean financial, or physical, it can also mean mental harm.” He argues that there was a loss of trust, which could be regarded as injury. And cannot “behavioural profiling without consent be considered injury in itself?” Hanff believes it can, and adds that there is a very significant injury to society where millions of people were monitored by a corporation without consent. “But even with all that said, I would argue that any judge needs to assess whether injury is a valid test for prosecution in Privacy cases given that Privacy is a fundamental human right as laid out by the Lisbon Treaty and the EU Covenant – any attack on human rights needs to be taken seriously and there should be legal consequences – a breach of a human right should be injury enough for a prosecution in my mind.” So for Hanff, the issue goes beyond mere national law and into international human rights where the courts must act.

ICO
“The ICO hasn’t acted because it suffers from regulatory capture,” he replied. Worryingly, “In 2010 I was told by a senior member of staff at ICO that Christopher Graham had [said] he did not want a fight with Google (this was during a discussion about the Google WiFi scandal); and as then the ICO has yet again failed to act against Google in the Safari case.” Hanff suspects that the ICO also has “a conflict of interests in taking enforcement action against Google as they use a large number of Google services. Finally,” he added, “as well as the reasons above, I believe another reason ICO doesn’t want to take action is because the cost of the appeal process would probably exceed their annual budget and human resources – they are significantly underfunded and understaffed.”

Hanff hopes that the action will grow into a group (class) action against Google. “I hope that this action encourages citizens in other countries across Europe to take similar action because until we start to hit these companies in their wallets, the abuses will continue. It is time to fight for our rights and take back our privacy – with a new data protection regulation on the horizon swarmed by a US corporate lobby which is trying to weaken our rights – we need to take control – carpe diem.”