The idea of a national ID card keeps coming back-- first is was REAL ID, now its a Social Security Card with a biometric component. The biggest contributor to identity theft in the United States is the abuse of Social Security Numbers for everything related to credit, employment, and education. This time language around this new proposal for national ID sounds like it is about illegal immigration, but the impact will be on anyone who is working or would like to work regardless of your legal status. Some of the same issues related to REAL ID may arise along with some new ones. Collection of certain biometrics like fingerprints that have secondary government uses should raise civil liberties as well as privacy flags. In addition, the numbers of persons required to use this single document will outstrip any identification system ever created in this country. There will be problems with accuracy, reliability, transparency, and oversight. Workers will not care about this document when it works, but what they do need to know before enrolling is what will happen when the system fails. For example, failures by the Social Security Administration to collect and record data accurately, failures by technology used by employers to read the biometrics of employees, or failures in verification of biometric information when checked with government records are only a few of ways things could go wrong and leave people unemployable for a reason other than whether they are or are not U.S. citizens. What will happen when people misplace Social Security Cards and need replacements? What happens if identity thieves break the security of the document? Will there by INS raids where every employee needs to show their papers or get taken away? Could employers confiscate cards and hold their workforce hostage?
The right way to mend immigration, Charles E. Schumer and Lindsey O Graham, Washington Post, Columns, March 19, 2010
Facebook offered to settle all lawsuits that resulted from its failed Beacon application, which violated users' privacy. The Beacon application without user prior agreement reported online purchases to social contacts of users, which broke federal privacy laws and resulted in several lawsuits by unhappy customers. Facebook offered to settle one case in a bold move to dismiss all other cases around the country for 9M. About 6 million would be left after attorney fees to fund a foundation. The members of the 3 person foundation board were named in the settlement agreement. The board was established with 2 people, which included a Facebook executive. They had to agree on the naming of a third person who would help decide how to spend the 6M set aside for online privacy research.
Clever: Facebook Funds A Privacy Watchdog Group, Nicholas Carlson, Business Insider, Silicon Alley Insider, March 18, 2010
Something that you learned as a child is soon forgotten by adults living and working online. "Don't talk to strangers!" The same users if approached on the street and asked for their name, birth date, and social security number would not react well to the request. However, when online many users give up this information without thinking twice about who they are sharing the information with and how it might to used. Alessandro Acquisti an academic researcher at Carnegie Mellon University discovered how easy it is to guess social security numbers using identifying information provided by users of social networking services.
How Privacy Vanishes Online
By STEVE LOHR, New York Times, March 16, 2010
U.S. could spend $3 billion to place whole body scanners in airports around the world. A U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report states that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) says each whole body image machine would cost $170,000 and requires 3 people to operate. The cost of covering 60 percent of all security checkpoints at the busiest commercial airports is about $300 million with an addition 3,550 TSA personnel. Privacy groups have raised questions about passenger privacy and challenged the agency's assertions regarding safeguards against abuse or misuse of nude images of passengers. The GAO report also raised questions regarding the effectiveness of whole body imaging technology in detecting low density materials such as powder or gel explosives as well as items that may be designed to allude detection. Former Administration Department of Homeland Security senior officials have gone to work of companies selling the whole body scanners to TSA.
Scanners may not have detected alleged explosive in Detroit jet case, GAO reports, By Spencer S. Hsu, Washington Post, March 18, 2010
The Federal Communications Commission released its plan for broadband deployment within the United States. Broadband is all about high-speed two-way Internet connectivity.The US lags behind many European nations, Japan, and South Korea in national broadband deployment. The FCC document advocates increased competition, support universal availability, and an update in government laws/regulations to support expansion of broadband use. The report cites everything from e-health records, to the development of the Smart Grid as being relevant to the topic of national broadband deployment. Faster broadband transmission rates are correlated to time spent online for work and leisure. There are stubborn gaps in broadband deployment to rural and inner city areas that may respond to an organized national effort. The US solved problems with access to basic services such as railroads, highways, electricity, and telephones through federal programs like the transcontinental railroad, rural electrification program, national highway system, and national telephone service efforts.
FCC National Broadband Plan, Federal Communications Commission, March 16, 2010
The Department of Homeland Security Department has funded 72 state and local Fusion Centers, which establish data mining relationships with public and private data warehouses. Local and state law-enforcement agencies that operate Fusion Centers depend on funding from Federal government agencies to open centers, train staff, and develop intelligence expertise. It has long been understood that local and state law-enforcement did not want to limit the work of Fusion Centers solely to terrorism related investigations. The relationships between state/local Fusion Centers and Federal government agencies is not transparent.
, State fusion centers look to expand beyond counterterrorism efforts, Patrick Marshall, Government Computer News, March 12, 2010
A room in a shelter where a juvenile and his mother lived was unlawfully searched by police after the door was unlocked by the Shelter Director. The High Court ruled that the room's occupants had a reasonable expectation of privacy and that police needed the okay of one of the room's occupants before entering. Persons seeking shelter need not have diminished rights, which could have consequences in the event of emergency shelter situations such as those provided by domestic violence or disaster assistance programs.
SJC says that shelter dwellers have right to privacy Police search is ruled illegal, By Martin Finucane, Boston Globe Staff, March 12, 2010
Martin Scheinin, a UN expert on human rights said that body scanners' use in the war on terror were both ineffective and an intrusion on individual privacy. He went on to say that it would be a violation to everyone, but more so to women, certain religions, and certain cultural backgrounds. He has previously reported on different types of detection technologies could better for human rights.
Airport body scans breach rights: UN expert, Agence France-Presse, March 10, 2010
