Posts tagged "privacy"

• Predictions for Privacy in the Age of Facebook (from 1985!) →

  

  “The ubiquity and power of the computer blur the distinction between public and private information. Our revolution will not be in gathering data — don’t look for TV cameras in your bedroom — but in analyzing information that is already willingly shared.”

  Are these the words of a 21st century media critic warning us about the tremendous quantity of information that the average person shares online?

  Nope. It’s from a 1985 article for the Whole Earth Review by Larry Hunter, who was writing about the future of privacy. And it’s unlikely Mr. Hunter could have any more accurately predicted the Age of Facebook — or its most pervasive fears.

  future futurist privacy insight law legal
  1 week ago reblog like 18 notes
• Biometric Database of All Adult Americans Hidden in Immigration Reform →

  

  The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system.

  biometrics government law legal future privacy
  1 week ago reblog like 10 notes
• Big Data and a Renewed Debate Over Privacy →

  

  IN the 1960s, mainframe computers posed a significant technological challenge to common notions of privacy. That’s when the federal government started putting tax returns into those giant machines, and consumer credit bureaus began building databases containing the personal financial information of millions of Americans. Many people feared that the new computerized databanks would be put in the service of an intrusive corporate or government Big Brother.

  big data data mining future computers privacy law legal
  2 months ago reblog like 11 notes
• Drone surveillance quickly becoming routine in Colorado →

  

  According to new information obtained from the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO), law enforcement there has relied on unmanned aerial drones for surveillance purposes since as early as 2009.

  Investigative journalism portal MuckRock.com has filed several Freedom of Information Act requests with the Mesa County Sheriff’s Department and has just begun publishing a number of documents they’ve received regarding the agency’s use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones.

  drones robots privacy Colorado future police
  5 months ago reblog like 9 notes
• 'Cybersecurity': how do you protect something you can't define? →

  

  It’s no surprise that following the various hacks, cracks, and online intrusions which have been dominating headlines, there’s been a loud, rallying cry from governments and corporations for increased investment in something called “cybersecurity.” It’s a term that has already been used to brand two pieces of controversial legislation in the US, an ill-defined catch-all for the nuanced problems of a tech-rich, hyper-networked world.

  cybersecurity security privacy cyberwarfare
  9 months ago reblog like 3 notes
• Is Future-Use DNA Sampling Ethical? →

  

  My mother-in-law’s arms look like she’s been in a fight. The bruises don’t hurt, but they’re embarrassing. They’re likely due to the drug Plavix, a trade-off for preventing clots. But we don’t know if the drug is actually helping, because she started it before the FDA urged physicians to use a pharmacogenetic (PGx) test to distinguish patients likely to respond to the drug from “poor metabolizers,” who won’t. And no one’s thought to test her since.

  DNA privacy ethics research medical drugs future
  10 months ago reblog like 2 notes
• TMI? Licensing Your Personal Genome to Scientists →

  

  In five to 10 years, personal genome sequencing will cost less than $100 and people will have access to their medical records online, which means they’ll have more data about their health than ever.

  genome genomics future research privacy
  1 year ago reblog like 7 notes
• Satellites Track Humans, Now It’s The Animals’ Turn →

  

  Satellite technology is a modern-day “Wonder of the World.” Consider that currently over 1,000 active satellites orbit the Earth, communicating with ground-based transmitters and receivers for a host of applications, such as delivering scientific measurements, weather information, and television programming, to name a few. Since the launch of Sputnik I in 1957, satellite technology has increasingly connected people together, whether in the same town or on opposite sides of the planet, effectively making the world flat.

  satellite future privacy tracking
  1 year ago reblog like 5 notes
• A Stock Exchange for Your Personal Data →

  

  Here’s a job title made for the information age: personal data broker.

  Today, people have no choice but to give away their personal information—sometimes in exchange for free networking on Twitter or searching on Google, but other times to third-party data-aggregation firms without realizing it at all.

  market privacy future data data mining advertising
  1 year ago reblog like 3 notes
• FAA Releases Lists of Drone Certificates—Many Questions Left Unanswered →

  This week the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) finally released its first round of records in response to EFF’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for information on the agency’s drone authorization program. The agency says the two lists it released include the names of all public and private entities that have applied for authorizations to fly drones domestically. These lists—which include the Certificates of Authorizations (COAs), issued to public entities like police departments, and the Special Airworthiness Certificates (SACs), issued to private drone manufacturers—show for the first time who is authorized to fly drones in the United States.

  FAA drones robots law legal privacy future
  1 year ago reblog like 7 notes
• Opinion: In the digital age, everyone is becoming a spook →

  

  In a poll published last week by the American magazine Consumer Reports, 71% of adults polled confessed to being very concerned about Internet companies abusing their personal information. But what this poll failed to ask was whether we fear governmental abuse of our online data as much as abuse from private companies.

  future opinion computers Internet privacy
  1 year ago reblog like 6 notes
• Drone use in the U.S. raises privacy concerns

  Unmanned aerial vehicles, a key weapon in the hunt for terrorists overseas, are coming to America. In February, President Barack Obama signed a bill that opens U.S. airspace to thousands of these unmanned aircraft.

  video drones robots future privacy FAA law legal
  1 year ago reblog like 14 notes
• Eye-tracking computer programs and privacy. →

  

  Consider, for a moment, the following list: Republican. Abortion. Democrat. Future. Afghanistan. Health care. Same-sex marriage.

  There is an enormous amount of information reflected in the way you just read that list. Did your eyes pause for a fraction of a second on certain words? Did your pupils dilate, ever so slightly, at any point while you were reading the list? For some words did your eyes blink at a different rate? Did you backtrack to reread any words, and if so, which ones, when, and for how long?

  eye-tracking future computer privacy
  1 year ago reblog like 1 note
• Locator chips keep track of students in Brazil →

  Grade-school students in a northeastern Brazilian city are using uniforms embedded with locator chips that help alert parents if they’re cutting classes, the city’s education secretary said Thursday.

  Twenty thousand students in 25 of Vitoria da Conquista’s 213 public schools started using T-shirts with chips earlier this week, secretary Coriolano Moraes said by telephone.

  By 2013, all of the city’s 43,000 public school students, aged 4 to 14, will be using the chip-embedded T-shirts, he added.

  Brazil future RFID tracking privacy legal law
  1 year ago reblog like 15 notes
• Police Are Making A Scanner To Detect Concealed Weapons 80 Feet Away →

  

  The New York Police Department is working with the Department of Defense to develop a scanning device that would allow them to detect concealed firearms on a person 80 feet away. The scanner detects electromagnetic waves with a frequency in the terahertz range. Terahertz waves sit at the higher frequency end of infrared on the electromagnetic spectrum, just before the microwave range. The device works the same way an infrared detector does. Just as our bodies emit infrared radiation, so do they emit terahertz waves. These waves can pass through non-conducting material such as paper or clothing but are blocked by conducting material such as a piece of metal – or a gun. So if a person has a piece of metal under their jacket, such as a gun, the police will see the telltale outline of the weapon. The waves also pass unperturbed through wood and brick so the device can scan through walls.

  weapons scan future police privacy
  1 year ago reblog like 9 notes