ILI Student Blog

Month: March 2012

  • Supreme Court Justices say GPS tracker violated privacy rights

    Christian Oronsaye

    Supreme Court Justices say GPS tracker violated privacy rights

    The United States Supreme Court on Monday (01/23/2012) unanimously ruled that the police violated the Constitution when they placed a Global Positioning System tracking device on a suspect’s car and tracked its movements for 28 days.

    The case concerned Antoine Jones, who was the owner of a Washington nightclub when the police came to suspect him of being part of a cocaine-selling operation. They placed a tracking device on his Jeep Grand Cherokee without a valid warrant, tracked his movement for a month and used the evidence they gathered to convict him of conspiring to sell cocaine. He was sentenced to life in prison.

    The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned his conviction, saying the sheer amount of information that had been collected violated the Fourth Amendment, which bars unreasonable searches.  The court noted that “the government physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information. We have no doubt that such a physical intrusion would have been considered a ‘search’ within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when it was adopted.”

    The Supreme Court affirmed that decision, but on a different ground. “We hold that the government’s installation of a G.P.S. device on a target’s vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle’s movements, constitutes a ‘search,’ ” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor joined the majority opinion.

    Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/opinion/gps-and-the-right-to-privacy.html

  • Private Sector Brushes Up Against EU’s “Right to be Forgotten”

    Christopher Poole

     

    Private Sector Brushes Up Against EU’s “Right to be Forgotten”

     

    In January of this year the European Commission unveiled a series of proposed reforms to the 1995 Data Protection Directive. While the reforms are significant in many respects, one key aspect is the Article 17 ‘right to be forgotten.’ In short, the ‘right’ would require that organizations handling personal data online respond to and fulfill requests by persons to delete such data.[1] As Professor Jeffrey Rosen has stated, “If requested to do so companies such as Facebook and Google would have to remove photos that people post about themselves and later regret, even if the photos have been widely distributed already.”[2]

     

    While many have welcomed such a right, some in both academia and the private sector have expressed concern over the far-reaching implications of such a law. Rosen himself has noted that perhaps the most crucial aspect of the proposed regulation may be in that it  “treats takedown requests for truthful information posted by others identically to takedown requests for photos” users have posted themselves, raising questions about freedom of speech and the role of online services as censors.

     

    One major player in the privacy game is already finding itself under pressure. Google has publicly expressed concern over what it sees as the broadness of the regulation, arguing that it may not adequately address the “important distinctions that need to be made between services that host content created by people (such as Facebook and YouTube) and services that point people to content that exists elsewhere (for example, search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo!).”[3] Facing EU scrutiny over its revamped privacy policy[4], Google is already squaring off against claims of a broad right to be forgotten in the EU. This past week, Spain’s highest court requested the European Court of Justice to decide if Spanish citizens may lawfully require Google to remove data from its search engine and associated services.[5] The formal referral to the ECJ comes after authorities in Madrid have received “over 100” such requests for Google to delete data, including cases such as a “plastic surgeon [who] wants to get rid of archived references to a botched operation.”

     

    Cited:

     

    [1] Commission proposes a comprehensive reform of data protection rules to increase users’ control of their data and to cut costs for businesses, http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/12/46&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en (text of the proposed regulations directly available at Article 17: Right to be forgotten and to erasure, http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/document/review2012/com_2012_11_en.pdf).

     

    [2] The Right to be Forgotten, http://www.stanfordlawreview.org/online/privacy-paradox/right-to-be-forgotten .

     

    [3] Our thoughts on the right to be forgotten, http://googlepolicyeurope.blogspot.com/2012/02/our-thoughts-on-right-to-be-forgotten.html .

     

    [4] EU agencies say Google breaking law: commissioner, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/01/us-google-privacy-eu-idUSTRE82011K20120301 .

     

    [5] Spain refers Google privacy complaints to EU’s top court, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/02/us-eu-google-idUSTRE8211DP20120302 .

     

    For more information:

     

    Data protection reform: Frequently asked questions,

    http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/12/41&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=fr .

     

    Google picks holes in EU’s ‘right to be forgotten’, http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/regulation/2012/02/17/google-picks-holes-in-eus-right-to-be-forgotten-40095071/

     

    EU agencies say Google breaking law: commissioner,

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/01/us-google-privacy-eu-idUSTRE82011K20120301 .

  • 7th Circuit OKs Limited Warrantless Cell Phone Search

    The 7th Circuit ruled that police can search your cell phone for your phone number without a warrant. Judge Posner justified this by saying that it wasn’t that big an intrusion.

    “On an iPhone without password protection two steps are required to get the number: touching the “settings” icon and then the “phone” icon. On a Blackberry only one step is required: touching the “phone” icon.”

    Also, the cop could have just gotten the number from the phone company…

    As far as other things the police might see while looking for the phone number?

    “It’s not even clear that we need a rule of law specific to cell phones or other computers. If police are entitled to open a pocket diary to copy the owner’s address, they should be entitled to turn on a cell phone to learn its number. If allowed to leaf through a pocket address book, as they are, United States v. Rodriguez, 995 F.2d 776, 778 (7th Cir. 1993), they should be entitled to read the address book in a cell phone. If forbidden to peruse love letters recognized as such found wedged between the pages of the address book, they should be forbidden to read love letters in the files of a cell phone.”

    Oddly enough, there’s no real discussion of what happens when the things police find are in fact not love letters, but potential evidence of some crime. Weird!

    At no point does Posner even discuss tradeoffs. It’s just “oh, this isn’t that bad.” When he assumes “that justification is required,” he talks about how it’s possible to remotely wipe the phone. Almost as if the Fourth Amendment is designed to ensure the police have access to evidence, rather than to protect citizens. Sigh.

    Opinion here.

  • Class Action Over Facebook Sponsored Stories Proceeds

    Khan Shing

     

    Class Action Over Facebook Sponsored Stories Proceeds

     

    Late last year, Facebook rolled out its “Sponsored Story” ad program.  Among the online marketing community, this was probably the most anticipated Facebook product release of the past year.  The gist of it is that anytime you post something about, or Like, a product, brand, event, etc. of a an advertiser, that post might get redisplayed on your outgoing feed as a Sponsored Story, with the advertiser’s brand prominently displayed.  COO Sheryl Sandberg has described this as an important innovation in display ads, since people are far more likely to buy products from brands their friends recommend.  Insiders at Facebook, as well as many outside analysts, also think this will be a critical part of the company’s efforts at increasing its share of the online display ad market.

    However, Sponsored Stories also led to class action lawsuits being filed on behalf of Facebook users, alleging various privacy, misappropriation, and unfair business practices claims.  As discussed here, http://goo.gl/hWUJR, a district court in California allowed one of these cases to move forward.  In previous cases, Facebook has made arguments that they have commercial free speech rights in their targeted ad programs and they will likely make similar arguments here.  While Sponsored Stories is certainly a clever way for Facebook to profit from the massive, and to this point largely free, marketing campaigns being waged all over the social network, it is equally clear the ad program has great potential to cause mischief.  Since Facebook does not allow users to opt out of the program, anyone can accidentally become a virtual pitchman for a product based on a post that is taken out of context or, as is often the case, made ironically.  Case in point: http://goo.gl/1qjDL