Right to Privacy
Right to Privacy
See No Evil: Loopholes in Google’s Data Safety Labels Keep Companies in the Clear and Consumers in the Dark https://foundation.mozilla.org/documents/311/PNI_Google_Play_Store_Research_Report_2023.pdf Feb. 23, 2023 Jen Caltrider and Anne Stopper When it comes to knowing how online apps use our personal data, consumers are still largely unprotected, similar to the landscape in the early years of nutrition labeling. Mozilla began its *Privacy Not Included project in 2017 to make it easier for consumers to assess the privacy and security features of products that connect to the internet before they make a purchase..
.In nearly 80% of the apps we reviewed, we found some discrepancies between the apps’ privacy policies and the information they reported on Google’s Data Safety Form.
16 out of 40 apps, or 40%, had major discrepancies between their privacy policies and their Data Safety Forms, earning a “Poor” grade.
( There are )shortcomings in Google’s Data Safety Form itself:
The form includes significant loopholes, like failing to require the apps to report data sharing with “service providers.”
Google uses narrow definitions for data “collection” and “sharing,” making it easier for app developers to mislead users.
Google also exempts “anonymized” data from its disclosure requirements, which is problematic due to questions about whether true anonymization is even possible.
TikTok has been increasingly under pressure: The EU just opened an investigation because of their data use practices and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is scheduled to testify before the U.S. Congress next month. Mounting concerns about privacy is not what TikTok wants right now - let’s use this opportunity and get them to clean up their messy privacy practices. (taken from https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/tell-tiktok-stop-misleading-android-users-and-provide-full-transparency-about-your-privacy-practices/ ) No matter the reason or justification for TikTok to share misleading information about their data sharing practices, you and everyone else should be able to make an informed choice about your privacy and the apps you use.
Facebook parent Meta will pay $725M to settle a privacy suit over Cambridge Analytica https://www.npr.org/2022/12/23/1145303268/facebook-meta-cambridge-analytica-privacy-settlement December 23, 2022
Cambridge Analytica was in the business to create psychological profiles of American voters so that campaigns could tailor their pitches to different people. The firm was used by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's 2016 presidential campaign and then later by former President Donald Trump's campaign after he secured the Republican nomination.
According to a source close to the Trump campaign's data operations, Cambridge Analytica staffers did not use psychological profiling for his campaign but rather focused on more basic goals, like increasing online fundraising and reaching out to undecided voters.
Whistleblower Christopher Wylie then exposed the firm for its role in Brexit in 2019. He said Cambridge Analytica used Facebook user data to target people susceptible to conspiracy theories and convince British voters to support exiting the European Union. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon was the vice president and U.S. hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer owned much of the firm at the time.
Original Case details: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23529033/facebook-inc-consumer-privacy-user-profile-litigation.pdf
Comment: One of the outcomes of the banktrupcy of CA, is that the algorithms are there for anyone to use. Most Parties seems to have IT cells, and they use this data. "panna pramukhs" could use apps like society management, gate management, security alarm systems and thus throw the privacy of the ballot in jeopardy.
Digital Data Protection Bill uses brevity and vagueness to empower government, undermine privacy by Apar Gupta November 25,2022. https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/apar-gupta-writes-digital-data-protection-bill-brevity-vagueness-empower-government-undermine-privacy-8279134/ The proposed legislation sacrifices legal rigour in favour of a concerning expansion of state power that tilts the law against the interests of individual privacy.
the Supreme Court in the Justice Puttaswamy judgment reaffirmed the fundamental right to privacy it contained specific legal standards as a three-part test. This includes words such as, “necessary”, “reasonable” and, “proportional” which are terms of art and exist as legal doctrines.
.. lack of detail is only one among many. Vagueness animates several proposed clauses that create vast regulatory power for the central government. They will determine significant policy choices that are usually first prescribed, but presently absent in legislative guidance. It has been India’s constitutional experience that such unhappy drafting often manifests in the arbitrary exercise of executive power.
the section on user rights is not only underdeveloped but even now contains penalties for users, who are essentially the beneficiaries of a data protection law...One of the most curious provisions is Clause 16 which places a duty on users to, “furnish such information as is verifiably authentic”, or face a potential penalty for a fine. When you bundle this with the requirements for authentication that are proposed for users in the Telecommunications Bill, 2022, it can mean the death of online anonymity and pseudonymous identities with the creation of a vast surveillance apparatus.
The Dangers of Policy by Analogue in The Draft Indian Telecommunication Bill, 2022 https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/mumbai-news/the-dangers-of-policy-by-analogue-in-the-draft-indian-telecommunication-bill-2022-101668369266574.html
Nov 14, 2022
Extracts: it is vital that such a bill adheres to robust and transparent guidelines. (but..)
The bill defines “telecommunication services” as including “electronic mail, voice mail, voice, video and data communication services” as well as all “internet-based communication services”, and “interpersonal communications services, machine to machine communication services”.
Then it asserts that “The Central Government may exercise its privilege under sub-section (1) by granting to any entity … license for providing telecommunication services”... the straightforward implication is that all machine-to-machine communications...This is an unprecedented overreach...If any machine-to-machine communication requires a licence, this would be applicable not just to company provided services like email or WhatsApp but also to owners of blogs or personal webpages with comment sections...
Madras HC Issues Notice to Centre, State on Plea seeking Digitisation of Medico-legal documents https://medicaldialogues.in/news/health/medico-legal/madras-hc-issues-notice-to-centre-state-on-plea-seeking-digitisation-of-medico-legal-documents-100138 Barsha Misra 2022-10-05
Seeking computerisation of medical records having legal importance, the petitioner informed the HC bench about the Medico Legal Examination and Postmortem Reporting (MedLeaPR), a software developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC).
Several states and union territories of India are currently using this software for issuing medico-legal reports and certificates digitally and for storing the data in the encrypted form in the cloud.
Filing the PIL, the petitioner urged the court for issuing direction upon the Central and State Government to implement this software in all government hospitals, and Centrally-funded hospitals under the control of the family welfare, labour, and ESI departments of the Central government.
India’s Internet Bill Is Straight Out of Beijing’s Playbook October 1, 2022
Analysis by Andy Mukherjee | Bloomberg https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/indias-internet-bill-is-straight-out-of-beijings-playbook/2022/09/29/4287b6c8-404b-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html
The telecom bill wants to retain sweeping powers of state surveillance, and apply them even to encrypted internet messages. Activists, dissidents and whistleblowers will find themselves particularly exposed; pressure will build on services like Meta Platforms Inc.’s WhatsApp, which has sued the Indian government for asking it to break end-to-end encryption, to fall in line. The anticipated telecom law is actually all about the internet. It seeks to bend the industry to the government’s will by imposing a license requirement on everything from Gmail to FaceTime and Skype. Licensed services will have to “unequivocally identify” their customers. Senders of messages will have to be similarly identifiable to the recipients. “These provisions essentially strip away the user’s right to stay anonymous,” said the New Delhi-based Internet Freedom Foundation, a think tank.
Both the public and the private sector are happy to see everything from banking services to state subsidies linked to a controversial national repository of biometric identification. Monitoring the daily lives of 1.4 billion Indians with databases — to extract profit or wield power — is a leaf taken straight out of Beijing’s playbook.
When it comes to wanting to control the worldwide web, India is already something of a world leader: There have been more than 660 instances since 2012 when mobile or fixed-line internet was shut down in one part of the country or the other, according to the Software Freedom Law Centre, an advocacy group.
Would you geotag your home for your government? 50 million Indians did https://restofworld.org/2022/would-you-geotag-your-home-for-your-government-50-million-indians-did/
A BJP political campaign encouraging people to upload their selfies and location has privacy advocates alarmed.
The photographs, many of which were uploaded along with location information, are still publicly available on the website. While the location information is not publicly available, it is retained by the website, which could lead to theft, hacking, and stalking. When siloed information, such as phone numbers, photographs, and location, is processed with other data sets, such as constituency population and voter preferences, it can make citizens vulnerable to “geo-propaganda,”said Srinivas Kodali, a researcher with the Free Software Movement of India,
Digital rights organization Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) has raised concerns over the privacy policy of the Har Ghar Tiranga website — particularly about who owns the submitted data, and what it could be used for. “The privacy policy [of the website] seems like a collection of boilerplate clauses that have been thrown together,” Prateek Waghre, policy director at IFF, told Rest of World. “Wherever possible, the policy tries to shift responsibility away from itself.”
For instance, the privacy policy states that it will “protect [the data collected] within commercially acceptable means.” However, it does not define what these means are. Similarly, the language refers to a list of advertising partners, but their names are not disclosed. The policy also suggests that Har Ghar Tiranga’s services and products can be purchased, but nothing is listed for sale.
This Mint interview on "people and privacy" remains relevant because right to privacy law is nowhere in sight even after 11 years. Donor driven despotic ruling parties have been successful in consistently misleading the Supreme Court with impunity. M. Gopal Krishna of the Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties says the government has failed to uphold the rights of the public within the ambit of its privacy bill.
Google provides FBI with access to account of Sci-Hub Founder https://reclaimthenet.org/google-provides-fbi-with-access-to-account-of-sci-hub-founder/ It's unclear what's being investigated.
By Didi Rankovic March 7, 2022
Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyan, a security expert, is one of those affected, having now been informed by Google that the FBI had asked for access to her Google account, which the tech giant granted.
Sci-Hub’s mission is to “liberate” scientific papers, often from research funded with public money, that journals and publishers keep behind a paywall and make them available to researchers and students across the globe for free.
And while that means that even those who cannot afford it monetarily get a chance to access this scientific data – both the government and the publishers are after Elbakyan, evidently with Big Tech platforms cooperating.
Now reports wonder what the FBI is investigating – allegations of piracy, or “something else.” The multi-year anti-Russian sentiment provides fertile ground for the rise of one (conspiracy) theory, according to which Elbakyan might be “working for Russian intelligence to steal US military secrets.”