The New York Times has four experts debate the idea of online privacy:

There seems no part of public, private or commercial life that hasn’t been made more accessible through social networking tools like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Hospitals are posting videos of surgeries on YouTube and doctors are sending tweets from operating rooms to educate the public and market their services. Those are just the latest examples of media-driven communication in places that used to be relatively private.

Is there such a thing as overuse of social networking tools? In the online world, is the notion of a public/private divide simply not applicable?

• Clay Shirky, Interactive Telecommunications Program at N.Y.U
• Timothy B. Lee, Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy
• Susan Mernit, former AOL vice president and blogger
• David E. Meyer psychology professor, University of Michigan

Clay Shirky:

[...] Society has always carved out space for young people to misbehave. We used to do this by making a distinction between behavior we couldn’t see, because it was hidden, and behavior we could see, because it was public. That bargain is now broken, because social life increasingly includes a gray area that is publicly available, but not for public consumption. Read more »

A columnist at the Tennessean writes about privacy: 

How intrusive are we going to allow our government to be? While Big Brother expands his scope and power on the national level there are those who want to help him do the same on the state level. Can you imagine even as recently as 10 years ago that anyone would’ve suggested that it would be fine to fingerprint a motorist just for a speeding ticket? That’s what state Sen. Joe Haynes’ bill would do.

Let’s say you’re pulled over for going 40 in a 30 mile-per-hour zone. Under the Haynes law you would be fingerprinted. Am I the only one who finds this incredibly frightening? Read more »

I have written before about the false and outdated data that can be a part of commercial profiles of individuals. For example, when a news reporter looked up his file on databroker Intellius.com, he found the record said he was charged with child molestation (he wasn’t) and that he had a close male relative who was convicted of manslaughter (the reporter had never even heard of the man). There are numerous errors in the records of databroker ChoicePoint, used by the FBI and IRS. A man bought his ChoicePoint record and found that the file showed he had died in 1976. Another man’s report included numerous crimes that he never committed.

Now, the Wall Street Journal has a story looking into the efficacy of some of these online commercial data brokers.

We tested four Web-based background-check services, Intelius, InfoRegistry, US Search, and NetDetective, to see what they could tell us about our chosen subject, a 50-year-old medical technician in Washington state who agreed to review results with us. Some facets of her life we thought would be easy to research, like the fact that she has lived at the same address for more than two decades. More complicated, a woman in our subject’s hometown shares the same name — it’s a pretty common one — albeit with a modified middle-name spelling. [...] Read more »

Wired News’ Threat Level blog reports:

You may not know it, but if you have a wireless router, a cordless phone, remote car-door opener, baby monitor or cellphone in your house, the FCC claims the right to enter your home without a warrant at any time of the day or night in order to inspect it.

That’s the upshot of the rules the agency has followed for years to monitor licensed television and radio stations, and to crack down on pirate radio broadcasters. And the commission maintains the same policy applies to any licensed or unlicensed radio-frequency device. [...] Read more »

BBC News reports that a British court has “limited police powers to keep pictures of protesters in case they go on to break the law.”

Judges said police had been wrong to retain pictures of a lawful arms trade activist who was not suspected of any criminal offence.

The Metropolitan Police said they acted reasonably in retaining pictures of the campaigner, Andrew Wood from Oxford. [...]

The court has told the Met to destroy the photographs if it does not challenge the ruling in the House of Lords. The force has indicated it will not appeal. [...] Read more »

ComputerWeekly.com reports on a privacy study from University of Cambridge researchers: 

Announcing the results of a study, the researchers say that users who believe they have deleted an embarrassing photo may have an unpleasant surprise when they learn that it is still available on the web.

The study examined 16 popular websites which host user-uploaded photos, including social networking sites, blogging sites, and dedicated photo-sharing sites. Seven of the 16 sites surveyed kept copies of users’ photos after 30 days.

The researchers uploaded photos to each of the 16 sites, then deleted them, but kept note of URLs to the photos from the sites’ content delivery networks. Read more »