The San Jose Mercury News reports on an issue I’ve discussed before: digital signage advertising and the privacy questions related to that type of targeted behavioral marketing.

Using technology from top Silicon Valley companies such as Cisco and Intel, advertisers are creating a new breed of digital signs that can be customized depending on a viewer’s age and gender.

Already starting to appear in selected malls and other spots around the country, the signs have the potential to revolutionize the retailing industry, but their intrusiveness has led to criticism from privacy advocates and nervousness from some in the marketing industry itself. [...]

Businesses insist the signs are good for them and for consumers because they can offer more focused and effective advertising. [...] Read more »

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the Lower Merion School District placed on leave two Information Technology workers, the latest update in an ongoing surveillance scandal. Recap: In a lawsuit — Robbins v. Lower Merion School District (pdf) — in Pennsylvania, the Robbins family alleged that the Lower Merion School District misused Webcam-enabled laptops it issued to students in order to remotely peep into the students’ homes, take photographs and violate their privacy. The school district has denied violating anyone’s privacy, claiming the Webcams were only turned on in case of lost or stolen computers. The FBI and local officials are investigating. There have been discussions among legal scholars about the Fourth Amendment implications.

The Inquirer reports that, “The two people authorized to activate the software — Michael Perbix, a network technician, and Carol Cafiero, information systems coordinator — were put on paid leave last week while lawyers and technicians examine how the remote system was used.”

Lawyers for Cafiero and Perbix said their clients did nothing wrong. Perbix and Cafiero only turned on the remote software when a laptop was reported missing, they said – and administrators knew what they were doing. [...] Read more »

USA Today has a report on an issue I’ve discussed before: law enforcement use of license-plate scanners to track cars.

The cameras read license plates of parked and moving cars — hundreds per minute — and check them against vehicle databases, said Lance Clem, a spokesman for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, which purchased several systems for its police vehicles last fall.

Departments in Denver and Colorado Springs; South Portland, Maine; Gwinnett, Douglas and Cherokee counties in Georgia; and Clinton, Conn., are planning to deploy or have already added License Plate Recognition (LPR) systems this year, officials from those agencies said.

Also, about 40 law enforcement agencies in the Washington, D.C., metro area are deploying LPRs this year, according to Nate Maloney, a spokesman for their supplier, ELSAG of Brewster, N.Y. The district has had them since 2005, he said. [...] Read more »

HealthLeaders Media reports on a case where a medical patient’s privacy was violated:

Martin Memorial Medical Center in Stuart, FL, has disciplined several employees for taking cell phone pictures of a shark attack victim who later died, and has asked anyone with copies of the photos to destroy them.

The disciplinary actions included written warnings, suspension, and demotion to loss of position, but nobody was fired, the hospital said in a media release. “Ultimately, we have determined that these inappropriate actions were taken by good people who exercised poor judgment,” said the hospital in a prepared statement. Read more »

The Wall Street Journal has an essay by Robert Baer, a former CIA official and the author of “See No Evil” and “The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower.” Baer discusses how new surveillance technologies are changing the spy game. There are camera surveillance systems everywhere and massive databases filled with biometric and biographic data on individuals. In 1992, Baer says, a Palestine Liberation Organization official was killed on a Paris street by two assassins who still haven’t been found. “With no casings from the pistol found, no closed-circuit TV coverage in front of the Meridien [hotel], and no good description of the assassins,” there was not much the French police could do though they suspected it was an Israeli hit, Baer says.

Fast forward 18 years to the assassination of Hamas military leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh on Jan. 20, and it is a graphic reminder of just how much the world has changed. Nearly the entire hit was recorded on closed-circuit TV cameras, from the time the team arrived at Dubai’s airport to the time the assassins entered Mr. Mabhouh’s room. The cameras even caught team members before and after they donned their disguises. The only thing the Dubai authorities have been unable to discover is the true names of the team. But having identified the assassins, or at least the borrowed identities they traveled on, Dubai felt confident enough to point a finger at Israel. [...] Read more »

Yesterday, I detailed privacy concerns with digital signage advertising, where items such as billboards are targeted to the individual in front of it. Recently, the New York Times detailed the safety problems that can arise from digital billboards.

These high-tech billboards marry the glow of Times Square with the immediacy of the Internet. Images change every six to eight seconds, so advertisers can flash timely messages — like the latest headlines, coffee deals at dawn, a cheeseburger at lunchtime or even the song playing on a radio station at that moment.

The billboard industry asserts there is no research indicating they cause crashes, and notes that the signs do not use video or animation.

But to critics, these ever-changing, bright billboards are “television on a stick” and give drivers, many of them already calling and texting, yet another reason to take their eyes off the road. [...] Read more »