On Sunday, May 19 at 7 p.m. ET and PT, “60 Minutes” will have include a segment, “A Face in the Crowd,” on the issue of privacy and facial-recognition technology. Here’s what “60 Minutes” says:

The odds are you are not just a face in the crowd any longer. Even if your picture isn’t plastered all over social networking and photo-sharing sites, facial recognition technology in public places is making it harder if not impossible to remain anonymous. Lesley Stahl reports on the new ways this technology is being used that even has one of its inventors calling it too intrusive. Her 60 MINUTES report will be broadcast Sunday, May 19 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

Professor Alessandro Acquisti of Carnegie Mellon, who researches how technology impacts privacy, stunned Stahl with an experiment. He photographed random students on the campus and in short order, not only identified several of them, but in a number of cases found their personal information, including social security numbers, just using a facial recognition program he downloaded for free. Read more »

Consumer Reports is hosting a panel discussion, “Consumer Trade-offs in a Mobile Culture: Privacy, Payments and Social Media,” on May 1 in New York City. Here’s more information:

Join Consumer Reports for an in-depth discussion about mobile technology and the ways that it has fundamentally changed our culture.
A panel of consumer advocates, mobile proponents, and industry experts will explore the upsides and downsides of an increasingly mobile world. The conversation will weigh the benefits and opportunities of mobile services against the risks they pose to privacy and security.

Keynote Speaker: John Morris, Associate Administrator and Director of Internet Policy, National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)

Panel moderated by Sree Sreenivasan, Chief Digital Officer, Columbia School of Journalism, with:

• Julie Ask, Vice President and Principal Analyst, Forrester Research (invited)
• Susan Grant, Director of Consumer Protection at the Consumer Federation of America
• Mick de Meijer; Mobile Account Director, at MXM Mobile

Date: Wednesday, May 1, 2013, 6:00 pm – 9:30 pm EDT
Location: Columbia University: School of Journalism, 2950 Broadway; New York, NY 10027
For more information and to register: http://consumer-reports-privacy.eventbrite.com/#

Patient Privacy Rights and Microsoft are hosting a panel discussion, “Unintended Consequences: Patient Perspectives on the HIPAA Omnibus Rule,” on April 25 in Washington, D.C. Here’s more information:

While the Department of Health and Human Services offered some clarity on HIPAA’s broad privacy powers, patients are still largely in the dark. After 500+ pages of regulations, questions remain about what health providers should do to comply with HIPAA. Patients deserve to understand how their personal health information is protected, who has access to it, and how patients can manage their own data. How will the new regulations affect them and their healthcare coverage? How are healthcare providers changing their protocols, if at all? Is sensitive patient data more protected from security breaches, and if not, where can we go from here?

We hope to move the dialogue forward so patients can benefit from new technologies while understanding how their privacy is protected. Join us for a lunch conversation to explore these issues at the next installment of our @Microsoft event series.

• Joseph Conn, Moderator, Staff Writer, Modern Healthcare
• Iliana L. Peters, Health Information Specialist, Office for Civil Rights, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services
• Deborah C. Peel, MD, Founder, Patient Privacy Rights (PPR)
• Corrine Carey, Assistant Legislative Director, New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU)
• Hemant Pathak, Assistant General Counsel, Microsoft

Date: Thursday, April 25, 2013, at noon EDT
Location: 901 K Street, NW, 11th Floor; Washington, DC 20001
Register at: https://live.iplanevents.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=reg.page&event_id=2411

The Federal Aviation Administration announced that it “will hold an online public engagement session” in order to “provide the public with an opportunity to comment on the agency’s proposed privacy policy for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS).”  See a recent post for more on moves in state and federal legislatures concerning privacy and restrictions on such domestic use of of aerial drones (also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, “UAVs”). Here’s more from the press release:

The FAA will provide a brief overview of the UAS test site program and proposed privacy policy and then take comments from participants. Each participant will have three minutes for comments. The FAA encourages the public to provide comments to the docket. The FAA will listen and record all comments, but will not answer any questions during the session.

The FAA anticipates that test site operator privacy practices will help inform the dialogue among policymakers, privacy advocates, and the industry on broader questions about the use of UAS technologies. The privacy requirements the FAA has proposed are specifically designed for the operation of the UAS test sites. They are not intended to pre-determine the long-term policy and regulatory framework under which commercial UASs would operate. Rather, they aim to assure maximum transparency of privacy policies associated with UAS test site operations in order to engage all stakeholders in discussion about which privacy issues are raised by UAS operations and how law, public policy, and the industry practices should respond to those issues in the long run.

Date: Wednesday, April 3 at Noon ET
For more information and to register: https://www.eventbuilder.com/encounter/event_desc.asp?p_event=s6b6g2p7

The Cato Institute is hosting a policy forum, “Travel Surveillance, Traveler Intrusion,” which also will be live-streamed. Here’s more info from Cato:

Featuring Edward Hasbrouck, Journalist, Consumer Advocate, Travel Expert, and Consultant, The Identity Project (PapersPlease.org), Author of the book and blog, The Practical Nomad; and Ginger McCall Director, Open Government Program, Electronic Privacy Information Center; moderated by Jim Harper, Director of Information Policy Studies, Cato Institute.

The United States government practices surprisingly comprehensive surveillance of air travel, amassing data about the comings and goings of all Americans who fly. Travel expert Edward Hasbrouck has been researching
travel surveillance for many years. His findings reveal a stunning level of government surveillance, control of the traveler, and intrusion into commercial travel IT systems. Read more »

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board announced that it will hold a partially public meeting to discuss its start-up activities and related matters. (See this post for a lot of background information on the board.) Here’s more from the board: