MichaelZimmer.org

Recently, the EFF released a report named “On Locational Privacy, and How to Avoid Losing it Forever“, introducing some of the basic threats to locational privacy: Over the next decade, systems which create and store digital records of people’s movements through public space will be woven inextricably into the fabric of everyday life. We are [...]

Last month I noted that Google’s Street View service was being challenged by German data privacy authorities, who insisted that Google must permanently remove personally-identifying images from their databases (not just blur them in the user interface). Google argued that the original images are necessary to help the system “learn” how to automatically blur better [...]

Google’s Street View product has been criticized by privacy advocates since its very inception, including various posts on this blog. Two years after its release, Google continues to face challenges over its collection and treatment of potentially personally-identifiable images of people in public spaces. Most recently, Germany has noted that Google’s (reluctant) blurring of faces [...]

The city of Chicago has started to integrate its network of CCTV surveillance cameras to its 911 call center, creating a robust infrastructure to allow dispatchers to visually observe, in real time, the location of many 911 calls throughout the city. According to the city’s press release: When a 911 call is received, the CAD [...]

As I just mentioned, Google recently announced plans to blur or otherwise obscure people’s faces in the Canadian version of the Street View product. After a brief conversation with my colleague Chris Hoofnagle, I’ve come to realize that in their launch of Street View, Google blew a chance to really take a leadership role in [...]

There continues to be quite a bit of buzz and concern about Google’s “Street View” enhancement for Google Maps. A couple of comments on recent developments: ::: I don’t want to be picky, but given all the (necessary) attention given to the privacy aspects of Street View, I still wonder where everyone was when Microsoft [...]

About 6 months ago Microsoft launched their Windows Live Local Virtual Earth service, providing street level images of San Francisco and Seattle. You can drive or walk around the map and view the streets and storefronts…and the people. This detailed level of mapping carries significant concerns about one’s privacy in public, which I pointed out [...]

[This thought piece appears on the On The Identity Trail project's blog, blog*on*nymity. Thanks to the amazing folks there for the (second) invitation to contribute to the project. -mz] This post is an attempt to collect and organize some thoughts on how the rise of so-called Web 2.0 technologies bear on privacy and surveillance studies. [...]

The Montreal Gazette has a feature story on how the combination of cellphone cameras and the World Wide Web has resulting in the rise of “cyber-shaming” – a new kind of public shaming for wrongdoers, from litterbugs and bad drivers to negligent nannies: Hey you, the scofflaw parked illegally in the handicapped spot. Smile! You’re [...]

A federal judge ruled that the police must stop the routine videotaping of people at public gatherings. Reversing (and clarifying) an earlier ruling, the judge stated that such public surveillance is allowable only if there was an indication that unlawful activity may occur. From the NYTimes report: Four years ago, at the request of the [...]