Privacy is Dead
Here's what you can do about it
U.S. Spy Agencies Know Your Secrets. That’s the headline at The Wall Street Journal. No surprise there.
Uncle Sam is taking advantage of the fact that privacy is dead. It died decades ago, with the rise of the Internet, smart phones and tire pressure monitors. No really…
Even tires can be a vector for surveillance. That little computer readout on your car that tells you the tire pressure is 42 PSI?
It operates through a wireless signal from a tiny sensor, and government agencies and private companies have figured out how to use such signals to track people.
Mine the Gap!
The WSJ article focuses on the fact that Uncle Sam is buying personal data from private companies, often through third party brokers. Data that law enforcement agencies and the intelligence community would need a search warrant to gather on their own, if they even could.
There’s no limit to the personal information in the feds’ taxpayer-funded shopping cart. We’re talking about data mined “independently” from your…
car (engine management, cameras, sat nav, satellite radio, tire pressure monitors)
phone (calls, texts, all online activities)
purchase history (including loyalty programs)
online searches
social media participation
health and fitness apps
financial transactions (salary, income, loans, credit card purchases, assets and debts).
surveillance systems (both personal and public)
What Me Worry?
Private data miners and brokers selling to government entities hide behind the claim that they anonymize the data – removing users’ names and IP and physical addresses.
As the Brits say, pull the other one, it’s got bells on. As The Wall Street Journal says…
The truth is that there are ways to identify people in nearly all anonymized data sets.
If you can associate a phone, a computer or a car tire with a daily pattern of behavior or a residential address, it can usually be associated with an individual.
Apple’s Poisoned Fruit
What about Apple, the gold standard in privacy protection? Surely Cupertino’s “walled garden” – its self-contained eco-system of compatible products and services – protects inhabitants from Uncle Sam’s prying eyes.
As if (and don’t call me Shirley). Yes, Apple refused to unlock owners’ iPhones for the FBI. Good for them! The feds I mean; they figured it out on their own.
While Apple won’t surrender your password, their privacy protection doesn’t extend to third party Apple-approved apps, which have their own privacy policies.
By Apple’s own admission, the Apple-approved apps gather a wealth of user information (the above is a partial list). How much of it ends up in Uncle Sam’s hands? How much doesn’t?
Apple swears on Steve Jobs’ tomb that they anonymizes Siri input for their research and development, but again, apple.com warns us…
When Siri interacts with a third-party app on your behalf, you are subject to that app’s terms and conditions and privacy policy.
Apple is late to the AI game. When they arrive, will they follow the industry standard for data privacy regarding “conversations,” information requests, data uploaded for AI analysis, editing and/or processing? I wouldn’t bet on it. At least not online.
OpenAI’s Open Door
OpenAI’s ChatGPT is the current market leader. Aside from the weasel word “may,” the AI giant’s privacy policy page makes no bones about the enormous range of data it sucks into its digital maw:
We may automatically collect information about your use of the Services, such as the types of content that you view or engage with, the features you use and the actions you take, as well as your time zone, country, the dates and times of access, user agent and version, type of computer or mobile device, and your computer connection…
In other words, OpenAI’s ChatGPT data captures everything you do with its “free” or paid service: the what, where, when and how.
Like Apple, OpenAI reassures privacy-minded users with ye olde anonymized data defense. They promise to only “share aggregated information like general user statistics with third parties.” That said…
We may share your Personal Information, including information about your interaction with our Services, with government authorities, industry peers, or other third parties if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with a legal obligation
Does OpenAI have a legal obligation to fulfill a request about a user accused of a crime? MonicaAI:
When it comes to requests about a user accused of a crime, OpenAI may need to comply with legal requirements such as subpoenas, court orders, or requests from law enforcement agencies.
There’s that word “may” again. It would be naive to discount the possibility of the feds or law enforcement pressuring service providers behind the scenes. In good faith, of course.
Like Apple, OpenAI offers no privacy promises re: third party apps piggybacking on the underlying software.
Nowhere to Hide?
When I lived in the U.K., The Land of Hope and Glory was well on its way to becoming the Western world’s most surveilled nation (currently home to some four to six million CCTV cameras).
When I kvetched about the cameras, nonplussed Brits responded with “If you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about.”
According to civil-liberties lawyer and Harvard University professor Harvey Silverglate, the average American professional breaks at least three federal criminal laws every day. Assuming you’re a pro, and maybe even if you’re not, you’re in the frame, mate.
What can you do to protect your data from the nexus of private data mining and government surveillance? VPN? Flip-phone? Disconnect your tire pressure monitors? Move to the country?
My go-to tech maven, a former employee of a three-letter government agency who works for an ad technology company, has a plan for those who want to keep some measure of personal privacy.
“I have five steps for that,” he texted. “Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance.”
So TikTok ban. Worth a post? Roger Williams next, then?
I had a conversation similar to this with my SO a few months back. She's extremely intelligent, highly successful and well traveled. She has also managed to insulate herself in a bubble when it comes to the government, privacy issues and the general craziness of social media. She's able to navigate her life in blissful ignorance of the horrible shit around us every day. I envy her because up to this point there's been no negative consequences of that mindset. My first priority in life is to do everything I can to allow her to stay in her bubble unharmed. All that being said, we were talking about privacy and she's of the mindset that you have nothing to worry about if you haven't done anything wrong. I quickly rattled off a couple felonies I knew for a fact that she had committed since I've known her. Then she entered the denial phase but being the cheerful person she is she skipped ahead to acceptance and went back to planning her next scuba diving trip in the Maldives then feeding our chickens. I opened up X and doom scrolled for an hour and ordered some more .223.