Online privacy

A compilation of research, interviews, and analysis aims to show that while the worldwide consequences of getting things wrong with the internet could be huge – for peace and security, for political and individual freedoms, for human equality – the problems are never so great that nothing can be done. This annual report is a call to action to recognize the things that are having an impact on the internet today through research and analysis, and to embrace the notion that we as humans can change how we make money, govern societies, and interact with one another online. This report is structu

As Congress and other relevant stakeholders debate how to protect Americans’ privacy, a key concern is making sure that new legislation doesn’t entrench the power of big tech incumbents. In this post, we argue that incorporating data interoperability into privacy legislation is essential to empowering consumers’ data rights and fostering a competitive marketplace. In a nutshell, interoperability means enabling different systems and organizations to communicate with each other and work together.

Facebook is banning personality quiz apps, which have for years been able to collect and store a great deal of information about their users. The ban comes a year after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where it came out that the data firm had acquired information on up to 87 million people through the quiz app “thisisyourdigitallife.”

New York State Attorney General Letitia James announced an investigation into Facebook’s unauthorized collection of 1.5 million Facebook users’ email contact databases. While Facebook claims that 1.5 million contact databases were directly harvested by its email password verification process for new users, the total number of people whose information was improperly obtained may be hundreds of millions. Email verification is a standard practice for online services such as Facebook.

The Federal Trade Commission’s coming resolution of its yearlong investigation of alleged privacy lapses at Facebook looms as a defining moment for US policy on consumer data, one with lasting ramifications for companies that collect it. A large penalty could serve as an important warning shot, particularly for tech firms that are already operating under FTC consent decrees from past missteps.

I worked on the Federal Communications Commission’s 2016 Broadband Privacy Rules, upon which L.D. 946, An Act to Protect Privacy of Online Customer Personal Information, is based. I urge the Joint Committee and the legislature to pass L.D. 946 without delay. It is common sense legislation that would require broadband Internet access providers operating in the state to protect the privacy of their customers. L.D. 946 would ensure that broadband customers have meaningful choice, greater transparency and strong security protections for their personal information collected by ISPs.

House Commerce Committee Leaders wrote to Google CEO Sundar Pichai expressing their concern about reports of a massive database of precise location information on hundreds of millions of consumers, known inside Google as “Sensorvault, ” and requesting a briefing and answers on how this information is used both inside and outside the company.  The letter was signed by Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr.

Federal regulators investigating Facebook for mishandling its users’ personal information have set their sights on the company’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, exploring his past statements on privacy and weighing whether to seek new, heightened oversight of his leadership. Apparently, the discussions about how to hold Zuckerberg accountable for Facebook’s data lapses have come in the context of wide-ranging talks between the Federal Trade Commission and Facebook that could settle the government’s more than year-old probe.

Facebook harvested the email contacts of 1.5 million users without their knowledge or consent when they opened their accounts. Since May 2016, the company has collected the contact lists of 1.5 million users new to the social network. Facebook said the contact data was "unintentionally uploaded to Facebook," and it is now deleting them. The revelation comes after pseudononymous security researcher noticed that Facebook was asking some users to enter their email passwords when they signed up for new accounts to verify their identities, a move widely condemned by security experts.