Issue 114: Digital Privacy
This week's DLTJ Thursday Threads looks at digital privacy concerns from the commercial perspective. I think next week's article will be a summary of recent happenings with government surveillance activities.
- Late last month, Amazon launched Alexa+, and with it a flurry of privacy concerns. Why? Because Amazon now mandates cloud uploads to process Echo voice commands.
- Using the technologies already in buildings, employers can monitor employee activities, raising privacy concerns.
- Last year the FTC released a report that, while surprising no one, exposed the extensive data collection by social media platforms.
- Speaking of collecting personal data, all of it ends up in databases of various sorts, and Fiverr freelancers use tools made for law enforcement and insurance companies to sell access to anyone.
- This Week I Learned: We started capitalizing the pronoun "I" to distinguish it from similarly typset letters.
- This week's cat
Also on DLTJ since the last newsletter was published:
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With Alexa+ launch, Amazon mandates cloud uploads for Echo voice recordings
Amazon has disabled two key privacy features in its Alexa smart speakers, in a push to introduce artificial intelligence-powered “agentic capabilities” and turn a profit from the popular devices. Starting today (March 28), Alexa devices will send all audio recordings to the cloud for processing, and choosing not to save these recordings will disable personalisation features.
Starting a few weeks ago, Amazon required Echo users to send all voice recordings to its cloud, eliminating a privacy feature that allowed for local processing. This change coincides with the rollout of Alexa+, a subscription service that enhances the voice assistant's capabilities, including recognizing individual users through a feature called Voice ID. Users who previously opted out of sending recordings will find their devices' Voice ID functionality disabled. Amazon justifies this move by stating that the processing power of its cloud is necessary for the new generative AI features.
Privacy concerns anyone? Especially given Amazon's history of mismanaging voice recordings and allowing employees to listen to them for training purposes. The company has previously faced penalties for storing children's recordings indefinitely and has been involved in legal cases regarding the use of Alexa recordings in criminal trials. Surprise, surprise: this shift would appear to prioritize the financial viability of Alexa+ over user privacy concerns.
Workplace surveillance and privacy concerns over employee monitoring technologies
Office buildings have become like web browsers – they're full of tracking technology, a trend documented in a report out this week by Cracked Labs. The study, titled "Tracking Indoor Location, Movement and Desk Occupancy in the Workplace," looks at how motion sensing and wireless network technology in buildings is being used to monitor the movement and behavior of office workers and visitors. "As offices, buildings and other corporate facilities become networked environments, there is a growing desire among employers to exploit data gathered from their existing digital infrastructure or additional sensors for various purposes," the report says. "Whether intentionally or as a byproduct, this includes personal data about employees, their movements and behaviors."
This is as fascinating as it is frightening. It is possible to repurpose technologies built into the building to track employees' movements and behaviors. The report is part of a broader series examining surveillance and digital control at work, supported by various organizations concerned with privacy and labor rights. In the U.S. and Europe, regulators, including the Federal Trade Commission, are responding to the growing use of tracking technologies, which gather extensive personal information about workers. Companies like Cisco utilize their networking systems to monitor the location of individuals and assets, enabling behavioral profiling based on location data. However, the report notes instances of pushback, such as protests at Northeastern University against the installation of motion sensors under the desks of graduate student workers, which were viewed as invasive and unnecessary.
I expect this same kind of technology is being deployed in retail stores and other locations as well.
FTC report exposes extensive data collection by social media platforms
The Federal Trade Commission said on Thursday it found that several social media and streaming services engaged in a “vast surveillance” of consumers, including minors, collecting and sharing more personal information than most users realized. The findings come from a study of how nine companies — including Meta, YouTube and TikTok — collected and used consumer data. The sites, which mostly offer free services, profited off the data by feeding it into advertising that targets specific users by demographics, according to the report. The companies also failed to protect users, especially children and teens. The F.T.C. said it began its study nearly four years ago to offer the first holistic look into the opaque business practices of some of the biggest online platforms that have created multibillion-dollar ad businesses using consumer data. The agency said the report showed the need for federal privacy legislation and restrictions on how companies collect and use data.
The chairwoman of the FTC at the time, Lina Kahn, emphasized that such surveillance poses risks to privacy and personal safety, contributing to broader societal issues. It remains to be seen if Congress and this administration pick up the ball and run with it, but I'm not certain that will happen (if, for no other reason then there are many more distractions happening). The report criticized self-regulation by these companies as ineffective, so this issue is ripe for legislative action.
Fiverr freelancers advertise access to personal data
Dozens of sellers on the freelancing platforming Fiverr claim to have access to a powerful data tool used by private investigators, law enforcement, and insurance firms which contains personal data on much of the U.S. population. The sellers are then advertising the ability to dig through that data for prospective buyers, including uncovering peoples’ Social Security numbers for as little as $30, according to listings viewed by 404 Media. Fiverr removed the listings after 404 Media inquired about the practice. The advertised tool is TLOxp, maintained by the credit bureau TransUnion, and can also provide a target’s unlisted phone numbers, utilities, physical addresses, and more.
In case you aren't familiar with it, Fiverr is an online marketplace for freelancers—a place you can go if you need quick, specialized help with a task or have specialized skills to offer. In this case, the article reports that dozens of Fiverr freelancers are advertising access to a powerful data tool containing personal information—Social Security numbers, unlisted phone numbers, addresses, and other private data—on just about everyone. The tool is used by private investigators, law enforcement, and insurance firms, but it has also become a "secret weapon" for hackers and fraudsters to dox people.
This Week I Learned: The pronoun "I" was capitalized to distinguish it from similarly typset letters
In fact, the habit of capitalizing “I” was also a practical adaptation to avoid confusion, back in the days when m was written “ııı” and n was written “ıı.” A stray “i” floating around before or after one of those could make the whole thing hard to read, so uppercase it went. And now it seems perfectly logical.
I'm not buying the opinion author's underlying premise (capitalizing “they” in writing when it refers to a nonbinary person), but the origins of why we capitalize "I" and not other pronouns are fascinating.
What did you learn this week? Let me know on Mastodon or Bluesky.
Pickle curls up for a snuggle
I need to get pictures of Pickle into the newsletter while I can. Later this fall she is off to Penn State with her "primary" as my daughter starts her graduate degree program.