By Ethan Zuckerman, on June 14th, 2011
Latanya Sweeney urges us to rethink the challenges of privacy. She’s worked in the space for ten years and tells us that thinking about privacy in terms of the design of public spaces is a helpful and useful conceptual shift. We tend to look at the digital world in terms of physical spaces. In digital spaces, though, we can often look at someone from different perspectives in parallel spaces, and we can learn things about you that might be considered to be “private”, hidden behind some sort of a wall.
She prefers to talk about semi-public and semi-private spaces, and to consider the tension between privacy and utility. It’s not one or the other, but the sweet spot between the two. She’s rethinking privacy, particularly around the topic of big data: pharmacogenomics, computational social science, national health databases. This movement towards the analysis of huge data sets forces us to rethink within legacy environments. How do we de-identify data? What does informed constent and notice mean in these spaces? And we’re rethinking at architectural levels, too – moving towards a realm of open consent and privacy-protecting marketplaces.
Open consent has been popularized by George Church at the Harvard Medical School. Rather than asking consent or making promises or guarantees, he gives you a contract where you sign away liability, because considering future risks is simply too hard. It sounds kooky, but a thousand people have signed up. Another model is a trade secret model – what if I treat your genomic data as a trade secret? As long as I keep it private, you’re exempt from liability – release it and all bets are off. We might also think of data sharing marketplaces where we insulate participants from harm and compensate them when it occurs.
We need to think through these components:
Data subjects – we need to think through the possibility of economic harm to these actors, in part because humans tend to discount risks around privacy
Technology developers – some of these developers are her students, and she urges them to think about the power over privacy and technology decisions they exert. Video recorders record sound and video, and sound is hard to mute. As a result, videotaping often pushes us against wiretapping laws… and this could have been moderated with a $0.01 cost decision
Policymakers
Belief systems
Benefit structures
and Legacy environments
Zeynep Tufekci asks Sweeney to talk through the question of belief systems and false tradeoffs. She suggests that debates have a false belief that you’re trying to maximize privacy or utility – the key is a relationship between the two.
By Trace Mayer, on November 12th, 2010
A Merrill Lynch banker has been indicted on charges of helping clients move undeclared money abroad. By using a few simple and free hawala privacy tips he could have drastically strengthened his criminal defense and perhaps even avoid arousing suspicion in the first place.
A bedrock legal principle is that the accused stands innocent until proven guilty.
BLOOMBERG REPORTS
Bloomberg reported:
Just before dawn on a cool June morning, six submachine-gun-wielding federal agents charged into Alexandre Caiado’s Sao Paulo apartment. After arresting him, they hustled Caiado into a pickup truck for a 30-block drive to Merrill Lynch & Co.’s office, where he had been working as a private banker for two years.
As the agents scoured Caiado’s desktop computer, Mary Livingston, a lawyer for Merrill, sat down alone with Caiado. “She gave me very specific instructions,” says Caiado, recalling the scene in 2006. “I wasn’t supposed to say what I really did.”
Prosecutors charged Caiado with arranging illegal fund transfers for Merrill clients — part of what has become a four- year investigation into bankers helping clients secretly move undeclared money abroad to evade Brazilian income taxes. …
“I kept trying to figure out what I did wrong,” says Caiado, in his first interview ever with journalists. “It was Merrill Lynch, one of the most respected places to work on the planet. They were emphatic about the fact that it was OK to transfer money abroad.”
Caiado, who wears jeans and a sports shirt with the sleeves rolled up, says he’s a scapegoat.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
PRIVACY TIPS
In this interview with Bill Rounds of How To Vanish we discuss the Merrill Lynch banker’s case and provide three powerful tips on how to protect your privacy when engaging in legal hawala transactions. Bill has contributed before with Hawala Banking And Currency Controls Part I and Part II. These privacy tips would also be helpful for those who are implementing the strategies found in the Tax Domicile Report.
1. Advantageously use the $10,000 reporting limit. When you cross borders there is often a safe haven of having to declare only amounts of cash or monetary instruments in excess of $10,000 per person per crossing. If you, family and friends travel frequently then availing yourself of this limit can quickly add up to material amounts.
2. Use encryption. Encrypt email. Encrypt files. I find using TrueCrypt and Dropbox to be a potent duo for encrypting and transferring files.
3. Jurisdictional arbitrage. Different jurisdictions have different privacy laws and free speech protections. You can use the differences, multiple jurisdictions and information technology to leverage your defensive position and make it exponentially costly for nefarious individuals to breach your privacy in the first place.
For example, England may throw you in the pokey if you do not disclose an encryption key in contrast to the United States where you often do not have to disclose an encryption key. Iceland recently enacted extremely strong legislation to protect free speech that was almost entirely written by the team at Wikileaks. By encrypting and bouncing data around the globe which resides in the cloud you can make the acquisition of your personal information without your consent extremely costly in terms of time, money and legal process.
The goal is to protect your data and have it reside safely and out of reach in the cloud. If costumed thugs break into your office wielding submachine guns then they will find nothing useful. By using anonymous web surfing techniques such as VPNs or proxy servers you can obfuscate the path to your data.
CONCLUSION
A bedrock legal principle is that the accused stands innocent until proven guilty. While it is possible that Mr. Caiado did engage in illegal conduct we should keep in mind that the case has not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt and therefore Mr. Caiado is presumptively innocent. Additionally, unlike real criminals who lie, steal, murder and intimidate, even costumed ones wielding submachine guns, even if Mr. Caiado engaged in the alleged illegal conduct there is no victim. None of the allegations are for charges of using violence or intimidation against innocent people or their legitimately acquired property.
But as quantitative easing increases, the State becomes hungrier and currency controls are ratcheted up there will be increasingly large amounts of innocent behavior that is criminalized by various costumed criminal gangs to extort holders of capital. But the cost of protection has dramatically fallen and jurisdictions like Iceland and Montenegro are arising and catering to the productive members of society. By starting early and taking proactive steps to engrain these privacy tips into your habitual activities you will be in a better position to avoid arousing suspicion and if in the unfortunate and unlikely event there is a criminal case brought your defense will be that much stronger. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
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By Winton Bates, on October 1st, 2009
The idea of governments collecting data on our subjective well-being might seem slightly Orwellian to many people. It could bring to mind images of officials from the government statistics office knocking at your front door and telling you that they are from the government and they have come to help you by collecting information about what is going on in your mind.
However I don’t think anyone needs to worry a great deal about the implications for their personal liberty of proposals for government collection of subjective well-being data, such as in the recently published book, “Well-being for Public Policy” by Ed Diener, Richard Lucas, Ulrich Schimmack and John Helliwell. As discussed in an earlier post, such data would be unlikely to increase the influence that paternalistic interventionists may have on the policy making process.
The important issue is whether the collection of this additional information is warranted in terms of its potential contribution to discussion of policy issues.
In their concluding chapter the authors ask themselves whether enough is known about subjective well-being for government agencies “to initiate systematic programs for measuring it”. This is how they summarise their reasons for answering “yes”:
“The measures are sufficient to reveal some of the groups in society that are suffering, and they also tell us which groups are thriving. The measures already provide strong clues about the characteristics of nations that lead to the experience of a satisfying life for citizens, along with those that predict the opposite. The measures give clear clues about the activities and circumstances that tend to lead to ill-being and well-being. And when national accounts of well-being are instituted our understanding of these issues will only grow.”
Do we really need systematic programs for collection of information on subjective well-being to tell us about such matters? The measures of subjective well-being generally tend to confirm what we know already from information on incomes and other objective indicators of the quality of life. It seems to me that the important issue is whether collection of more data on subjective well-being would add reliable information that is not available from other sources.
The book discusses the potential contributions of subjective well-being measures in providing new information that could be relevant to discussion of policy issues relating to externalities, non-market goods, taxation, setting fines and compensation for lost welfare. Some specific examples caught my eye. It is possible that information on the extent of misery caused by different diseases could result in better allocation of public funds for medical research (p 134). Some research findings suggest that effects of airport noise on well-being of people in affected areas may currently be under-stated by its effects on residential land values (p 147). Subjective well-being information may help in assessing the value of public facilities such as parks to residents of cities who have access to such facilities (p 155).
The critical issue in considering the contribution that subjective well-being data can make to public discussion is whether this information is reliable (yields consistent results) and valid (actually measures well-being). My assessment of the relevant literature (in my draft paper on Gross National Happiness) is somewhat less optimistic than the view presented in this book. Despite all the noise in this data, however, I think the authors may be correct that enough randomness washes out in large samples to make the responses to single item questions sufficiently reliable for the purpose of creating national indicators (p74). Multiple item questionnaires such as those suggested by Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener to measure “psychological wealth” (in their recent book, “Happiness”) could provide much more reliable information.
I think the authors make a fairly strong case that the surveys are measuring an aspect of well-being although I think it is an over-statement to claim that “the measures behave as they would be expected to behave given widely accepted ideas about what well-being is” (p 93). For example, the measures show a decline in well-being when people have children, despite the widely accepted idea that having children has something to do with well-being.
There is a risk that subjective well-being measures will cloud public discussion of policies rather than shed additional light on relevant issues if they come to be viewed as definitive measures of overall well-being. In interpreting these measures it is important to bear in mind that it is quite possible for people to make rational decisions to sacrifice some of their current satisfaction with life, in order to improve their own future well-being or that of their families.
By Bron Suchecki, on September 8th, 2009
Question from a reader:
“I have been acquiring Perth Mint silver and gold in the depository scheme and am concerned about confiscation issues in the long term. Probably it will not happen, but again given the mindlessness of recent policy decisions there is no reason why the Australian government could not just decide to tax the gains at a punitive level – ‘because people are making unfair gains from it’ or some other vacuous reason. Seems to me the main risk is not holding bullion, but also the ‘privacy risk’ if you want to call it that, that the government knows that you’ve got it and can therefore either tax it highly or confiscate it. Are you able to make comment about how best to acquire completely private gold and silver (ie no record of the sale therefore no one knows you’ve got it and therefore can’t confiscate it), in quantities of up to 100 oz?”
The scenario you suggest is certainly probable in any country. In an environment where other assets have declined and gold is $5000, the politics of envy may come into play. Classic example of this is the Luxury Car Tax introduced in Australia in 1986. While one can expect that a populist “gold profits tax” would get support, I think it is an open question as to whether it will go down well in Western Australia considering the high profile of gold mining in this state.
As I discuss in Australian Gold Confiscation, secessionism would be “in play” in such an environment. A “gold profits tax” could be considered as an Eastern States Federalist tax grab on Western Australia’s wealth, and could provide yet another reason to secede.
As to Government knowledge of your gold, note that the law only requires Australian bullion dealers to record your identity for purchases above $5000, not report them (unless you give cause for the bullion dealer to believe it is a suspicious transaction).
Therefore for the Government to confiscate, it will first need to personally visit each bullion dealer and go through their sale records. This gives you a bit of time between announcement of confiscation and a knock on your door. It is possible that the data collection will happen in advance of an announcement, but it is likely that rumors would circulate quickly.
In any case, those looking to take possession of physical gold should always consider the privacy implications. The risk here is a thief getting hold of the records of a bullion dealer or courier company. One needs to weigh up the convenience and cost of a telephone or Internet sale (which will leave records) versus a cash and carry purchase from your local bullion dealer.
The only way to protect yourself against this risk is to establish a relationship with your local bullion dealer and buy in cash under the relevant reporting/recording limit ($5000 in Australia). There is nothing illegal about buying a little gold with each pay packet, and most bullion dealers would understand that you are a prudent saver and not a drug dealer. But doing twenty $4990 transactions twenty days in a row would be considered a suspicious transaction and reportable.
For those whose personal circumstances mean the risk of theft is greater than privacy/confiscation considerations and thus choose to store their gold in a facility, just a word of warning not to get tricky with your identification. It needs to be clear to the facility operator who is the beneficial holder of the gold, otherwise you may have trouble establishing title to it (or being impersonated) in the future.
For example, even if there were no account identification requirements for bullion, the Perth Mint Depository would still want photo identification as an additional security measure. It is really the only way we can ensure that the person standing at our doors to collect your metal is you.
By way of example, a couple of years ago we had a call from a person who gave us an account number and account name and wanted to sell. However, he did not have the password, nor was he a signatory, so we could not take his instruction or reveal any details of the account. He gave us details, like purchase dates and amounts, that did correlate exactly with the account, but we couldn’t confirm or deny any of that – because he was not identified on the account. He became extremely agitated, but to no avail.
It turned out that he had the account opened in the name of a company by a broker/agent of his and they were the nominee directors and signatories. This privacy mechanism may have sounded good at the time, and maybe he had some other agreement with the broker to ensure they could not abscond with his metal. However, whatever structure he put in place, he had not considered the scenario where his broker was arrested and put in jail!
Not being keen contact his broker in jail, there was no way for him to get the broker to give us an instruction. He therefore had to wait, unsure if the broker had cleaned out his account. There is a happy ending to the story, as the broker did eventually get out of jail (but it was some months) and put in the sale instruction for him. In some cases, privacy may be too much of a good thing. 
By Mary Nichols, on August 8th, 2008
Overcrowding of prisons is putting pressure on criminal justice systems to use alternatives to custodial sentences. Electronic tagging is one method which can be used either instead of, or to reduce the length of, a prison sentence or as part of a non-custodial sentence. This is in effect a form of house arrest or curfew, in which offenders are required to stay at or close to their homes for a specified number of hours per day. An electronic tag worn on their person, usually on the ankle, alerts a control center if they violate these conditions.
Although tagging has been used in the United States since the mid-1980s, it has only recently been more widely adopted around the world in countries including Canada, Australia, Singapore, Sweden and the Netherlands. Within Europe, the UK was the first country to introduce electronic tagging, initially on a trial basis in 1989 as a condition of bail, with electronic monitoring as a specific curfew order sentence later introduced under the 1991 Criminal Justice Act.
The main potential benefits of electronic tagging are cost savings to the criminal justice system and the more optimal use of prison space. However, tagging hasn’t yet been adopted as standard practice in many countries, and where it is in use, relatively little systematic research has been conducted into its costs and benefits. Much of the research which has been conducted has been in the UK, where a great deal of controversy surrounds the practice of electronic tagging.
Human Rights Issues
Although there have been no successful legal challenges to the use of tagging on grounds of human rights, it has sometimes been argued that electronic tagging violates either Convention Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits “inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” or Article 8, which provides the right to “private and family life.” In a UK study, tagged offenders complained of being stigmatized and treated like animals; cases were also identified in which tagged individuals were attacked by others who suspected them of being sex offenders. On the other hand, there is evidence that some prisoners prefer tagging to prison sentences, leading to charges on the part of opponents of tagging that it is a soft option and one which does not deter individuals from re-offending.
The case for tagging hasn’t been helped by some high-profile bad publicity, such as the case of a female suspected burglar in England, who escaped for a two-week vacation without detection while tagged, and other media stories about individuals slipping off their tags to go on a crime spree. These types of incidents generally result from inadequacies in the monitoring system used rather than a problem with electronic tagging more generally, but their sensationalist aspects tend to overshadow more serious debate about the potential role of tagging in fighting crime. Moreover, the whole issue of tagging offenders has been mixed up with proposals and counter-arguments on both sides of the Atlantic about its use for other groups, such as juvenile truants and asylum seekers, which have brought the human rights aspects of tagging to the fore.
In the absence of successful legal challenges to tagging on grounds of human rights, any future expansion of its use is likely to be driven by cost considerations as well as more robust evidence of its effectiveness in reducing re-offending. Yet the limited research in both these areas has produced findings which are inconclusive and contradictory.
Costs and Benefits
Some studies have generated estimates of significant cost savings from the use of electronic tagging, mostly extrapolated from evaluations of small-scale trials or fairly simplistic number-crunching exercises. An early evaluation of trials in the UK claimed that several million pounds a year would be saved if curfew orders with tagging were rolled out nationally, with at least two-thirds of these orders replacing custodial sentences; an online BBC report recently claimed that tagging an offender for a year costs less than 10% of the cost of imprisonment for the same period. However, electronic tagging can only generate cost savings if used to replace custodial rather than other community-based sentences, with the latter perhaps being less costly to implement and monitor. A Canadian study by the John Howard Society of Alberta observed that tagging may even add costs to the correctional system by increasing levels of control to an extent which is unnecessary for some lower-risk offenders.
Similarly, there is conflicting research evidence on the impact of tagging on re-convictions. For example, a 1999 Canadian evaluation reported that electronic monitoring had no identifiable impact on future criminal behavior, yet a 2006 Florida-based study of 75,661 tagged offenders found evidence of significant reductions in the likelihood of conviction for a technical violation or new offense. However, a 2004 Florida study provided evidence that a high proportion of the tagged individuals in that state were low-risk offenders who would probably have received non-custodial sentences anyway, so the cost-savings of electronic tagging may have been minimal.
According to 1999 research with magistrates in the UK, tagging is a useful way of disrupting patterned criminal behavior such as night-time burglaries, shoplifting and late-night public order offenses and is also effective for long-term monitoring of sex offenders and other ex-offenders who continue to present a public safety risk. However, the magistrates interviewed argued that tagging is not an appropriate way of dealing with all types of convicted criminals, especially those who might present a risk to their own family members if confined to their homes. More systematic research is needed into the use of tagging for different categories of offenders to identify how the practice can generate the greatest cost savings to the penal system as well as helping to reduce overall crime rates. Criminal justice researchers will also need to examine the potential use of new forms of surveillance technology, such GPS satellites, which may open up opportunities for more effective monitoring of offenders in the community but will also certainly bring human rights issues into the center of the debate.
References
BBC News (2005, March 20). Electronic tagging investigated. Retrieved from BBC News.
Bonta, J., Wallace-Capretta, S., & Rooney, J. (1999). Electronic Monitoring in Canada. Ottawa: Solicitor General Canada.
Bottoms, A.E., Gelsthorpe, L. & Rex, S. (2001). Community Penalties: Policy, Practice and Future Directions. Cambridge: University of Cambridge.
John Howard Society of Alberta (2000). Electronic Monitoring. Retrieved from The John Howard Society of Alberta.
Mortimer, E., Pereira, E., & Walter, I. (1999). Making the tag fit: further analysis from the first two years of the trials of curfew orders. Home Office Research findings (105).
Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (2005). Electronic Monitoring should be Better Targeted to the Most Dangerous Offenders. Report No. 05-19. Retrieved from The Florida Monitor.
Padgett, K., Bales, B. & Blomberg, T. (2006). The Long-Term Effects of the Electronic Monitoring of Offenders in the Community. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, CA, Nov 01, 2006.
Stacey, T. (2006). Electronic tagging of offenders: a global view. International Review of Law, Computers & Technology 20, 1-2.
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