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We’re Hiring! 2024 Privacy Rights Fellowship

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The application period ends Wednesday January 31st at midnight Pacific Standard Time. We will not be able to accept any applications after the deadline passes. We are thrilled to have so many strong candidates to choose from.

Oakland Privacy has once again been generously funded by the Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment for a part-time fellow to aid us in our work and help us expand its scope.

The 2024 Privacy Rights Fellowship begins on March 1st, 2024 for a duration of one year.

This is a unique opportunity to do hands-on implementation of enhanced privacy rights and enact social change beyond research and white papers.

Please read the description and application. Forward to others who might be interested or apply yourself. Applications are due by January 31, 2024.

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Data Privacy

Why We Can’t Censor Our Way Out of Online Harms

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by Tracy Rosenberg

Online Harms Need A Structural Solution: Ham-Handed Censorship Won’t Fix It

There is no doubt about it. Internet 2.0 made some people a lot of money. The quandary of the early 2000’s of how to monetize the Internet was answered by the rise of surveillance capitalism, and those positioned to grab the data in Silicon Valley have made (and in some cases lost) vast fortunes.

But as the early 2000’s receded, it became abundantly clear that the economic miracle of the monetized Internet had grave societal harms. Not just the obvious one of the institutionalization of an oligopoly of Big Tech firms who had scaled beyond any semblance of real competition, but kitchen sink harms that included the exploitation of children and youth, sexual abuse, black markets for harmful drugs and guns and the spread of virulent disinformation.

Not surprisingly, the large-scale distribution and increasing visibility of harmful content led to desires to make the “bad content” go away, some broadly recognized as such and other more ambiguously characterized as such depending on ideology.

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License Plate Readers, Video Surveillance

Kaiser Conducting Mass Surveillance of its Members

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Kaiser Permanente has been conducting mass surveillance of its members for years and is sharing that information with law enforcement.

Public records requests and publicly-available information have revealed that numerous Kaiser Permanente facilities in California have installed surveillance cameras that capture information about every vehicle that enters a facility. The cameras function as automated license plate readers (ALPRs) but also capture an image of anything that triggers a motion sensor.

KPIX-TV Coverage – https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/kaiser-permanente-license-plate-readers-privacy-advocates-allege-not-following-sb34/

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Cell Site Simulators

There They Go Again

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City of Pasadena agendizes purchase of a cell site simulator (stingray) with no usage policy

Pasadena, the Socal city that among other things houses Cal-Tech, is following in the City of Vallejo’s inglorious foosteps by putting the purchase of a (completely unnecessary) cell site simulator or stingray on an upcoming agenda for a vote – without the usage policy required by state law (AB 741-2015).

Oakland Privacy’s 2021 lawsuit against the City of Vallejo re-affirmed state law and instructed cities and counties throughout the State to follow it.

Our letter to the Pasadena City Council telling them not to break the law is below.

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Transparency Ordinance

The Threats of London Breed

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Four years after the passage of San Francisco’s surveillance ordinance by a vote of 10-1, SF mayor London Breed is threatening to ask city voters to gut it via ballot inititative. Breed’s proposed ordinance would, among other things, allow surveillance tech like drones which are not currently used by the SF Police, to be adopted for a year before the city’s Board of Supervisors could approve, disapprove or adopt a use policy. The new year-long free zone could also apply to the killer robots, whose deployment last year was halted by the Board of Supervisors.

The Board of Supervisors seems unlikely to collaborate in putting the initiative on the ballot, so Breed’s path to San Francisco voters would likely be through paid ballot signature collection firms.

Press coverage of the proposed Breed ballot measure is below.

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Drones, Police Militarization

Alameda County Militarized Equipment

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In the coming weeks, Alameda County will be putting forward for a public vote their inventory and usage policys for the county sheriff’s large arsenal of military equipment. ALCO, partially as a result of their operation of the large correctional facility at Santa Rita, is one of the most militarized police departments in California. This is not news to participants in Bay Area protests.

There are two particular areas for focus.

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