Uncategorized

The Pursuit of Folly: ALPRs as a Technological Non-Solution to Crime.

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The Berkeley City Council is scheduled to vote on July 25th to install hundreds of thousands of dollars of Automated License Plate Reader equipment (ALPRs) across Berkeley, in the hope of deterring auto thefts and violent crime.

The proposal specifies a two year test period for the equipment, but fails to specify any parameters or methodology for the test, nor any criteria for success or failure. As such, this will not be a scientific test, it is flimflam, smoke-and-mirrors: a procedure that guarantees “success” defined after-the-fact regardless of reality.

But this is not the worst of it. A massive, nationwide test of ALPR efficacy has already been conducted, spanning the last decades.  And it failed.

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Encryption

On World Press Freedom Day: Open Letter on Protecting Encryption

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As organizations that believe in the power of the right of privacy as an enabler of free speech and freedom of the press, we call on all governments to:

  • Ensure that encryption is not being undermined via overreaching legislative initiatives.
  • Ensure that technologies providing secure, encrypted services are not being blocked or throttled.
  • Revisit any bills, laws and policies that legitimise undermining encryption or blocking access to services offering encrypted communication, particularly the Surveillance Legislation Amendment Act in Australia, the EARN IT Act in the US, the Online Safety Bill in the UK, Bill C26 in Canada, India’s Directions 20(3)/2022 – CERT-In and the proposed version of the rules to prevent and combat child sexual abuse in the EU.

Read the full letter here.

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Shotspotter Gunshot Detection

Shotspotter Document Shows Humans Overrule Software Based On 100% Certainty of Mind

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In the Chicago lawsuit filed by Michael Williams, a Chicago resident who served 9 months in jail before charges against him were dismissed, gunshot detection manufacturer Shotspotter released a 19-page operational document to the plaintiffs. The document was the only response made available for a discovery request for all guidelines, manuals and scientific materials.

The document, which you can read in its entirety below, sets out criteria for the company’s technicians to overrule machine judgments about what is, and is not, gunfire. According to the company’s sworn testimony in 2021, such reversals occur approximately 10% of time.

Among the factors to be considered are: a sideways Xmas tree shape to the sound waves, 100% certainty in the mind of the human reviewer that gunshots did or did not occur, proximate incidents, and the location and time when the incident occurred. Human reviewers are given a brief interval of a minute to overrule the machine’s judgment.

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Uncategorized

Oakland Privacy’s Year in Bullet Points – 2022

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Some of the things Oakland Privacy had a hand in in 2022:

  • San Francisco’s Surveillance Ordinance survives an attempt to kill it by Mayor Breed.
  • Vallejo Surveillance Advisory Board begins meeting.
  • Our lawyers receive the James Madison award for a successful public records lawsuit against OPD.
  • Began a national campaign to put privacy protections into the Chrome Browser.
  • Almost all surveillance and anti-privacy legislation in the California Legislature is killed or usefully modified, including
    • AB 2192 killed, which would have allowed sharing of ALPR data with out-of-state agencies.
    • Digital License Plates modified to prevent GPS inclusion.
  • Created a guide to California Public Records requests.
  • Obtained and analyzed public records information about a massive Contra Costa freeway surveillance program suggesting that it had done nothing to reduce freeway shooting incidents.
  • Berkeley concedes that street surveillance cameras fall under the Berkeley Surveillance Ordinance, after Oakland Privacy files a lawsuit and much back and forth.
  • Berkeley puts in place a 14-day retention period for its ALPR program – one of, if not the shortest retention duration in California.
  • Oakland puts in place a 6-month retention period (down from two years) and much improved civil liberties protections for its ALPR program.
  • San Francisco’s “killer robots” policy is stopped and sent back to committee after national publicity embarrasses the Board of Supervisors.

2021 2020 2019

Data Privacy

Federal Trade Commission Proposed Rulemaking On Data Privacy And Commercial Surveillance

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On November 21st, the newly filled out Federal Trade Commission accepted written comments on an Announcement of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) that asked a sweeping set of questions about what to do about the commercial data economy in the United States.

The ANPRM was historic for the scope of issues it tried to tackle and the agency’s apparent willingness, under new chair Lina Khan, to dig into every aspect of tracking, surveillance and data exchange.

All over the country, privacy and anti-surveillance advocates strove to answer the call and submit comments. Here are ours, submitted jointly with Media Alliance, and focusing on biometrics, pay-for-privacy schemes, algorithms and consent.

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Data Privacy

CA Privacy Advocates Comments To CA Privacy Protection Agency 11/21/22

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A coalition of privacy advocates, including Oakland Privacy, Media Alliance, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, ACLU Action, Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Consumer Federation submitted comments on the latest draft of CA Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) rulemaking.

The rulemaking follows the Ca Legislature’s 2018 enactment of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the 2020 ballot initiative that enacted the California Privacy Act (CPRA).

The groups stated:

“As privacy advocates, we are concerned about several changes to the regulations that appear to set up additional barriers to consumers’ ability to exercise their rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA)”.

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