Online Profiling And Privacy

Online profiling and privacy: hearing before the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, United States Senate, One Hundred Sixth Congress, second session, June 13, 2000.

Privacy on the internet is challenged in a wide variety of ways - from large social media companies, whose entire business models are based on privacy invasion, through the developing technologies of facial recognition, to the desire of governments to monitor our every activity online. But the impact these issues have on our daily lives is often underplayed or misunderstood. In this book, Paul Bernal analyses how the internet became what it is today, exploring how the current manifestation of the internet works for people, for companies and even for governments, with reference to the new privacy battlefields of location and health data, the internet of things and the increasingly contentious issue of personal data and political manipulation. The author then proposes what we should do about the problems surrounding internet privacy, such as significant changes in government policy, a reversal of the current ‘war’ on encryption, being brave enough to take on the internet giants, and challenging the idea that ‘real names’ would improve the discourse on social networks. ABOUT THE SERIES: The ‘What Do We Know and What Should We Do About...?′ series offers readers short, up-to-date overviews of key issues often misrepresented, simplified or misunderstood in modern society and the media. Each book is written by a leading social scientist with an established reputation in the relevant subject area. The Series Editor is Professor Chris Grey, Royal Holloway, University of London

Analysing the legal issues concerning online and Internet privacy, this book covers the historical developments leading to the current state of the law and the relevant legal actions that have helped to shape it. Examined are the leading lawsuits that have asserted invasion of privacy on the Internet, the comparison of the state of the law in the United States with that of its principal trading partners around the world, and enforcement activity by the Federal Trade Commission. Also covered are proposals for new legislation and precedents for drafting a privacy policy that conforms to standards required by United States and international law.

One of the most challenging issues facing our current information society is the accelerating accumulation of data trails in transactional and communication systems, which may be used not only to profile the behaviour of individuals for commercial, marketing and law enforcement purposes, but also to locate and follow things and actions. Data mining, convergence, interoperability, ever- increasing computer capacities and the extreme miniaturisation of the hardware are all elements which contribute to a major contemporary challenge: the profiled world. This interdisciplinary volume offers twenty contributions that delve deeper into some of the complex but urgent questions that this profiled world addresses to data protection and privacy. The chapters of this volume were all presented at the second Conference on Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP2009) held in Brussels in January 2009 (www.cpdpconferences.org). The yearly CPDP conferences aim to become Europe’s most important meeting where academics, practitioners, policy-makers and activists come together to exchange ideas and discuss emerging issues in information technology, privacy and data protection and law. This volume reflects the richness of the conference, containing chapters by leading lawyers, policymakers, computer, technology assessment and social scientists. The chapters cover generic themes such as the evolution of a new generation of data protection laws and the constitutionalisation of data protection and more specific issues like security breaches, unsolicited adjustments, social networks, surveillance and electronic voting. This book not only offers a very close and timely look on the state of data protection and privacy in our profiled world, but it also explores and invents ways to make sure this world remains a world we want to live in.