WebProNews

Tag: Anonymity

  • Senators Introduce Bill to Temporarily Ban Law Enforcement Facial Recognition

    Senators Introduce Bill to Temporarily Ban Law Enforcement Facial Recognition

    Two senators have introduced a bill to temporarily ban facial recognition technology for government use.

    The proposed bill (PDF) comes in the wake of revelations that law enforcement agencies across the country have been using Clearview AI’s software. The company claims to have a database of billions of photos it has scraped from millions of websites, including the most popular social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Those companies, along with Google, have sent cease-and-desist letters to the facial recognition firm, demanding it stop scraping their sites and delete any photos it has already acquired. The New Jersey Attorney General even got in on the action, ordering police in the state to stop using the software when he was made aware of it.

    Now Senators Jeff Merkley (Oregon) and Cory Booker (New Jersey) are calling for a “moratorium on the government use of facial recognition technology until a Commission recommends the appropriate guidelines and limitation for use of facial recognition technology.”

    The bill goes on to acknowledge the technology is being marketed to law enforcement agencies, but often disproportionately impacts “communities of color, activists, immigrants, and other groups that are often already unjustly targeted.”

    The bill also makes the point that the congressional Commission would need to create guidelines and limitations that would ensure there is not a constant state of surveillance of individuals that destroys a reasonable level of anonymity.

    Given the backlash and outcry against the Clearview AI revelations, it’s a safe bet the bill will likely pass.

  • Facebook Said To Be Readying Anonymity App

    Facebook is said to be preparing a new standalone app that will enable users to communicate with one another anonymously, apparently not unlike apps of the moment Whisper and Secret.

    This comes from The New York Times, which cites two people briefed on the plans, and says the app, being led by product manager Josh Miller, will be released in the coming weeks.

    It also says the people familiar with the plans believe it will “be useful into health community discussions”.

    This, of course, follows recent reports that Facebook may be getting into the healthcare realm, as it’s said to have been holding meetings with medical industry experts and entrepreneurs, and is setting up an R&D unit to test new health apps.

    The new app, however, won’t be limited to healthcare, according to the NYT’s report.

    Facebook has faced controversy in recent weeks over its policy on drag queen names. The company has historically wanted people to use their legal names rather than names they have adopted, but the company recently said it will be reworking its policy.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Google Abandons Real Name Policy for Google+, Apologizes for the Confusion

    After years of complaints from users, Google has finally caved and dropped the real name policy that governed Google+, which in turn affected many other Google entities.

    In an apologetic post, Google admits that their name policy has “been unclear” and that it has led to “unnecessary difficult experiences for some.”

    “For this we apologize, and we hope that today’s change is a step toward making Google+ the welcoming and inclusive place that we want it to be,” says Google.

    Google+ was built on a foundation of no anonymity, as users were required to use their real names when setting up a profile. As Google began to integrate Google+ into more of its properties (like YouTube, Google Play, and more), the real name policy began to affect users all across the board.

    “This helped create a community made up of real people, but it also excluded a number of people who wanted to be part of it without using their real names,” admits Google.

    And throughout the whole thing, privacy advocates argued that point – sometimes, some people need to use a pseudonym.

    Though Google relaxed this policy some as of late, they’re now taking the final action to eliminate the requirement altogether.

    “Over the years, as Google+ grew and its community became established, we steadily opened up this policy, from allowing +Page owners to use any name of their choosing to letting YouTube users bring their usernames into Google+. Today, we are taking the last step: there are no more restrictions on what name you can use,” they say.

    Just three months ago Vic Gundotra, the main behind Google+, abruptly announced that he was leaving the company. Just as reports have been flying since the launch of Google+, people once again proclaimed the social network’s imminent death. Google promised that Gundotra’s departure would have absolutely no impact on Google+ and its operations – but this policy shift has to be seen as an attempt to win back or simply win users who felt iffy about being forced into so much notoriety.

  • Facebook Wins Battle in Germany Over Real Names Policy

    Facebook has won a court challenge in Germany that will see its real names policy upheld in the country.

    Back in December, Germany’s data protection office Unabhaengiges Landeszentrum fuer Datenschutz (ULD) issued a ruling against Facebook’s real names policy, claiming that it infringed upon citizen’s rights to free speech and anonymity online. Facebook said that they would fight the ruling, which they have done – successfully.

    On Thursday, an administrative court in Germany approved Facebook’s request to suspend the ruling that said Facebook’s real names policy violated German and EU law. The reason they gave was that Facebook was only beholden to Irish data protection laws, since their European offices are located there. Irish date law is much less severe than that of Germany.

    Facebook’s real names policy state that:

    Facebook users provide their real names and information, and we need your help to keep it that way. Here are some commitments you make to us relating to registering and maintaining the security of your account: You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission, [and] you will not create more than one personal account.

    It goes on to say that any account can be removed due to “use of a fake name” or “impersonation of a person or entity, or other misrepresentation of identity.”

    Facebook has always claimed that its real names policy protects users and makes the network a much safer, better-functioning place. Germany isn’t the only place where we’ve seen the effects of this policy, but it is one of the few places who have fought against it, fervently, in court.

    ”We are pleased with the decision of the Administrative Court of Appeals of Schleswig-Holstein. We believe this is a step into the right direction. We hope that our critics will understand that it is the role of individual services to determine their own policies about anonymity within the governing law – for Facebook Ireland, European data protection and Irish law. We therefore feel affirmed that the orders are without merit,” said a Facebook spokesperson.

    The ULD isn’t giving up, however. In a statement, the group said that they have plans to appeal the decision to a higher court.

    [AP via TechCrunch]

  • Facebook Is Asking Users If Their Friends Are Using Their Real Names

    Facebook doesn’t allow users to use fake names. Sure, people use them all the time, but technically, it’s against Facebook’s terms, and the company appears to have a new strategy in going after those who are in violation (or at least getting a better handle on how much it’s actually going on).

    Facebook has been sending out survey questions to people asking whether or not their friends are who they say they are.

    “Please help us understand how people are using Facebook,” Facebook says in a dialogue box. “Your response is anonymous and won’t affect your friends’s account. Is this your friend’s real name?”

    A Twitter user tweeted out the following screenshot, which was picked up by Talking Points Memo (via TNW):

    Facebook snitching

    In case there’s any question about the legitimacy of the screenshot, TPM says Facebook has confirmed that it has been surveying users about their friends’ names for the past several months. The publication shares this from a Facebook spokesperson:

    “This system has been in a few different incarnations over the past couple months. It changes depending on what’s being asked.”

    “Facebook is a community where people connect and share using their real identities,” the company says in its name policy. “When everyone uses their real first and last names, people can know who they’re connecting with. This helps keep our community safe. We take the safety of our community very seriously. That’s why we remove fake accounts from the site as we find them.”

    Of course, just because someone is using a fake name does not necessarily mean that the account is fake. Some people simply go by names other than those on their birth certificates. Ask Prince Rogers Nelson or Marshall Bruce Mathers III (who has more likes than anybody on Facebook, granted this is via a Page, not a personal profile).

    It’s unclear exactly what Facebook is doing with the information it is collecting.

  • YouTube Now Blurs Faces For Maximum Anonymity

    If you want to upload a video to YouTube, but you fear what may happen if anyone identifies its subjects, things just got a bit easier.

    Today, YouTube announced that they’ve added face blurring to their set of video enhancements.

    From the YouTube blog:

    Blurring faces on YouTube is simple. Once you’ve chosen the video that you’d like to edit within our Video Enhancements tool, go to Additional Features and click the “Apply” button below Blur All Faces. Before you publish, you will see a preview of what your video will look like with faces blurred. When you save the changes to your video, a new copy is created with the blurred faces. You will then be given the option to delete the original video.

    YouTube makes a point to say that this in a new feature that utilizes emerging technology, so you may encounter situations where not all the faces in your video are blurred out. On the tool itself, YouTube reminds users that if this happens, you may want to keep your video private.

    We’ve known that YouTube was working on this technology for a while, at the behest of various human rights groups. Now, it’s a reality.

    YouTube face blur

  • Tor Researchers Create OONI To Monitor Censorship

    If you are familiar with Tor, you know it to be the anonymous Web utility and browser that allows people to get around censorship and communicate without being spied on. It was essential for communication during the Arab Spring protest movement and many other like minded movements. It’s also used and endorsed by Anonymous for their operations.

    The researchers behind Tor have another great program up their sleeve to help combat Internet censorship directly. It’s called OONI which stands for Open Observatory of Network Interference. It’s a utility that does just as its name sounds. It allows users to look at a network and see what Web sites are blocked and censored by the ISP. Here’s the official description:

    OONI is the Open Observatory for Network Interference and its aim is to collect high quality data using open methodologies, using Free and Open Source Software (FL/OSS) to share observations and data about the kind, methods and amount of surveillance and censorship in the world.

    This is a human rights observation project for the Internet. OONI seeks to observe levels of surviellance, censorship, and networked discrimination by networked authoritarian power structures.

    The end goal of the OONI project is to collect data which shows an accurate representation of network interference on the Filternet we call the internet.

    It’s a great tool that’s been needed for a long time. While there are other organizations that detail how free the Web is in various countries, OONI will actually see what kind of content is blocked in these countries. It might even reveal a few surprises regarding countries that claim to be free.

    Of course, the next question would be if OONI has already exposed any kind of censorship. Indeed it has and one is pretty close to home. T-Mobile has a filter on their own browser called Web Guard. It’s meant to be a block for adult and other offensive content, because parents understandably don’t want their children to have access to this kind of content. The problem is that the feature is by default turned on for pre-paid accounts and it doesn’t inform users how to opt out of it.

    It wouldn’t be a huge problem except that T-Mobile’s Web guard also blocks a pretty large amount of legitimate sites as well. The most humorous being the official Web site of the Tor Project. Other inclusions on the Web Guard block list includes Newgrounds, Cosmopolitan Magazine, a Chinese sports Web site, a 9/11 conspiracy site, a French pop music site and other seemingly unrelated Web sites.

    When Tor asked T-Mobile about the blocking, a representative for the company just kept saying they would help him turn off Web Guard, but never provided any details as to why Web site like the torproject.org were censored. To that end, Tor says that T-Mobile is deciding what pre-paid customers, mostly children under 18, are allowed to see.

    The other major censorship regime that OONI has spotted was in Palestine. They claim that the that censorship is taking place in Bethlehem and is politically motivated. Out of all the Web sites that OONI analyzed, only eight were found to be blocked. Those eight Web sites that were blocked were all news sites that were found to report critical news about Palestine’s President, Mahmoud Abbas.

  • Should Content Providers Stop Allowing Anonymous Comments?

    Facebook product design manager Julie Zhuo contributed an op-ed piece to the New York Times, which calls for content providers to stop allowing for anonymous comments on their content, in an effort to maintain accountability for what is said. 

    This is not a new subject, nor an easy one, and despite Zhuo taking a clear stance on it, she does present both sides of the debate: accountability vs. privacy and freedom of expression.

    A lot of blogs are encouraging (or even requiring in some cases) users to log in with their Facebook accounts. There’s no question that Facebook has a vested interest in the decay of anonymity. Facebook wants to own your identity. Facebook has always looked down on anonymity though, even before Facebook Connect existed. That’s why unlike MySpace or Twitter, Facebook requires you to use an actual name (rather than a handle) for your Facebook Profile. 

    While there are cases where fake accounts are created, Facebook has even over-enforced this policy in some cases. Remember the woman named Yoda that was blocked because she shared a name with a popular Star Wars character? 

    That’s not to say Zhuo doesn’t make a compelling case, citing known examples of when anonymous comment "trolls" have crossed well over the line of human decency. Here’s a sample from the piece:

    After Alexis Pilkington, a 17-year-old Long Island girl, committed suicide earlier this year, trolls descended on her online tribute page to post pictures of nooses, references to hangings and other hateful comments. A better-known example involves Nicole Catsouras, an 18-year-old who died in a car crash in California in 2006. Photographs of her badly disfigured body were posted on the Internet, where anonymous trolls set up fake tribute pages and in some cases e-mailed the photos to her parents with subject lines like “Hey, Daddy, I’m still alive.”

    Psychological research has proven again and again that anonymity increases unethical behavior. Road rage bubbles up in the relative anonymity of one’s car. And in the online world, which can offer total anonymity, the effect is even more pronounced. People — even ordinary, good people — often change their behavior in radical ways. There’s even a term for it: the online disinhibition effect.

    Still you have to think a lot of valuable content would be lost if comments were no longer able to be anonymous. Some people just don’t want to put themselves out there like that, and it’s not always a matter of accountability. Some people just have genuine concerns about privacy. 

    I’m sure there are also plenty of people who have valuable things to add to conversations that just don’t feel like taking the extra steps necessary to authenticate their identities (not everyone is a Facebook user, mind you, and not all Facebook users trust Facebook with their privacy).  On the other hand, it would reduce the noise too.

    Then there is the fact that enforcing any kind of accountability is just not an easy task, and Zhuo acknowledges this. People can give fake names, email addresses, etc. Although, this may be one of Facebook’s ways of encouraging Facebook email address adoption too.

    Social Inbox Folders

    It’s an interesting problem with no easy solutions. If the web has taught us anything during its existence, it’s that people will always find ways to abuse it.  

    Caller ID has been a pretty popular feature for phones though. 

    Do you think online anonymity should be erased? Do you think it can be? Share your thoughts.