Author: Christopher Parsons

Policy wonk. Torontonian. Photographer. Not necessarily in that order.

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Why can’t, or won’t, your phone company detail data it shares with the feds?

From the Globe and Mail:

Canadians have “no way of knowing for certain the number, scale, frequency of, or reasons for, such disclosures, although we understand that they are substantial.”

…

The companies that responded to Citizen Labber Christopher Parsons included Bell, Rogers, Shaw, Telus, Videotron, Cogeco, Eastlink, MTS Allstream and Distributel, with the general sentiment that the privacy of their customers is of great concern. But their responses were short on details, instead citing vagaries about legal restrictions and national security, and in some cases shifting the onus on transparency to the government instead.

According to David Fraser, a Canadian privacy lawyer and partner with the firm of McInnes Cooper, “They’re able to provide a whole lot more information than they actually are.”

Further pressure on the companies to make it clearer just how, why, and how often they share information with state agencies.

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Sensitive personal information revealed in smartphone metadata, study finds

The ability to draw similarly revealing information about Canadians’ lives is just as possible, said Christopher Parsons, a post-doctoral fellow specializing in privacy and surveillance issues at the Citizen Lab at Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs.

The debate over the secret interception of digital, transactional records from smartphones and mobile devices, including their locations, numbers called, duration and Internet sites browsed, extends beyond the claimed security intelligence needs of the CSE and the massive, bulk metadata collection practised by the NSA.

Parsons believes some Canadian telecommunications companies could use metadata to deliver advertising and sell consumer intelligence to marketers. “Canadian companies do recognize this kind of data as a place to make money,” he said. “There is clear value in it.”

Sensitive personal information revealed in smartphone metadata, study finds
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Google Music for Mac (Desktop Application)

I’ve been using this OS X desktop app for Google Music for a few weeks now and absolutely love it.[1] One of the big weaknesses of Google Music (as made available by Google) is the absolute reliance on the web browser for desktop playback. In my case, I tend to have 4–5 windows, each with 10–40 tabs, on most work days.

In that mess of windows and tabs, hunting for the lone tab controlling my music is a royal pain in the ass. To the point where I’d rather use iTunes.

If Google doesn’t flat out hire the developers of the (unofficial) desktop app then I pray that Google at least leaves the developers/API sufficiently alone so that they can keep providing this very awesome application for us unwashed masses. Otherwise I’m going to have to spend a lot more time in iTunes (again).

  1. Note that if you haven’t played with your security settings, and are running a contemporary version of OS X, by default you won’t be able to install or run the application. To run the application open ‘Preference’ >> ‘Security’. In the ‘General’ tab click the unlock botton (lower left corner) and enter your administrative credentials. Then, on the same tab, select ‘Mac App Store and identified developers’; you should subsequently be able to authorize the Google Music application. You may have to repeat this process each time you update the application.  ↩
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EU votes in favor of universal mobile charger

550 votes to 12 says that chargers need to be standardized.

Awesome news for consumers in Europe who have to deal with the multitude of manufacturers that use proprietary adaptors for no clear purpose. Note: I exclude Apple from the ‘no clear purpose’ category, as lightening adaptors are wickedly more awesome to use than microUSB. This is a fact I’m reminded of every time I plug in my Android phone and wife plugs in her iPhone. Especially when doing so in dimly lit situations (i.e. almost every night in the dark).

On that note, USB Type-C connectors (which, like lightening connectors, will fit into ports regardless their orientation) cannot come soon enough!

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CSI and Malaysia 370

politicalprof:

See, on TV and in the movies (Enemy of the State, anyone), the government always has whatever technology they need at exactly the right moment they need it to solve a problem. Even more, they have unlimited budgets to pursue every case.

So of course people think Malaysia 370 was under total observation all the time. It’s the only story that “makes sense” given what they all “know.”

The ‘CSI effect’ also causes huge problems at jury trials these days, with jurors often unable to believe that a CSI-style analysis of evidence isn’t possible or hasn’t been done. Equally pernicious, CSI-based evidence is often held in higher regard, now, that previously on the basis that it must be accurate. Because, you know, unless you’re dealing with the master-villian of the series the CSI analyses are likely to have successfully drawn conclusions.

Yay TV and technology?

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Queen’s Park backs slowly away from transit-dedicated tax hikes

Toronto desperately needs serious leadership on the transit file, and soon: the condo boom is going to bring even more cars on the streets, and that’s going to aggravate already horrible congestion. If Toronto wants to state that it’s a world city then it needs to have the services you’d expect of such a city. And decent public transit is high on the ‘expected services’ list.

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Hidden experts have big ideas for Toronto public transit | Toronto Star

Change parking hours on main streets to reflect changing lifestyles.

Lobo, 50, has been driving a streetcar for 25 years and still loves it. “I never want to do anything else but go back and forth and be my best every day, 10 hours a day,” he said proudly.

He’s seen a lot of changes — not only in the number of passengers, but in the behaviour of passengers, too. People used to have the time to chat, but these days are more focused on their lives and their iPhones, he said.

Lifestyles have changed, too. Workers used to leave the office at 4:30, but these days are more likely to leave at 6 or 7 p.m. So, he asked: Why is parking still allowed after 6 p.m. at some spots on King Street?

“You’ve gone from two lanes to one lane of traffic,” he said. “You go on King St. at 6:30 and the traffic doesn’t move.”

Lobo suggested allowing parking on main streets after 8 p.m. only. He insisted we won’t have to go as far as banning cars on King St. during rush hour; this simple change would make a big difference.

They make other suggestions, as well, but as someone who often has to catch the King streetcar this suggestion resonated most strongly with me. It’s absolutely infuriating being stuck in gridlock along King, though I guess it does force me to get out and just walk to get home faster than on the streetcar.

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In sudden announcement, US to give up control of DNS root zone

Signs point to fallout from NSA spying that lead to “multi-stakeholder” model.

This is incredibly huge news. However, given the incredible influence of the Government Advisor Council and relative denigration of the Non-Commercial Users Constituency the shift to multistakeholder governance is going to be fraught with sweet words to distract people from the real politik that has largely consumed Internet governance.

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New Book!

The book that was waiting in my mailbox when I got home!

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2014.3.14

At its core, respecting the user means that, when designing or deploying an information system, the individual’s privacy rights and interests are accommodated right from the outset. User-centricity means putting the interests, needs, and expectations of people first, not those of the organization or its staff. This is key to delivering the next generation of retail experience because empowering people to play active roles in the management of their personal data helps to mitigate abuses and misuses. To this end, Aislelabs provides an opt out site that allows individuals to choose not to have their retail traffic data included in any anonymous analytics.

Quotation from “Building Privacy into Mobile Location Analytics (MLS) Through Privacy by Design” (.pdf)

It’s incredible that any company – let alone a Canadian Privacy Commissioner – would claim that an opt-out mechanism for hidden and secretive tracking technologies (i.e. monitoring your mobile devices as you walk through the world so retailers can better sell you things) constitutes “putting the interests, needs, and expectations of people first, not those of the organization or its staff.” For such an assertion to be valid the ‘people’ should be given the opportunity to opt-in, not out, of a surveillance system that few will know about and fewer will understand. There are vast bodies of academic and industry literatures which show opt-out mechanisms generally do not work; they’re not effectively centralized and they add considerable levels of friction that hinder consumers’ abilities to express their actual interests. And that’s just fine for many retailers and analytics companies because they’re concerned with turning people into walking piggy banks, not with thinking of individuals as deserving any semblance of a reasonable expectation of privacy.