Webistemology

TheStar.com | Crime | Security camera captures man’s murder
“Investigators congregated at a west end auto body shop today after discovering that its security camera recorded the city’s latest homicide.”

In this newspaper account we find that a store security camera captured a murder in front of the store. Last year, also in Toronto, another shooter was caught on video in front of an apartment shooting into the lobby. As it becomes increasingly normal to expect that private video cameras will be focused on public spaces, more and more crimes are likely to be captured on these devices – making them effectively an extension of public video surveillance. The argument for public surveillance has been public security.

The increasing number of cases like this suggest that prior studies about the ineffectiveness of video capture as a preventative measure are being borne out. This leaves the argument that the cameras are useful, after the fact, for identifying, apprehending and arresting suspects. This may or may not be the case, but it is certainly the case that if cameras are only useful for capturing criminals, then they do not provide increased security.

In other words it is not privacy vs. security (a false dichotomy in any event). In fact, it is privacy vs. retribution and is this a trade-off that we should be making in our public spaces?

Open-plan offices are making workers sick, say Australian scientists | Top Stories | News.com.au
According to this study, “…working in an open plan office is bad for your health.” Since privacy risks are also increased in an open office it would be nice to see the end of the cube farm. There are two big privacy risks in the cube farm. The first has to do with protecting the privacy of the individuals whose information is being used by the workers in the cube farm. This risk includes shoulder surfing, information left on desks, and overheard conversations. The second privacy risk is to the employees themselves. Any open office can go from community to prison fairly quickly depending on the management culture.

I found a reference to a recent study by Galexia, an Australian consultancy, in Murray Long’s excellent Privacy Scan newsletter.

Cutting to the chase, the study finds that only 348 of 1,597 registered organizations complied with the basic requirements of the act. The study’s recommendations start with this paragraph:

“This study has found that there has been little improvement in either compliance or data quality since the negative 2002 and 2004 EU reviews of the Safe Harbor. Indeed, the growing number of false claims made by organisations regarding the Safe Harbor represent a new and significant privacy risk to consumers.

If the Safe Harbor is to operate effectively, an immediate program of improvements is required.”

This, it seems to me, is a much bigger risk than the Patriot Act boogey man so frequently brought out. The full text of the study can be found at http://www.galexia.com/public/research/assets/safe_harbor_fact_or_fiction_2008/safe_harbor_fact_or_fiction.pdf