4 ms·

Is personal information really a kind of property, that can be stolen? If it is, aren’t we doing this all the time, any time we perceive anything about anyone?

• coldtea 8y ago
  >Is personal information really a kind of property, that can be stolen? If it is, aren’t we doing this all the time, any time we perceive anything about anyone? We are flexible and smarter than Vulcans. Something doesn't have to be necessarily expressible into a single, unambiguous universal formula to be made illegal. We can e.g. allow people to perceive things about other people in their brains (or even notebooks) as we've done for millennia, but not allow them to compile them into large aggregated digital databases of thousands or millions of people without their consent, or give them to advertisers. >How is this different than taking a picture of someone? The image is owned by the photographer, not the subject(s) according to current laws. Depending on the jurisdiction, taking an image of someone can be illegal. Sometimes, even if it's a public space. And using an image of someone to advertise stuff without their consent is illegal, including in public space.
  • wbl 8y ago
    Rule of law demands it be clear what is and is not illegal. Make it illegal to film people in public and the guy who made the Rodney King tape is going to jail.
    • crooked-v 8y ago
      The actual law being proposed in this case is pretty clear-cut.
    • skh 8y ago
      Rule of law demands it be clear what is and is not illegal. The fact that we have lawyers who argue over definitions and whatnot suggests that this isn't possible except through case law. Almost all written rules/laws have exceptions. It's incredibly hard to codify even something we all agree on in terms of wanting to outlaw: murder.
    • orwin 8y ago
      In my country, its not illegal to film people in public. Using this film for anything but personal use w/o the explicit consent of every identifiable person on it is illegal and can be charged with jail time (its usually just a fee + public excuses though). I can easily see a similar legislation/formulation for personal data.
    • ncallaway 8y ago
      > Rule of law demands it be clear what is and is not illegal While it would be nice, there's actually not really such a requirement. New legal theories are brought in criminal cases from time to time. The existence of novel legal theories in criminal cases means it's not always knowable precisely what is and is not illegal. The world is shades of grey, not black-and-white, and that's especially true in criminal law.
    • NowThenGoodBad 8y ago
      Your first sentence isn’t true. I was just looking at the laws regarding applying for a sellers permit and filing the tax status for my startup (deductions, compensation, etc). A single example of the laws not being clear-cut and concrete, but hopefully covering enough ground that people can be reasonably expected to understand, is illustrated in IRS Publication 535 under 2. Employees’ Pay. Reasonableness is defined as: Test 1—Reasonableness You must be able to prove that the pay is reasonable. Whether the pay is reasonable depends on the circumstances that existed when you contracted for the services, not those that exist when reasonableness is questioned. If the pay is excessive, the excess pay is disallowed as a deduction. Factors to consider. Determine the reasonableness of pay by the facts and circumstances. Generally, reasonable pay is the amount that a similar business would pay for the same or similar services. To determine if pay is reasonable, also consider the following items and any other pertinent facts. - The duties performed by the employee. - The volume of business handled. - The character and amount of responsibility. - The complexities of your business. - The amount of time required. - The cost of living in the locality. - The ability and achievements of the individual employee performing the service. - The pay compared with the gross and net income of the business, as well as with distributions to shareholders if the business is a corporation. - Your policy regarding pay for all your employees. - The history of pay for each employee. https://www.irs.gov/publications/p535#idm139767235089984 https://www.irs.gov/publications/p535#idm139767235089984 It is LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE to cover all of the cases with laws. Arguing “common sense” also isn’t valid, “common sense” isn’t really “commonly shared”. So, we do our best to create laws that cover bases but also give room for interpretation SO THAT WE CAN catch those people who are deliberately trying to break them. If we said “you may not go over the speed limit” what happens if a bunch of people decide to go under, making it unsafe for other people? They would have a basis to argue that they were not breaking the law. So we create laws that are also guidelines.
  • paulddraper 8y ago
    > Something doesn't have to be necessarily expressible into a single, unambiguous universal formula to be made illegal. It doesn't have to be expressed with a precise mathematical formula, but it does need to be expressed with a clear legal formula. Otherwise, people cannot know whether or not their actions are legal, and the law becomes a fearsome weapon in the hands of its interpreters. --- EDIT: I'm not claiming it's impossible for such a rule to be formulated in this case; I merely point out that clarity is absolutely necessary.
    • perfmode 8y ago
      The law has been a fearsome weapon in the hands of its interpreters since 1776. Stop acting like this is new. We need to reform our broken system.
    • nubbins 8y ago
      Its just not possible in general to know a priori the legality of 100% of your actions. Companies have entire compliance departments to attempt this and still cant always get it right. There are tons of grey areas and edge cases so what actually happens is the relevant authorities and advocates get together after the fact to figure out the legality. I don’t know how anyone would propose to write a legal code that covers 100% of circumstances and doesn’t need human interpretaion but I feel like it it would be akin to the problem of general AI.
      • paulddraper 8y ago
        > Its just not possible in general to know a priori the legality of 100% of your actions. To the degree that this fact is true, the law is broken.
• simple_phrases 8y ago
  > How is this different than taking a picture of someone? The image is owned by the photographer, not the subject(s) according to current laws. There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in public. Meanwhile, advertisements and depictions of people who have unlicensed but copyrighted images tattoos on their person open up those who distribute media with their likeness to lawsuits by the owners of the copyrighted material.
• quicklime 8y ago
  I'm reasonably comfortable with a company keeping records of its interactions with me, as long as they're taking proper precautions to keep it secure. Where I draw the line is when they start sharing it with third parties, especially without my consent.
  • fhbdukfrh 8y ago
    Here's the rub though, what is the definition of "reasonable"? How about "record" or critically, "interaction"? Does browsing a web page allow them to build a shadow profile under the guise of recording an interaction? Funny enough, the thing you object to is usually the one thing explicitly spelled out in ToS that they are allowed to do with your information
• jashmatthews 8y ago
  This analogy breaks down immediately in other countries. In Germany, people have some claim to the copyright of their own image, much in line with the German view that you own your private information. https://www.co-berlin.org/en/watch-out https://www.co-berlin.org/en/watch-out
• bsder 8y ago
  > How is this different than taking a picture of someone? The image is owned by the photographer, not the subject(s) according to current laws. The photographer may own the image, but the subject may also need to sign a release for the photographer to monetize. > if I meet someone on the street, and record their name, the conversation we had, and the location where I met them, and their phone number, have I “taken their data”? > Do they have the right to demand that I not record that information? In some US states, yes. Many states have what is called "two party consent" and you cannot record a conversation with a device unless both parties agree. > Or is it only if I do this at a scale beyond which humans are not capable, and store it digitally, is that what makes this illegal? There are many different factors. However, one of the big ones I would put forth is if I don't ever interact with your service and you still have a profile on me. My friends tag pictures on Facebook. This means that Facebook now has a profile on me that I did NOT consent to. What is MY recourse?
  • paulddraper 8y ago
    > What is MY recourse? Your first statement would imply that the photographer has some responsibility to gain consent for the picture and its use.
    • bsder 8y ago
      And what about the other 30 people taking selfies whose background I am in. Those people didn't ask me because they didn't need to. They don't know me; I don't know them; we're not going to interact. Facebook, however, is coordinating all those pictures, their GPS coordinates, their tags, and working out everybody in them. I did not give anyone permission for that. Yet I don't have a way to stop it.
      • bryan_w 8y ago
        You can wear a mask
• ggggtez 8y ago
  It's already illegal to take certain kinds of photos. For example, upskirt photos or bathroom/locker room photos. The victim may never know the data was captured, but a crime still occurred.
• zahreeley 8y ago
  There is something called PII. Your face is not secret.
• xkcd-sucks 8y ago
  If only people all believed that getting photographed steals your soul. Tongue only partially in cheek
• indigochill 8y ago
  If we consider laws around privacy in meatspace, then here's the common dividing line (according to my memory of an information law class I took something like eight years ago): If someone is in a public space (such as a park) and you take a photograph for instance that happens to include them in it, then you're not violating their privacy. If they're in their home and you photograph them through their window, that is a violation of privacy because there's a legal expectation of privacy in a private residence. People are going into the digital equivalent of a park and getting upset when data collection happens there which happens to include them. What happens with that data (selling to advertisers, etc) is not really relevant to the legal privacy discussion. They gave away their data by participating in a public space. It's sort of like if some organization running public CCTV systems decided to sell recordings of public spaces they covered to advertisers (or heck, even data extracted from those recordings using facial recognition). Creepy? Sure. But not a violation of privacy as such since there is no legal expectation of privacy in a public space. (Incidentally, I'm not sure about the legal details of this specific example, but the point is privacy is dependent on location) The conclusion, then, is that people who care about legal protection of their privacy online should own the platform where they communicate, such as by hosting a Diaspora pod.
  • evgen 8y ago
    If you go into a park and take a picture of the park that has a person standing in the distance and then sell that picture then you have committed no crime. If you follow someone around the park constantly taking their picture and then decide to sell the ones that look the best without either the permission of nor compensation for the subject of your photo then they have a legitimate claim against you. People are not getting upset that they are being photographed in the park by someone who is an enthusiast about outdoor architecture and park planning, they are getting upset that the digital paparazzi are recording every footfall and selling it without permission. The idea that this data collection is not something that can or should be regulated is perverse and thankfully the general public is coming around to this viewpoint.
    • indigochill 8y ago
      >The idea that this data collection is not something that can or should be regulated is perverse and thankfully the general public is coming around to this viewpoint. A while ago I would have agreed, but as I've watched the progress of data legislation, I've come under the impression that it's flawed in at least two significant ways: 1. Companies lobby for laws that favor them. Sooner or later, they win. And then they spend those winnings to ensure they keep winning (some numbers on the top political contributions from electronics/communications companies: https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=B https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=B). 2. Enforcement is never going to result in jail time. It's going to appear as fines, serving as a mere cost of doing business which results in further entrenching existing companies against newcomers who can't afford the risks. People right now are excited about greater legislation because they think it will divert us from the cyberpunk dystopia of megacorps owning the world. But the trend I'm picking up from the current legal battles is that they're actually hastening it by pushing for legislation which those same companies will get to shape the details of. Thus, the solution I see is not greater legislation (which also implies greater centralization, thus more winner-takes-all for companies and governments), but greater decentralization and personal ownership. Legislation sounds good now, but in the long run it's a trap.
• NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  > How is this different than taking a picture of someone? The image is owned by the photographer I think there is a good argument that this is often not just. The iconic image of many events may have the victims preferring not to be that iconic representation years later. They may want their life to be known for them, not a moment long past. For the most obvious example, the famous image of a child running during the Vietnam war[1]. She's famous for being terrified of a napalm attack against civilians and allied forces. The photographer gets to decide if it may be reused, and he will, where it's proved to be his meal ticket. There's many less significant examples of where resting with the photographer is inappropriate. Rights resting with every subject would raise its own, different problems. I'm not sure how to improve the balance without unreasonably restricting the freedom to take perfectly reasonable snaps. > if I meet someone on the street .. right to demand that I not record that information They should, unequivocally. I can walk past a person with clip board taking a survey. I prefer unannounced recordings to be left to authorities and journalists. > Does my perspective or interpretation of that information give me some ownership to that data? Nope. If it's about me, I care not what you are trying to interpret from my eye colour, location and my presence in a shop. Just whether I have agreed to your monitoring of me, or whether you are one of a limited number of exceptions. Which seems to be the sensible starting point of GDPR. > What if I use that information for commercial gain See above. Makes no difference, other than hugely reducing my sympathy for its collection. I don't care if it concerns 10 or 10m if it's without informed consent (no dark patterns etc). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phan_Thi_Kim_Phuc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phan_Thi_Kim_Phuc
• Shivetya 8y ago
  First off, I think the proposal is one of those "looks good on the surface but is dumb when the details come to light". Simply put it is too vague and borderline an election campaign trial balloon, meaning we will see similar on someone's platform. However the real kicker here is, if they hold private companies to this then how do they excuse the government from similar actions and how does a law assigning this level of protection and declaration of personal property not affect law enforcement? In particular in that your phone/email account/etc has no rights even though your data is there. If this does get somewhere, what if companies choose to encrypt it all and when stolen it is just encrypted. does the government demand the keys at all times?