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UN Committee Approves Text Titled ‘Right to Privacy in the Digital Age’

131 points by salient 13y ago

sebkomianos 13y ago
Does UN have any power at all? When was the last time they said something that resulted in a change somewhere? Related: Greece: “Troika bailout conditions are undermining human rights,” warns UN expert on debt and human rights - http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=13281&LangID=E http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?Ne...
- Brakenshire 13y ago
  The UN really has as much power as we give it, in situations like this. It comes down to your contempt or otherwise for global consensus opinion. But, if we're justifying the UN, as seems to be necessary by this thread, the UNHCR and the WHO make huge differences, these are the organizations which have been coordinating help for refugees in Syria, and efforts to completely eradicate Polio, for instance. The Security Council is the major means for forcing Russia, China and the West to come to a shared position on Syria, which has led to the decommissioning of chemical weapons. It's also instrumental to avoiding war in Iran - the non-proliferation treaty provides a framework for negotiations, and the IAEA does the actual inspections - and failure to reach consensus in the Council was a major reason why the war in Iraq went so badly. It's a bit tiring hearing the old John Bolton-esque bullshit about the UN; it's a vital international institution, even if just for diplomacy and discussion.
  - xerophtye 13y ago
    It's not that the UN as a whole is a bad thing. Its the perfect place for countries to sit and talk. And they do tons for the world. But the view that it is some sort of superior body that governs all the countries is rather... naive. Even the security council for that matter, has had a terrible record track. And i need not remind the absurdity of the veto rule...
- marvin 13y ago
  No one has power over the US, because the US doesn't recognize any external authority. As Snowden said - it is all a matter of policy. It is schoolyard justice on an international scale, same as it has always been. To parahprase my history teacher, international relations are surprisingly childish.
wnevets 13y ago
a symbolic gesture with zero teeth, exciting.
middleclick 13y ago
Canada, Israel, United Kingdom, United States voted against the motion. Interesting.
- znowi 13y ago
  Not much surprising, though. The US and their minions. Full stat for a bigger picture: 148 in favor, 4 against, 27 abstained. It's like 4 against the world.
  - schoen 13y ago
    The U.S. delegation did get the right to privacy text watered down (and argued that there is no internationally recognized human right to privacy!), but the text still expresses serious concerns over mass surveillance. The 148-4 vote is not on the right to privacy, but on a different text about the "right to development". The U.S. delegation actually voted in favor of the right-to-privacy text. If you search this transcript for "The Committee then", you can see that they had many different work items considered at this meeting, not just the privacy item.
    - PavlovsCat 13y ago
      > and argued that there is no internationally recognized human right to privacy! Maybe there isn't, but maybe there should be.. http://en.necessaryandproportionate.org/text http://en.necessaryandproportionate.org/text
- AdamTReineke 13y ago
  That was for the Right to Development draft. > The Committee then approved, by a recorded vote of 148 in favour to 4 against ( Canada, Israel, United Kingdom, United States), with 27 abstentions, a draft resolution titled “The right to development”. The privacy one didn't have a vote. > The draft, approved without a vote, would have the General Assembly call upon Member States to review their procedures, practices and legislation on the surveillance of communications, their interception and collection of personal data, including mass surveillance, with a view to upholding the right to privacy by ensuring the full and effective implementation of all relevant obligations under international human rights law.
desireco42 13y ago
I am very skeptical to anything coming from UN, they as an organization are completely deprecated. As for this shameful bunch that voted against this, it is just state of where they are and all of us in terms of freedom and civilized conduct.
- Chromozon 13y ago
  If the UN is deprecated, what has replaced it?
- kjjw 13y ago
  Hello from the rest of the world outside of your small part of North America!
- dhaivatpandya 13y ago
  The UN is deprecated? Any evidence for that?
- znowi 13y ago
  > they as an organization are completely deprecated What deprecates them is countries like the US who don't give a shit about international agreements.
  - nickff 13y ago
    There is no international agreement which requires costly action, and is adhered to; most simply require signatories to do what they would have done anyway. International agreements simply are a method of signaling at very low cost.
- sigzero 13y ago
  I don't think "deprecated" is the word you wanted to use.
zcarter 13y ago
Most of the problems arise from the existence of asymmetric information. Consider how a blackmailer's power evaporates when the information they possess is made public. I think the simplest and most likely outcome is that all of the collected data will be made public. While it would be nice to maintain the illusion of privacy, it is only that, an illusion.
- nickff 13y ago
  How do these problems arise from asymmetric information? Blackmailers have information, which becomes valueless when it is made public; their activities have much in common with selling non-public information for the purpose of insider-trading. I do not see what this has to do with privacy.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  Consider how a blackmailer's power evaporates when the information they possess is made public. The blackmailer's power to exploit the victim evaporates, but the victim's situation may still deteriorate. For example, you discover that I am a former stripper, but nowadays I teach elementary school. You contact me and threaten me with exposure. I turn the matter over to the police. Through police carelessness or some other unrelated cause,t he information becomes public anyway. Your abaility to exort money in return for silence is gone, but I get kicked out of my teaching job anyway and can't find another one, so I lose several years of my economic life, and possibly social standing etc. A common problem with blackmail/privacy hypotheticals is an ambiguity over the moral culpability of the secret information. I personally don't think being a former stripper is a moral impediment to teaching elementary school but )a many disagree and b) I can think of many other things that I would consider a moral impediment but not one that I could necessarily justify on objective grounds.
  - zcarter 13y ago
    Right. I needed to define "problems." Problems at the level of society. If everyone has access to everyone else's behavior on the internet, society would change, yes, but I do not really believe the possibility of 'change' to be a problem itself. Considering your former stripper example: - If they would be kicked out of the job, is the former stripper not defrauding the school and the parent in this example? Privacy in this case is helping the former stripper deceive the (possibly overprotective) parent. Is reducing the incidence of fraud a problem? - people having false beliefs and biases that are shattered by new information (possibly harmful by causing them emotional distress?) is not a reason to prevent the discovery of that new information. Generally, I don't think it is a problem if the reality of the world causes trauma in the form of preventing foolish ideas from continuing. I imagine Ted Haggard's outing was very emotionally traumatic for his parishioners. - Relative social morals would obviously change. Almost everyone has done something society deems weird on the internet. Social norms around pornography, for example, will change. The moment this happens, the parent would likely realize, everyone has done something possibly deemed objectionable in their past. Further, the parent would have better information about how the former stripper is currently behaving - the best way for them to make decisions about their child now.
SilasX 13y ago
In other news, the 4th amendment doesn't cover internet communications because "there's no social consensus on an expectation of privacy" there. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6803409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6803409
- rayiner 13y ago
  Good job taking my post out of context. That post was in a sub thread about a broad general right to privacy. Not just narrow protections of electronic communications, but all sorts of tracking that doesn't qualify as a search or seizure. No such right exists. The Constitution doesn't even say the word privacy, nor did the framers write about it in the federalist papers or contemporaneous writings. My post was about what it would take for the Supreme Court to conjure such a broad right to privacy out of thin air. What it would take is a broad social consensus that such a right should exist. My point was that the tech community is undermining the establishment of that consensus by conditioning people to see online communications as a commercial transaction that can be data mined for advertising and tracking.
  - SilasX 13y ago
    What specifically did I misrepresent? Can you fit it into this format: SilasX's post suggested this about rayiner's post: [ ] But, upon reading the full context of rayiner's post, that would be a misrepresentation because: [ ] As it stands, all I get out of your comment is, "Hey, you took my post out of context. [Reiterate the post]." Please tell me it's something more than "you made my argument seem bad".
    - rayiner 13y ago
      Your post makes it seem like my post is about Internet communications. But that sub thread was about a general right to privacy, which is a broader concept. You can shoehorn some elements of Internet privacy into the existing 4th amendment framework. Straightforward analogies to wire taps will get you a long way. But there is a lot of surveillance that doesn't fit the mold of existing 4th amendment protections, particularly those based on tracking using third party or even public information. My post was about what it would take for the Supreme Court to find a general right of privacy that could encompass things that aren't obviously searches or seizures. Obviously finding a broad right of privacy would take an act of legislating from the bench much larger than simply extending existing wire tap protections to Skype calls. Your post implies that I think a broad social consensus is necessary for the latter.
nayefc 13y ago
Yet another motion from a useless organisation.
dreamdu5t 13y ago
Let's define privacy first. Does privacy mean my communications are monitored by the NSA? Or does privacy mean Facebook has to display some message to people who voluntarily make their private information public?
e12e 13y ago
As far as I can figure out, the actual resolution is: http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/C.3/68/L.45/Rev.1 http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/C.3/68/L.4...
Eye_of_Mordor 13y ago
It is unfortunate that there is no UN definition of 'terrorism', since those fighting this privacy resolution would be the biggest 'terrorist states' in the world. Best to remove the meaningless 'countering terrorism' term altogether and build a world based on trust, freedom and cooperation.

131 points by salient 13y ago

Does UN have any power at all? When was the last time they said something that resulted in a change somewhere? Related: Greece: “Troika bailout conditions are undermining human rights,” warns UN expert on debt and human rights - http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=13281&LangID=E http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?Ne...

Brakenshire 13y ago
The UN really has as much power as we give it, in situations like this. It comes down to your contempt or otherwise for global consensus opinion. But, if we're justifying the UN, as seems to be necessary by this thread, the UNHCR and the WHO make huge differences, these are the organizations which have been coordinating help for refugees in Syria, and efforts to completely eradicate Polio, for instance. The Security Council is the major means for forcing Russia, China and the West to come to a shared position on Syria, which has led to the decommissioning of chemical weapons. It's also instrumental to avoiding war in Iran - the non-proliferation treaty provides a framework for negotiations, and the IAEA does the actual inspections - and failure to reach consensus in the Council was a major reason why the war in Iraq went so badly. It's a bit tiring hearing the old John Bolton-esque bullshit about the UN; it's a vital international institution, even if just for diplomacy and discussion.
- xerophtye 13y ago
  It's not that the UN as a whole is a bad thing. Its the perfect place for countries to sit and talk. And they do tons for the world. But the view that it is some sort of superior body that governs all the countries is rather... naive. Even the security council for that matter, has had a terrible record track. And i need not remind the absurdity of the veto rule...
marvin 13y ago
No one has power over the US, because the US doesn't recognize any external authority. As Snowden said - it is all a matter of policy. It is schoolyard justice on an international scale, same as it has always been. To parahprase my history teacher, international relations are surprisingly childish.

wnevets 13y ago

a symbolic gesture with zero teeth, exciting.

middleclick 13y ago

Canada, Israel, United Kingdom, United States voted against the motion. Interesting.

znowi 13y ago
Not much surprising, though. The US and their minions. Full stat for a bigger picture: 148 in favor, 4 against, 27 abstained. It's like 4 against the world.
- schoen 13y ago
  The U.S. delegation did get the right to privacy text watered down (and argued that there is no internationally recognized human right to privacy!), but the text still expresses serious concerns over mass surveillance. The 148-4 vote is not on the right to privacy, but on a different text about the "right to development". The U.S. delegation actually voted in favor of the right-to-privacy text. If you search this transcript for "The Committee then", you can see that they had many different work items considered at this meeting, not just the privacy item.
  - PavlovsCat 13y ago
    > and argued that there is no internationally recognized human right to privacy! Maybe there isn't, but maybe there should be.. http://en.necessaryandproportionate.org/text http://en.necessaryandproportionate.org/text
AdamTReineke 13y ago
That was for the Right to Development draft. > The Committee then approved, by a recorded vote of 148 in favour to 4 against ( Canada, Israel, United Kingdom, United States), with 27 abstentions, a draft resolution titled “The right to development”. The privacy one didn't have a vote. > The draft, approved without a vote, would have the General Assembly call upon Member States to review their procedures, practices and legislation on the surveillance of communications, their interception and collection of personal data, including mass surveillance, with a view to upholding the right to privacy by ensuring the full and effective implementation of all relevant obligations under international human rights law.

desireco42 13y ago

I am very skeptical to anything coming from UN, they as an organization are completely deprecated. As for this shameful bunch that voted against this, it is just state of where they are and all of us in terms of freedom and civilized conduct.

Chromozon 13y ago
If the UN is deprecated, what has replaced it?
kjjw 13y ago
Hello from the rest of the world outside of your small part of North America!
dhaivatpandya 13y ago
The UN is deprecated? Any evidence for that?
znowi 13y ago
> they as an organization are completely deprecated What deprecates them is countries like the US who don't give a shit about international agreements.
- nickff 13y ago
  There is no international agreement which requires costly action, and is adhered to; most simply require signatories to do what they would have done anyway. International agreements simply are a method of signaling at very low cost.
sigzero 13y ago
I don't think "deprecated" is the word you wanted to use.

zcarter 13y ago

Most of the problems arise from the existence of asymmetric information. Consider how a blackmailer's power evaporates when the information they possess is made public. I think the simplest and most likely outcome is that all of the collected data will be made public. While it would be nice to maintain the illusion of privacy, it is only that, an illusion.

nickff 13y ago
How do these problems arise from asymmetric information? Blackmailers have information, which becomes valueless when it is made public; their activities have much in common with selling non-public information for the purpose of insider-trading. I do not see what this has to do with privacy.
anigbrowl 13y ago
Consider how a blackmailer's power evaporates when the information they possess is made public. The blackmailer's power to exploit the victim evaporates, but the victim's situation may still deteriorate. For example, you discover that I am a former stripper, but nowadays I teach elementary school. You contact me and threaten me with exposure. I turn the matter over to the police. Through police carelessness or some other unrelated cause,t he information becomes public anyway. Your abaility to exort money in return for silence is gone, but I get kicked out of my teaching job anyway and can't find another one, so I lose several years of my economic life, and possibly social standing etc. A common problem with blackmail/privacy hypotheticals is an ambiguity over the moral culpability of the secret information. I personally don't think being a former stripper is a moral impediment to teaching elementary school but )a many disagree and b) I can think of many other things that I would consider a moral impediment but not one that I could necessarily justify on objective grounds.
- zcarter 13y ago
  Right. I needed to define "problems." Problems at the level of society. If everyone has access to everyone else's behavior on the internet, society would change, yes, but I do not really believe the possibility of 'change' to be a problem itself. Considering your former stripper example: - If they would be kicked out of the job, is the former stripper not defrauding the school and the parent in this example? Privacy in this case is helping the former stripper deceive the (possibly overprotective) parent. Is reducing the incidence of fraud a problem? - people having false beliefs and biases that are shattered by new information (possibly harmful by causing them emotional distress?) is not a reason to prevent the discovery of that new information. Generally, I don't think it is a problem if the reality of the world causes trauma in the form of preventing foolish ideas from continuing. I imagine Ted Haggard's outing was very emotionally traumatic for his parishioners. - Relative social morals would obviously change. Almost everyone has done something society deems weird on the internet. Social norms around pornography, for example, will change. The moment this happens, the parent would likely realize, everyone has done something possibly deemed objectionable in their past. Further, the parent would have better information about how the former stripper is currently behaving - the best way for them to make decisions about their child now.

SilasX 13y ago

In other news, the 4th amendment doesn't cover internet communications because "there's no social consensus on an expectation of privacy" there. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6803409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6803409

rayiner 13y ago
Good job taking my post out of context. That post was in a sub thread about a broad general right to privacy. Not just narrow protections of electronic communications, but all sorts of tracking that doesn't qualify as a search or seizure. No such right exists. The Constitution doesn't even say the word privacy, nor did the framers write about it in the federalist papers or contemporaneous writings. My post was about what it would take for the Supreme Court to conjure such a broad right to privacy out of thin air. What it would take is a broad social consensus that such a right should exist. My point was that the tech community is undermining the establishment of that consensus by conditioning people to see online communications as a commercial transaction that can be data mined for advertising and tracking.
- SilasX 13y ago
  What specifically did I misrepresent? Can you fit it into this format: SilasX's post suggested this about rayiner's post: [ ] But, upon reading the full context of rayiner's post, that would be a misrepresentation because: [ ] As it stands, all I get out of your comment is, "Hey, you took my post out of context. [Reiterate the post]." Please tell me it's something more than "you made my argument seem bad".
  - rayiner 13y ago
    Your post makes it seem like my post is about Internet communications. But that sub thread was about a general right to privacy, which is a broader concept. You can shoehorn some elements of Internet privacy into the existing 4th amendment framework. Straightforward analogies to wire taps will get you a long way. But there is a lot of surveillance that doesn't fit the mold of existing 4th amendment protections, particularly those based on tracking using third party or even public information. My post was about what it would take for the Supreme Court to find a general right of privacy that could encompass things that aren't obviously searches or seizures. Obviously finding a broad right of privacy would take an act of legislating from the bench much larger than simply extending existing wire tap protections to Skype calls. Your post implies that I think a broad social consensus is necessary for the latter.

nayefc 13y ago

Yet another motion from a useless organisation.

dreamdu5t 13y ago

Let's define privacy first. Does privacy mean my communications are monitored by the NSA? Or does privacy mean Facebook has to display some message to people who voluntarily make their private information public?

e12e 13y ago

As far as I can figure out, the actual resolution is: http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/C.3/68/L.45/Rev.1 http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/C.3/68/L.4...

Eye_of_Mordor 13y ago

It is unfortunate that there is no UN definition of 'terrorism', since those fighting this privacy resolution would be the biggest 'terrorist states' in the world. Best to remove the meaningless 'countering terrorism' term altogether and build a world based on trust, freedom and cooperation.