Blog

A recent policy conference on Internet issues held in Washington, D.C. included the panel, "Social Networking and Privacy: An Oxymoron?" It shouldn't be, but some of the major platforms for social networking seem to be treating the two concepts as if they were mutually exclusive.We have blogged about the controversy over Facebook's Beacon feature, a program launched during the holiday shopping sea... Read More

The ACLU of Northern California has been a leader in generating public and legislative attention to the privacy, personal safety, and financial security risks associated with the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology in government-issued identification documents, such as drivers' licenses and student ID cards.The Stanford Technology Law Review has recently published Rights "Chipp... Read More

SB 31 overwhelmingly passed the California State Senate last week with a vote of 36-3. To read the bill language of SB 31, visit here.SB 31 makes it illegal for a person to intentionally read or attempt to read an RFID tag in an individual's identification document without their knowledge and prior consent.Right now, private information on California drivers' licenses is stored on a magnetic strip... Read More

The Transportation Security Agency has come under significant and ongoing criticism. One major source of concern and irritation are the No-Fly lists, which contain tens of thousands of names and has generated a lot of negative press when U.S. senators, famous musicians and others have been kept off of flights. There are even those who say that TSA is largely engaged in "security theater," meant pr... Read More

The ACLU has released a systematic analysis of the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) final regulations for the Real ID Act. It reveals that the regulations still address only 9 percent of the problems with the act that have been identified.The final regulations do not lift the burdens that Real ID imposes on the states and the population, a close look at the regulations reveals that the Real... Read More

The ACLU released the following statement as a response to today's Washington Post article about Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff defying Congressional extensions and attempting to implement WHTI now.Washington – Plans by the Department of Homeland Security to impose new identity-document requirements at the Canadian border in defiance of Congress are the latest example of the departme... Read More

At the Consumer Electronics Show last week, top executives from media giants AT&T, NBC/Universal and Microsoft announced that ISPs may be ready to start filtering for copyrighted content at the network level.But, checking for copyright violations at the network level may end up meaning a lot more high-level snooping at many other types of content as well. To try to catch that potential copyrig... Read More

A recent blog post discussed privacy concerns with the new Bay Area TransLink transit card.

The Dutch RFID transit pass produced by TransLink was recently cracked and cloned.

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The Department of Homeland Security today issued its final regulations for the implementation of the Real ID Act, the plan to create a national identity card system, which Congress passed in May 2005 with little debate as an attachment to the tsunami and Iraq War appropriations bill.In its new REAL ID regulations, DHS does not resolve any of the threats the law poses to California's privacy, freed... Read More

Congressional leaders from throughout the nation released statements expressing their dissatisfaction with the Real ID regulations released today by the Department of Homeland Security.Rep. Tom Allen (D-ME)"We need to repeal REAL ID and replace it with a system that will work and does not pass the cost along to taxpayers."Read statement here.Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester (Ds – MT)"Enough is Enou... Read More

The Bay Area's transit systems are about to join other cities and get a single payment card. The TransLink card will let you pay for rides on BART, San Francisco Muni buses, and the Peninsula's Caltrain.The new cards may help you avoid fumbling for cash or sorting through multiple fare cards. But, unless you want to also pay for that trip with your privacy, you should buy the TransLink card with c... Read More

We've blogged about the shortcoming of some muni WiFi plans on several occasions. Many networks were built from the ground-up to invade consumer privacy and free speech for profit. Now several of these systems seem to have fallen flat.EarthLink, once the champion of muni WiFi and a willing partner for many cities across the country, announced in November that it was pulling out of many proposed sy... Read More