Cloudy Data Privacy Concerns

Photo by Llorenzi

Google is sitting on the largest collection of hard data on modern human behavior. What a heavy responsibility. Can we trust this company to protect and serve our public and personal interests? Do we cheat ourselves by zipping past the privacy disclosures or by linking all of our online activity through a single hub? What if another party—say, a government—wants access to that data for its citizens’ own good? Google does explicitly state on its Privacy & Terms page that “When you visit websites or use apps that use Google technologies, we may use the information we receive from those websites and apps to, for example:

•  Make ads more effective
• Provide reports of ads activity to advertisers and websites hosting the ads, and to ensure payment to those website publishers
• Help website and app owners using Google Analytics to understand how visitors engage with their sites or apps
• Improve your Google+ experience
• Detect and defend against fraud and other security risks to protect users and partners
• Meet our legal duties
• Improve our products”

That leaves the door pretty wide open…

One of the biggest (of the many) possible ways data stored by technology giants such as Microsoft and Google can impact constitution is under review right now. While some claim the negotiations around the matter are being held in a Free Mason-type clandestine manner, the two tech giants have taken a stand loudly enough to attract attention to the matter. What they taken a stand against is the US Department of Justice “seeking to drastically expand its abilities to search computers remotely through an obscure change in the rules of criminal procedure” (Hall, 2014). Reporter Ed Pilkington writes in The Guardian, “The FBI is attempting to persuade an obscure regulatory body in Washington to change its rules of engagement in order to seize significant new powers to hack into and carry out surveillance of computers throughout the US and around the world. Civil liberties groups warn that the proposed rule change amounts to a power grab by the agency that would ride roughshod over strict limits to searches and seizures laid out under the fourth amendment of the US constitution, as well as violate first amendment privacy rights. They have protested that the FBI is seeking to transform its cyber capabilities with minimal public debate and with no congressional oversight” (2014). There are corrupt forces in US government indeed (ahem, Snowden), so can we and should we compel data warehouses to allow access to data that lives on servers all over the world in order to prosecute a crime?

On the Center for Democracy and Technology’s blog, Joseph Lorenzo Hall says, “This change is highly dangerous in that it will essentially allow law enforcement to hack into hundreds of millions of computers all over the world” (2014). “The proposed operating changes related to rule 41 of the federal rules of criminal procedure, the terms under which the FBI is allowed to conduct searches under court-approved warrants. Under existing wording, warrants have to be highly focused on specific locations where suspected criminal activity is occurring and approved by judges located in that same district” (Pilkington, 2014). Why would data, with its boundless parameters and complete lack of physical form, be seen any differently than another piece of physical evidence in the eyes of government? Is it not just another form of communication, like a private letter sent overseas or an anonymous message in a bottle even? “US law enforcement agencies argue that the rise of cloud computing has made it essential for them to be able to tap into data held in other jurisdictions. Cloud services can involve information being stored in data centers far removed from the location of an investigation, putting it outside investigators’ reach” (Waters, 2015). Just because something is in a “cloud” doesn’t mean it should be readily available for use in criminal prosecution in a way that would be handled differently than if that piece of evidence existed in a company’s warehouse of old dolls. “

But has the door already been opened since the government compels and Google obliges reporting sexual misconduct regarding children? Google has even tipped off officials, leading to an arrest of a man who was sending and receiving child pornography through his Gmail account. At the same time, Google and Apple have both decided to make encryption that essentially locks police out of smartphones. “Privacy advocates are ecstatic about the changes by Apple and Google, and especially about their shift toward making encryption automatic, through default settings, so that users get privacy protections without taking any action on their own” (Timberg, 2014). Some argue, “the unintended victors will ultimately be criminals, who are now free to hide evidence on their phones despite valid warrants to search them” (Vance, 2014).

Privacy versus civic duty will likely never satisfy both sides of the argument. Even when Google complied with the European Union’s 2014 ruling to safeguard information about persons who have a ‘right to be forgotten,’ there was backlash. The so-called right to be forgotten was consisted “a major blow against the right of internet companies to hold unlimited information on individuals when it ordered Google to remove links that are deemed ‘inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant.’ The court’s decision will allow individuals the right to ask internet search engines to remove links to information about them that they do not want known—which could be seen either as an assertion of the right to privacy or an attack on free speech” (McDonald-Gibson, 2014). “One of the first articles affected by the ruling was a blog post by the BBC’s economics editor Robert Peston. The article describes former Merrill Lynch CEO Stan O'Neal’s departure from the company in October 2007 as the bank faced ‘colossal losses’ on ‘noxious collateralised debt obligations’ (Vincent, 2014). According to The Independent, “Peston responded to the removal of his article by saying Google had ‘killed’ that example of his journalism, and noted that the company’s implementation of the European court ruling ‘looks odd, perhaps clumsy’” (Vincent).

Clumsy is just how one might describe the way we are all struggling to balance personal privacy rights with public and business interests. This is a wholly new arena made all the more scary to people because it is a sort of unseen force. Not every person will be made happy by all the moves Google makes; however, for as large a company as it is and for as much data on people the world over that this company has, they have done a remarkable job of striking that balance thus far.