Just because you've got nothing to hide, doesn't mean you've got nothing to lose...

Trust us, we're the good guys ... and there are bad guys, so we need your metadata. ASIO Chief David Irvine and Australian Federal Police Deputy Commissioner at a press conference supporting metadata retention laws. Source: News Corp 

This week, the Australian House of Representatives passed new laws which extend the Government’s surveillance powers, by requiring telecommunications companies to store our metadata for two years, and to make this metadata available to government security agencies without a warrant. (Unless you’re a  journalist, in which case an amendment has been proposed to require a warrant.)

While much of the political debate has focused on the important question of whether journalists will be in a position to protect their sources if the legislation passes, there are broader issues at stake.

In defending the legislation, people like the AFP Commissioner and Attorney-General have frequently invoked the ‘nothing to hide’ argument. Any argument against the Bill is met with the assertion that if you’ve got nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear from governance agencies having access to your metadata. By extension, advocates of the Bill suggest that the only people who have something to fear from increased government access to their metadata are the anti-social, the criminal, and the terrorist.

The forced storage and sharing of metadata is but the latest incidence of surveillance creep in Australian society. Just as our movements and connections in cyberspace are tracked, so too are our movements through physical space – by CCTV cameras, licence plate recognition systems, commercial wi-fi providers, transport smart card systems, and many more technologies besides. As with the metadata laws, the ‘nothing to hide’ argument is frequently invoked to sure up support for all of these technologies.  

The ‘nothing to hide’ argument is mobilised so often by surveillance advocates because it does have traction in the wider community. When I discuss this issue with university students, for instance, the ‘nothing to hide’ argument is frequently used as a way of rationalising everything from participation in social media to support for (or at least indifference towards) increased surveillance by both corporations and state authorities.

When the issue of privacy is put this way, it is probably no surprise that many people choose to identify with the ‘nothing to hide’ argument. After all, if your choice is between having ‘nothing to hide’ and being a criminal or a terrorist, that’s not much of a choice at all for most people. And besides (so the argument goes), any loss of individual privacy is a small price to pay for the convenience and security provided by new communications and surveillance technologies. Indeed, as Prime Minister Abbott has put it, the good citizen may have to give up some personal privacy for the collective good of national security in these ‘troubled times’.

If pushed, many who support the ‘nothing to hide’ argument will likely concede that they are not prepared to share every nook and cranny of their bodies and their lives with others. But the ‘nothing to hide’ argument is rarely made in such extreme form. We are not being asked to strip naked before our peers, or to reveal the intimate content of our phone conversations and email. In the legislation before Parliament, we are being asked to share the phone numbers we dial and the places and websites we visit with law enforcements agencies. 

But even if you’re someone who thinks you’ve got ‘nothing to hide’ in relation to the measures before Parliament, this doesn’t mean you’ve got nothing to lose if the legislation is eventually passed into law by the Senate. As privacy thinker Daniel Solove argues, certain forms of privacy have a social value, not just a value to individuals. In other words, making good assessments of legislative changes such as the one before the Parliament should not be viewed as simply a matter of weighing up ‘individual privacy’ against the ‘national interest’, as though there is a simple trade-off between the two. As he puts it, “privacy issues involve balancing social interests on both sides of the scale.”

The point is that each proposal to collect, store and share any data about us should be debated on its social implications – what collective goods are secured by reduced privacy in a given domain, and what collective goods might be undermined? Here, just as knee-jerk defence of a vaguely-defined and inalienable individual privacy should not carry much weight, neither should the ‘nothing to hide’ argument be accepted without scrutiny. We all have something to hide. Not everything that we want to hide is wrong or evil, and it is good that we are able to hide some things in our society. So, what things should remain ‘private things’? Who should they be private from, and what kinds of protections should be put in place when some ‘private things’ become ‘public things’?

Only a serious political debate can answer these questions democratically. And democratic debate is stymied when any opposition is equated with criminality and evil intentions. Far from ‘turning a blind eye’ to crime and terror, most critics are simply trying to make space for clear assessment and serious debated on the benefits and harms of the particular legislation before us.

The potential harms are real. Not only journalism, but activism, scholarship, pluralism and more collective goods besides depend on our ability to keep some things to ourselves in some circumstances.

And as Solove notes, data collection and sharing are not only potentially harmful because they reveal individual secrets. They are also potentially harmful when the citizens who are surveilled have no means to identify and correct indifference, errors, and abuses that are bound to occur from time to time when large volumes of data are collected and analysed by large state agencies. He is as worried about Kafka’s bureaucrats as he is about Orwell’s Big Brother. From this perspective, the lack of oversight, and lack of citizen access to our own data and how it is used, is deeply problematic.

Law enforcement agencies reply that imposing burdens such as warrants and disclosure on their use of data would be time-consuming and costly. But they provide no evidence that it would put their investigations at risk. And just as we citizens are urged to accept the notion that the curtailment of some of our freedoms is necessary for the collective good, surely the same argument applies to the law enforcement agencies? Some curtailment of their freedom to access and use our data as they see fit, without adequate oversight, is most certainly a matter of public good in a democratic society.

Commenting on the data retention debates in the US, Solove observes that “Far too often, the balancing of privacy interests against security interests takes place in a manner that severely shortchanges the privacy interest while inflating the security interests. Such is the logic of the nothing to hide argument.” The same will happen here if we let it.

Facial Recognition (and the scrambling thereof...)

Effective facial recognition detection software and systems have beeen in development in various parts of the world for several years. While the ability to recognise faces of real people moving through crowded urban environments in real-time is not yet a reliable prospect and/or an affordable reality in most cities (at least according to CCTV operators I've spoken to), the ability to scan static faces and two dimensional images has been getting more sophisticated for a while. Recently, for instance, the US Federal Bureau of Investigations announced that it would be adding facial recognition software and databases to its 'Next Generation Identification System', thus enhancing their biometric capabilities.

So, not surprisingly, facial recognition has become the target of activists concerned with issues of surveillance and privacy. Check out URME Surveillance, which offers a range of products designed to help people beat the recognition systems (and to raise awareness of the issues associated with new facial recognition technologies). Among the ideas here is the URME Surveillance Personal Suveillance Identity Prosthetic, which is a 3D printed mask letting you wear the artist's face instead of your own. There's a novel use of 3D printing ... go Leo!



URME SURVEILLANCE: Indiegogo Campaign from Leo Selvaggio on Vimeo.

There's an interesting article here interviewing Leo about his project (thanks to Derek for the link!).

And now for some light relief: John Oliver on the right to be forgotten...

Comedian John Oliver's response to the recent EU court decision that backed the 'right to be forgotten', by ruling that Google must delete "inadequate, irrelevant, or no longer relevant" data from its searches when a user requests it...

GeoNext : Location Matters

Image source: GeoNext

Wednesday the 26th of February saw 2014's installation of the annual Geonext Conference held at the Australian Technology Park in Sydney, with this year's theme, "Location Matters", emphasising the increasing awareness of the importance of place. To quote GeoNext,

The concept of “place” permeates everything. Whether you are in technology or business; knowing where things happen, where you, your customers or your assets are, is of critical importance.

It was also mentioned that geography was cool and the presenters certainly showed what was cool about geography and geographer's themselves.

Reflecting the pervasiveness of place, the conference speakers came from diverse industries and represented a range of views on the possibilities of geolocation technologies and their applications. While the diversity of speakers perspectives was evident, there was a notable lack of gender diversity in the presenters and hackers. In fact there was no gender diversity with not one female presenting a paper. Noting the presence of females in the audience however, it would be nice to see this rectified in next year's conference, because location and technology certainly matters to women as much as it does to men. Despite this, the day saw a range of papers on geolocation including presentations which addressed its practical application, its future possibilities, and those which occasionally delved deeper into the moral complexities and issues of privacy which accompany such technologies and the "power of location".

First up, was Nic Lowe of popular car share company, GoGet, discussing the building of a fine-grain transport network from scratch. This included Lowe's and his business partner's efforts in mapping customers to cars and demand to supply, and the implementation and refinement of a suite of tools and systems to manage their current network of more than 1250 vehicles in close to 1000 locations. For Lowe, it was important to prioritise people, noting that with technology, it is easy to focus on the asset rather than the people who use it. This refining of what Lowe refers to as the human-machine mix is plausibly responsible for GoGet's growth and success. The increased popularity of such share services could be a reflection of what Lowe sees as the future of transport which he believes will be individualised, customised car share transport designed for people.

Next up we have The Politics of Location's own Kurt Iveson and his paper "On the bus in the network city: the politics of real-time public transport". Kurt discussed Sydney's introduction of real-time transport apps for its buses and trains. While there is much enthusiasm surrounding the introduction of smart transport technologies, Iveson looked at the politics accompanying its implementation and its impacts on accessibility, asking despite all the hype, whether smart transport in Sydney is necessarily a good thing. As you may have guessed, answering this question is complex. The genealogy of the apps was outlined, including successful apps created well before the current range of Transport NSW sanctioned apps yet which were taken down due to issues of access to data. Transport legacy systems, ownership of data and access to data feature prominently here. In fact Iveson suggests that the openness of data is a key political battleground with the Government controlling who has access. Access to raw data is not the only access issue with smart transport. As Iveson notes, there is an accessibility issue with the apps themselves.  Realtime transport apps are only available to people with smart phones, which excludes those who don't or can't use them. The installation of GPS on transport was also touched upon in relation to the increased surveillance on workers that such technology enabled and an associated pressure on worker's performance. As such it was suggested that smart transport prioritises some actors while marginalizing others.

Returning to the theme of the sharing economy evident in the GoGet presentation, James Moody of TuShare discussed the importance of share schemes in an increasingly resource scarce world. Focusing on the "hidden inefficiencies and idle assets" Moody outlined how both individuals and companies are beginning to take advantage of such hidden value through collaborative consumption. The increasing popularity of the sharing economy was demonstrated by a rise in sharing services over the past two years.

Attending to the actual development of geolocation technology, Professor Chris Rizos, discussed the problems with GNSS systems and the need for accurate and highly available indoor positioning systems. Specifically, Rizos discusses the development of Locata, a ground-based GNSS-like navigation system which can transmit ranging signals at several frequencies in the 2.4GHz Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) radio bands. The technology has successfully been used in open cut mines and airborne tests to augment GNSS and with the development of a beam-forming antenna technology which delivers multipath-mitigated measurements for both positioning and orientation, Locata has developed into a useful tool for highly accurate and reliable indoor navigation. Rizos cautions however, that the success of Locata, and similar research is often constrained by limited funding and the short term thinking that pervades government approaches to funding innovation. If progress in such areas is to be made, this attitude must be addressed, to avoid technologies being thwarted and not realising their full potential.

Next up was a panel discussion centering on wearable technologies. The panel was comprised of Peter Koch of Explore Engage, Eliot Duff of CISRO, and Rob Manson of buildAR.com. Unsurprisingly this included a discussion of Google Glass. Asked whether they thought Glass and similar products would be successful, it was suggested that like most new technologies, their initial adoption would be niche before growing a broader market appeal. Popular initial industries for use included the construction, engineering and mining industries, where augmented reality could play a big role in planning, construction, maintenance and repair. This lead to a broader discussion on the Internet of Things and its possibilities and constraints, the obvious constraining factor being reliable broadband networks. Importantly the panel seemed to see the future of wearable technology and augmented reality, not as technology, machine, or robotics dominant, but as a mix between machine and human relations. Speakers talked of the need to have an awareness of automated objects' intentions, and also the ability to communicate with them. It was thought that wearable technology should be an intention based service in that the intent of the user directs the service - in one panel members words, "I want a service based on where I'm looking at".

Location intelligence and its relevance to marketing is discussed by Kolt Luty of Pitney Bowes Software, in his paper "New Location Perspectives in Retail - in the Zone". Location intelligence has become mainstream and Luty describes its usefulness for retailers in targeting the right locations, and target audiences for their product. Particularly interesting were the possibilities of geofencing. Geofencing creates a virtual boundary on a real-world geographic area. This means that targeted offers tailored to a customers likes and essentials based on their spending habits can be sent to customers who opt in to such services. As these customers enter the geofenced area they can receive the offer via sms, ad or coupon, enticing them to enter the store and spend. Geofencing marketing can both aim to retain their normal spending but also increase cross departmental spending by alerting the customer to offers in other departments while they're in store. The big value for such marketing and retail techniques resides in knowing the individual's consumption data.

Hamish Robertson demonstrated how spatial science can support community-based ageing by linking and visualising varied components of the spectrum of organisations and services that engage with older people. Roberston developed a 'virtual earth' model of population ageing, dementia projections and health and social support infrastructure. He noted that despite the value of such models, spatial science is under-utilised in designing and implementing better aged care and health strategies, particularly when you consider that although the majority of older people don't want to move, the typical response to ageing is to relocate the individual. Keeping this in mind, Robertson built his model to link population data, epidemiological data and health and social support information to create a virtual environment for inquiring on the current and future implications of population ageing.

Billy Haworth presented on the use of social media and information communication during disaster events. Using two recent events, the 2010/2011 Queensland floods, and the 2013 Tasmania bushfires, Haworth discussed how individuals have utilised a range of social media and location technologies to share images of disaster impacts, coordinate relief efforts, send alerts for help, and express support for those effected by the disasters. Billy gets extra points for managing to include a reference to One Direction in his paper but questioned whether Harry Styles really could help or would care about the fires, despite one tweeters hope he would. You can find more information about Billy's research on Volunteered Geographic Information in the context of bushfire preparation in Tasmania at the "Exploring places and people" blog.

Rohan Fernando of HERE brought our attention to the "Race for the Geospatial Overworld" and the billions of dollars invested into building a spatially precise virtual representation of our real world in complete 3D and which can be updated in real-time. More commonly known as Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI), the geospatial overworld, produces advanced interactive digital maps and map-related functionality as a holistic service. Fernando discusses the uses of SDIs and their potential to change our lives. According to Fernando, SDI's include updated data collected by global teams of professional geographic analysts as well as anonymous data collected automatically from many dynamically interactive systems around the world, including each of us. Important to this type of analysis, are the larger group patterns that are shown through big data, rather than the emphasis on the patterns of the individual which are important to the marketing analytics discussed by Luty.

The final paper presentation of the day was delivered by Simon Hope of Geoplex, on "The Geekification of GIS". There was less about geeks but a lot about GIS which seemed appropriate for a GeoNext conference. Hope talked about how the rate of change in technology is having an impact on the GIS space and forcing a rethink of approaches to GIS delivery. Techniques and software innovations from the wider technology space are seen as filtering into GIS territory and having an impact in the spatial world. Cloud solutions were discussed as being more nimble and agile approaches than traditional monolithic spatial data infrastructures and Hope discussed software delivery techniques they've used to allow organisations to scale and manage large spatial applications. Software applications were considered as significantly influencing the spatial world.

The Hackfest presentations concluded the presentation part of the day. App developers were given a chance to design an app for GoGet with a multitude of prizes in the offering. Winners were chosen by GoGet and Here based on their favourite entries. The apps and the winners can be found here. The winning app was Treffyn Koreshoff who cleverly worked on blurring the line between machine and person, creating a personality for the GoGet vehicles which could be viewed on the app and included their favourite journeys, and emphasised the relationship between GoGet users and the vehicles.

Georabble drinks were held at the end of the day. The conference had provided an insight into the multiple directions geolocational technology is heading in, the variety of potential applications, and the social and ethical implications of such technology. There was much enthusiasm for the benefits that these technologies can bring however perhaps more emphasis needs to be put on an awareness of the politics behind the technologies. Issues of access, privacy and surveillance need to be taken seriously rather than just given lip service or suggesting that it is the culture that needs to change to be more accepting of lesser degrees of privacy brought by the use of such technologies.

Image source: GeoNext

People, Place and Space Reader: Reading List on People, Place and Media

The People, Place and Space Reader has a great website, with open access versions of its section introductions and links to further reading.

Gregory Donovan's introduction to the section on People, Place and Media in the Contemporary City, and his suggested list of readings, can be found here. He notes that in compiling the readings, he was:

particularly interested in scholarship that challenged ahistorical and flattening discourses of new media, cloud computing, and big data.

It's a good list ... check it!

Proximity-based social networking

Source:http://thenextweb.com

Proximity-based social networks, such as Foursquare, the now-retired Google Latitude and Facebook Places, were a promising vision back in 2009. But it's now 2013 and things have changed. As mentioned, Google and Facebook, retired their own takes on the theme, although both retained the check-in features within Google+ and as a tagging option in Facebook's status updates. 

So what has happened? Citing check-in fatigue and the obsolescence of the manual check-in because of ability to automatically obtain location data through a user's device, Natasha Lomas recently implored people to stop trying to make proximity-based social networking happen. 

According to Lomas 

Most people need to communicate at regular intervals — which is the driving force behind the rise and rise of mobile messaging apps. Far fewer people feel a similar imperative to regularly broadcast their location. Or tether their communications to a particular location. That’s got ‘niche use-case’ written all over it.
... Of course there’s still a hardcore of check-in junkies who use Foursquare, but there’s still a hardcore of Google fans who use Google+ (oh, and, Robert Scoble), just as there’s a core group of people who continue visiting the local library. The wider point here is that you don’t need to require users to manually check-in when you can grab their location data automatically, based on where a user’s cell phone or tablet is accessing your service. For those (pesky) users who block location spiders, there are still embedded options and frequent nagging to share where they are. But for the average ‘click yes to anything’ app user the emphasis has shifted to an assumption that location will be taken at the point of sign up.

Lomas astutely notes, that just because the check-in services are declining, it does not mean location-based services are also on the decline, as increasing amounts of location-based data is being collected automatically through mobile computing.

The proximity-based social network is rendered a niche product in the few circumstances where proximity rather than communication is the over-riding factor. Lomas cites Grindr, and, shpock - a local retail app, as examples of feasible proximity-based network products. She mentions Nokia's new Job Lens app, which in a combination of augmented reality and job hunting allows the user to find jobs relative to their location; and Apple's apps "Near Me" app implemented in iOS 7, as less useful products.

The rise of the mobile messaging apps and the decline of the proximity-based social network, suggests that for friendship it is communication not location that is the influential component. As Lomas notes,

The long and short of it is the most interesting kind of proximity is the digital proximity that allows people to keep in touch virtually without having to be co-located most of the time. Location is a feature of friendship, communication is the focus.

The people at Cisco, however think that despite it's tendency for niche products, proximity-based social networks can do a lot of good. According to Melissa Jun Rowley, the emerging proximity-based social networking market is expected to reach $1.9 billion in revenues by 2016. In her article on proximity-based social change, Jun Rowley, suggests that the opportunities for proximity services to spark social change are just beginning to unfold. Two examples are used to illustrate these potentials.

3M's Domestic Violence Proximity Notification System: Uses GPS, RF and cellular communication. Security layers are created around the victims, and proximity notification layers around the aggressors. The system tracks aggressors sends alerts to victims and law enforcers.

POS REP: A social network which facilitates reconnection and reintegration of military veterans. Founder, Anthony Allman, claims it was developed to respond to issues faced by veterans after the suicide of Purple Heart recipient and veteran advocate Clay Hunt. The service connects veterans to peers and services in their communities.

Jun Rowley sees these examples as evidence that proximity-based social networking can be used for social good and considers whether it could become a trend, claiming that:

As devices or "things" start to communicate with one another and develop their own intelligence more, what they'll be able to accomplish through proximity and beyond is going to change daily human behavior, as well as our notions about benefitting humanity through technology.

Source: http://newsroom.cisco.com

Wi-Fi access

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