On Tuesday, December 8, our newly re-elected state senator, William Dodd, and Napa radio station KSVY 91.3 FM hosted a “virtual” town hall discussing personal data privacy and the recently passed California Proposition 24. The town hall panel included guest experts, Jennifer Urban, UC Berkeley Professor of Law; Alastair Mactaggart, Founder and Chairman of the Californians For Consumer Privacy; and Aza Raskin, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, who also starred in a recent Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma.
California is recognized as an innovator in passing consumer protection legislation. Senator Dodd got interested in data privacy after personally experiencing identity theft and the distress it causes – even for a State Senator – getting it corrected. Since that incident, he brought together key authorities who helped craft the 2018 California SB1121 Consumer Protection Act, and more recently California Proposition 24, which creates additional protection of individual privacy rights in the digital age.
Guest presenter, Mr. Aza Raskin, related the ability of governmental privacy invasion based on the use of a smartphone’s facial recognition program. When recognizing a phone user’s facial features in combination with “artificial intelligence” software, the program was able, within 91% accuracy, to determine the likelihood the user may be homosexual. In nine countries this is a capital crime carrying the death penalty.
Law Professor Jennifer Urban related additional incidents of abuse aided by Amazon’s Alexa home device. Alexa is an always-on digital listening device that is connected to a resident’s internet service. Its purpose is to recognize verbal commands and execute specific actions, such as turning up the thermostat, checking the refrigerator’s contents, turning on the coffee pot, or buying a new electric guitar, through Amazon of course. However, Alexa is always listening to user conversations, and by coupling Artificial Intelligence software with human operators, can determine if the user has other needs Amazon can exploit. If Amazon is not able to provide the goods or services, they sell the “lead” to a third party who will market to the unsuspecting user.
The panel went on to highlight other invasive services from Microsoft, Facebook, Netflix, Google, YouTube, and Apple which can do much the same as Alexa, if not more, taking advantage of user data and privacy.
Today it is impossible not to expose personal data when performing any of the transactions we do frequently, such as buying gas with a debit card. With ever more powerful computer systems working with “smart” software, entities such as government, merchants, or computer hackers, could build a “virtual you.” In their systems, your virtual you could use your data without you knowing. They could then take such actions as applying for a new credit card, ordering products online, wiring money out of bank accounts, and even voting.
Aza Raskin, in a brief but disturbing presentation, listed some of what our smartphones may know about us. Such things as “who and where are your friends, where you live, with whom you sleep, if you are having an affair, where you work, if you have lost your job, your credit history, your purchasing power, if you are depressed, are you divorced, your personality traits, what you buy, what kinds of things keep you up at night, and how well you sleep.” Mr. Raskin went on to say that no one has gotten our permission to capture such data. More importantly, there is no way to change or delete it from the thousands of web servers that are analyzing and using this information.
However, California has created legislation to protect our data lives and to find out what data is being collected on us. This includes important controls on how the data will be used, and the right to have that data deleted from systems housing it. California Senate Bill 1121, and later Proposition 24, added many protections that are now being considered by the US Congress. There is one protection visible to Californians today. On many web pages seen in California there is a barely noticeable, mandatory statement allowing the user OPT-OUT from data being sold to third parties.
Below is an extract from one of those websites. The print on the web page is much smaller than shown below. The bold print is added for emphasis.
Do Not Sell My Personal Information – CA Resident Only
For more information, or to see a replay of the virtual town hall, visit Senator Dodd’s web site at https://sdo3.senate.ca.gov. To see future town hall meetings with the Senator, just click on the tab “ Upcoming Events in Your Area.”