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Credit to Author: Brian Barrett| Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2018 11:00:00 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n On Monday, police <\/span>in Florida abandoned<\/a> a pilot program that had put Amazon\u2019s facial recognition powers at their disposal. On Wednesday, representatives from the country\u2019s most powerful technology companies will gather<\/a> in San Francisco to take a hard look at the industry\u2019s approach to privacy. And on Thursday, the California legislature will vote on a bill<\/a> that would grant internet users more power over their data than ever before in the United States. Any of these alone would mark a good week for privacy. Together, and combined with even more major advancements from earlier this month, they represent a tectonic shift.<\/p>\n Progress can be difficult to measure; it often comes in drips and drops, or not at all for long stretches of time. But in recent weeks, privacy advocates have seen torrential gains, at a rate perhaps not matched since Edward Snowden<\/a> revealed how the National Security Agency spied on millions of US citizens in 2013. A confluence of factors\u2014generational, judicial, societal\u2014have created momentum where previously there was none. The trick now is to sustain it.<\/p>\n If the US really has found itself in the middle of a digital privacy awakening, you can of course credit the recent spate of headline-grabbing scandals as the kick-starter. Cambridge Analytica<\/a> illicitly took the personal information of up to 87 million Facebook users<\/a> and turned it into psychographically targeted political ads. Equifax let slip the sensitive details\u2014including Social Security numbers\u2014of 148 million Americans because it couldn\u2019t be bothered to patch<\/a> a known vulnerability. And just a few short weeks ago, many learned for the first time that mobile carriers like Verizon and AT&T have for years sold their location data to shadowy third-party companies<\/a>\u2014including some that don\u2019t carefully vet who can access it.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of these high-profile stories over the last year or so have really put consideration into overdrive,\u201d says Michelle Richardson, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology\u2019s Freedom, Security, and Technology Project. \u201cThings like Facebook or Equifax, the location data, it\u2019s all hitting at once, and people are losing patience with companies who are promising to change but aren\u2019t doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n Facebook, to its credit, pledged to cut ties<\/a> with data brokers in March. But otherwise the company has spent its time ducking questions<\/a> from both Congress and the media about how its core business proposition clashes with prioritizing data privacy. It has also taken some of the heat off of companies like Google, which grabs as much or more data, without a fiasco to shine a spotlight on its everyday practices.<\/p>\n 'People are losing patience with companies who are promising to change but aren\u2019t doing it.'<\/p>\n Michelle Richardson, CDT<\/p>\n But there are signs that the fallout from Cambridge Analytica has still had a wide impact. After The New York Times<\/em> broke<\/a> the story of carriers sharing location data with third parties\u2014and the abuse of that system\u2014in May, it took just five weeks for Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint to curtail the practice. They did so in part at the urging of senator Ron Wyden (D – Oregon), but also to avoid the sustained public opprobrium Facebook and Equifax endured. What had for so long felt like shouts into a void ultimately echoed throughout the industry.<\/p>\n You can see those reverberations in the Wednesday summit organized by the Information Technology Industry Council, a trade group that represents Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Samsung, and dozens of other major tech companies. First reported by Axios<\/a>, the meeting will focus not on standards or tariffs, but on a topic that has often seemed anathema in Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n "Protecting consumers\u2019 privacy is a top concern for our industry. As technologies evolve, we continually examine our approach to privacy,\u201d says ITI spokesman Jose Castaneda. \u201cThis week\u2019s convening will continue an important conversation that examines how our users\u2019 and customers\u2019 privacy is protected while also ensuring our ability to meet their demands for innovative products and services."<\/p>\n Part of that conversation will surely involve Europe\u2019s General Data Protection Regulation<\/a>, which went into effect this spring, tightening the ways in which companies handle user data. But it also reflects a newfound urgency stateside.<\/p>\n \u201cI sometimes joke that\u2019s how you know something is serious, when the trades get involved,\u201d Richardson says. \u201cThat\u2019s when they pull out the big guns.\u201d<\/p>\n The companies' voluntary actions have been buttressed by the legislative and judicial branches. Last week, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in Carpenter v. United States<\/em><\/a> that will generally require the government to get a warrant before it accesses cell site location information. But the decision has even broader implications for how courts will view digital privacy going forward.<\/p>\n 'There\u2019s an expansion of concerns across the ideological spectrum.'<\/p>\n Shahid Buttar, EFF<\/p>\n \u201cAt its core, Carpenter<\/em> is a recognition that there are fundamental changes we\u2019ve witnessed over the last two or three decades in the technologies that we use every day for communications and connecting with others, and that these technologies have implications for individual rights,\u201d says Alan Butler, senior counsel at the non-profit Electronic Privacy Information Center. \u201cThat\u2019s a point at which we\u2019re on the other side of a sea change.\u201d<\/p>\n The judicial breakthrough dovetails with a political shift, as well. Privacy has crossed party lines of late; House Republicans found themselves opposed<\/a> to some forms of surveillance after President Trump claimed<\/a> to have been victimized by it. And there\u2019s nothing partisan about Equifax leaking your Social Security number.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s an expansion of concerns across the ideological spectrum,\u201d says Shahid Buttar, who leads grassroots efforts for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. \u201cPeople very far to the conservative right and very far to the liberal left agree on surveillance principles.\u201d<\/p>\n That will play out soon in California, where on Thursday the State Senate and Assembly will vote on AB 375<\/a>, a bill that would enact the strictest privacy laws in the US. That bill, too, exists largely because of public pressure.<\/p>\n \u201cThe events involving Facebook and Cambridge Analytica certainly highlight the need for this legislation and its provisions and created public demand for a solution,\u201d said state senator Robert Hertzberg, one of the authors of the bill, in a statement to WIRED.<\/p>\n And if the bill doesn\u2019t pass this week, in November Californians will be able to vote for themselves on even more robust privacy protections in the form of a ballot initiative, the California Consumer Privacy Act, that advocates have spent the last two years pushing.<\/p>\n Remember, all of this is happening in the span of about two weeks. It\u2019s a remarkable amount of progress, and there\u2019s reason enough to believe it has momentum to continue.<\/p>\n The thing about public enthusiasm is that it fades in time, be it for privacy protections or C&C Music Factory. Outrage is difficult to sustain, especially when so many corners invite it. But privacy advocates are hopeful that this time things could be different.<\/p>\n There\u2019s the bipartisan push, first of all. But there\u2019s a generational one, too. People who have grown up online seem more aware of the implications of what they share, and more eager to protect it. \u201cYoung people are decidedly not OK with state surveillance or corporate-sponsored surveillance,\u201d Buttar says. \u201cYou can see that reflected even in their choice of platforms. Young people increasingly are migrating away from platforms that pursue an advertising-driven surveillance model, like Facebook.\u201d<\/p>\n The latest privacy missteps have also felt more tangible to more people than they may have in the past. You likely have a Facebook account; it\u2019s distressing to confront what it knows about you<\/a> and how it uses that information. If you\u2019d like to freak out about Google and location services, check out your Google Maps timeline<\/a>. And on and on.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, GDPR and Carpenter<\/em> should provide scaffolding to hold up privacy protections even if public interest does wane\u2014despite Silicon Valley lobbying hard against<\/a> bills like the one in California. \u201cMaybe there won\u2019t be some omnibus privacy case against Facebook that solves all the problems,\u201d Butler says. \u201cBut across the board, the pressure\u2019s going to get turned up.\u201d<\/p>\n And realistically, the next animating privacy meltdown will never be too far away. \u201cI think there will always be another Cambridge Analytica,\u201d says CDT\u2019s Richardson. Now, privacy advocates are better positioned than ever to push back, and to win.<\/p>\n