CLIPS: 5 May, 2022
Responding to Criticism, Data Broker SafeGraph Will No Longer Sell Data About Individuals Visiting Abortion & Family Planning Clinics
Data broker SafeGraph told Protocol that they will stop selling location data of individuals who visit abortions clinics. The decision comes after Vice’s Motherboard team bought location data for just over $160 with information related to 600 U.S Planned Parenthood locations, tracking where visitors were coming from, their duration of stay, and where they went afterwards. “I think it's good that we were called out,” Auren Hoffman, CEO of SafeGraph, told Protocol, while claiming that the data does not have commercial value and is only valuable for research. “The only reason is to fulfill our research mission. And none of our commercial customers care about that.”
For privacy and human rights advocates, the collection of data and its wider accessibility to the public ushers in a wave of concerns about how user data could be weaponized against individuals seeking abortions, especially in light of the leaked majority opinion indicating the Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade.
Data privacy experts note that an absence of stricter federal data privacy regulation leaves the window open for other firms to monetize and distribute sensitive information. Search and browsing history has already been used in states like Mississippi to charge individuals suspected of violating abortion laws. Additionally, SafeGraph’s controversial history of selling data to government agencies, like the Illinois Department of Transportation, alarmingly spotlights the growing trend of government agencies opting to use surveillance and data collection tools.
COVERAGE
The Week, A controversial data firm is selling abortion clinic visitors' location data
Vice, Data Broker Is Selling Location Data of People Who Visit Abortion Clinics
Business Insider, Location data from people who visited US abortion clinics is legally on sale for $160, report
TechDirt, Data Brokers Selling Location Data Of Americans Who Visit Abortion Clinics
Protocol, Tech companies face a legal nightmare if Roe v. Wade is overturned
Mother Jones, Meet Abortion Bans' New Best Friend—Your Phone – Mother Jones
RESPONSE
Nandini Jammi, co-founder of Check My Ads, tweeted, “No, Planned Parenthood practices total confidentiality. What @SafeGraph does is obtain location data of cell phone users who visit Planned Parenthood, figures out who they are and rats them out to law enforcement (for big $$$).”
Dr. Courtney Radsch tweeted, “More evidence of why we need a national privacy law: Data Broker Is Selling Location Data of People Who Visit Abortion Clinics. It costs just ~$160 to get week's worth of data on where people who visited @PPFA came from, and where they went afterwards”
Jonathan Zittrain, Director at the Berkman Klein Center, tweeted, “It’s 2022 and random apps on your phone are sending telemetry about your location to brokers who will in turn sell it to anyone else — including the authorities — conveniently pre-sifted for visits to reproductive health clinics.”
Quoting Vice’s reporting, The Center for Democracy & Technology tweeted, “‼ ‘Location data could play into whether & how that travel is identified, making it even more urgent for regulators & lawmakers to consider how #locationdata is collected, used, & sold.’ ‼️”
Karl Bode, blogger for TechDirt, tweeted, “The company caught selling abortion clinic user location data backs off, leaving only 8,472 other companies doing the same thing in a country too corrupt to pass even a basic internet privacy law”
Privacy International tweeted, “Yet more concerning news from the US. Location data can be incredibly revealing - even more so when it relates to accessing a health service that is often and wrongly stigmatised. Everyone should be able to access abortion care privately and safely.”
Data Governance reporter at the New York Times, Konstantinos Komaitis tweeted, “Yes! is as scary as it reads! The US needs a federal privacy law NOW! And, although it’s not going to fix the backwards trend on individual rights seen in the US, it will at least provide some safeguards…..”
Imani Gandy, Senior Editor of Law and Policy at Rewire Newsgroup, tweeted, “OUTRAGEOUS. There's already a mass surveillance state for people who get abortions. And with the bounty hunter laws, people will become snitches for money. It's sick.”
#WorldPressFreedomDay Spotlights Threats To Journalism Around The World
UNESCO commemorated #WorldPressFreedomDay on May 3 with a social media awareness-raising campaign and three day conference in Uruguay. The theme this year is Journalism Under Digital Siege — and a report released on Tuesday by UNESCO detailed how technology affects the safety of journalists, free expression, and access to information.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a briefing, “More governments are taking steps to control access to information – and news in particular – on the internet, whether through shutdowns, slowdowns, or outright censorship. These restrictions make it harder for reporting from inside closed areas to get out, and news from the outside getting in.” According to UNESCO, at least 57 laws/regulations across 44 countries have been adopted or amended since 2016 to ostensibly punish bad actors for spreading disinformation, cybercrime, and hate speech. Earlier this year the Russian government passed such a law targeting journalists reporting on the realities of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Under the measure, journalists who question or challenge the Kremlin’s war can face up to 15 years in prison.
COVERAGE:
Al Jazeera, Infographic: Where is press freedom restricted?
DW, Russian war censorship denounced on World Press Freedom Day
CNN, On this World Press Freedom Day, Ukraine is front of mind
RESPONSES
The Center for Democracy and Technology tweeted, “Journalists & sources need to be able to communicate privately & securely. That’s why @CenDemTech defends strong end-to-end #encryption in the U.S. & abroad. #e2ee”
They also tweeted, “On #WorldPressFreedomDay, @CenDemTech celebrates the courage of journalists around the world. A free & open internet is essential to reporters + the public, & we are proud to fight for internet rights that protect them & the public’s right to know.”
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe released a joint statement, saying, “we are concerned at the spread of disinformation concerning the conflict in Ukraine in Russian state-owned media. However, we believe that disinformation cannot be addressed by blocking or banning media outlets. Any restriction of freedom of expression should respect scrupulously the three-part test of legality, legitimate aim, and necessity and proportionality. We are concerned that the EU’s decision to ban two Russian state-owned media outlets may have been a disproportionate response to disinformation. It has been used as a pretext for additional closure of independent media outlets in the Russian Federation. Promoting access to diverse and verifiable information, including ensuring access to free, independent and pluralistic media, is a more effective response to disinformation.”
Maria Ressa, journalist, author and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, tweeted, “Happy #WorldPressFreedomDay!!! Without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. Without these, we have no shared reality, no rule of law, no democracy. #CourageON #PHVote”
The Open Markets Institute tweeted, “Autocrats like Putin squashing dissent and exiling journalists. Years of big tech sucking ad dollars away from newspapers. Democracy under threat. It’s a critical time to protect the independent press. Support our work. #WorldPressFreedomDay”
DHS Disinformation Governance Board Sparks Confusion And Backlash
Last Wednesday, the Associated Press reported that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had formed a new initiative: the Disinformation Governance Board. The working group was designed to “coordinate ongoing disinformation efforts” at DHS agencies, but its rollout has caused confusion and sparked criticism from across the political spectrum. Conservatives have described the Board as a tool for “censorship” and progressives have raised questions about how it would function.
During an appearance before a Senate committee on Wednesday, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas sought to clarify the Board’s purpose. “What this working group seeks to do is actually develop guidelines, standards, guardrails to ensure that the work that has been ongoing for nearly 10 years does not infringe on people’s free speech rights, rights of privacy, civil rights and civil liberties,” Mayorkas said, noting that DHS has had to contend with disinformation from smugglers and other bad actors seeking to mischaracterize the status of the border or take advantage of victims of natural disasters. “It was quite disconcerting, frankly, that the disinformation work that was well underway for many years across different independent administrations was not guided by guardrails,” he added.
A fact sheet published by DHS clarified that the Board will serve as an internal working group with no operational authority, providing advice and support and gathering information on the DHS’s counter-disinformation efforts. Still, some have remained skeptical of the Board’s formation, including Protect Democracy, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Columbia’s Knight First Amendment Institute, who in a joint statement urged the DHS to clarify how the Board operates and warned against measures “to engage in constitutionally suspect monitoring of communications of individuals in the United States or of citizens abroad.”
COVERAGE
AP, Disinformation board to tackle Russia, migrant smugglers
Washington Post, DHS tries to right controversial rollout of its ‘disinformation governance board’
CBS, Disinformation board to take aim at false Russian and border claims
MarketWatch, ‘We’re not the opinion police’: Disinformation board won’t infringe on free speech, Homeland Security chief says
Reason, Homeland Security Chief Admits New Disinformation Board Already Did a Bad Job of Informing Public
Protocol, How the Disinformation Governance Board spawned its own conspiracy
Seattle Times, DHS disinformation board’s work, plans remain a mystery
RESPONSES
In their joint statement, EFF, the Knight First Amendment Institute, and Protect Democracy wrote: “Disinformation causes real harms, but the Constitution limits the government’s role in combating disinformation directly, and the government can play no useful role at all in the absence of public trust. The announcement of this Board, housed in a Department with a checkered record on civil liberties and without clarity and specificity on its mandate, has squandered that trust.”
EFF went on to tweet, “DHS should reconsider its ‘Disinformation Governance Board’—the idea of any federal entity monitoring and ‘governing’ disinformation is frightening and dangerous.”
In an interview with the Hill, Executive Director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, Jameel Jaffer said the DHS “has not yet made clear the need for the board, given that the government can use protected speech to counter disinformation.”
In a statement, the American Economic Liberties Project wrote: “[W]e believe that an attempt to work through the framework of ‘disinformation’ misconstrues the nature of threat to democracy. The consolidation of power over speech in the hands of dominant platforms has eroded free expression in America… This problem is a direct result of poor policy choices since the 1980s of deregulating our media and communications systems.”
They continued, “When a few dominant platforms control speech in America, the answer is not to let those platforms operate unpoliced, or to have the government tell Mark Zuckerberg what speech to allow. It is to break those platforms up and put in place rules to ensure a vibrant public square in America.”
Renee DiResta, research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, said in an interview with the Hill: “When I use the term disinformation, I don’t mean somebody is wrong on the internet or somebody is speaking freely on the internet, I mean deliberate manipulation campaigns by state-level adversaries to change a conversation in a way that is inherently deceptive… [However,] if the effort is narrowly scoped, there’s validity to the government paying attention to manipulation by adversaries…”
Platform Regulation Director at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center, Daphne Keller, tweeted, “I honestly cannot guess whether this was coordinated with the Declaration for the Future of the Internet yesterday, intended to undermine it, or just random. But it is not going to help a single person trying to advance human rights in non-democratic regimes around the world.”
Jeff Kosseff, professor of cybersecurity law at the US Naval Academy, tweeted, “DHS needs to pull the plug on this as soon as possible. This will make it so much harder in the future for reasonable, well-conceived, and constitutional attempts to address misinformation.”
Grindr Was Selling Sensitive User Data For At Least Two Years
New information about how Grindr previously sold user location data is generating outrage and fueling calls for new regulations. In 2020, Grindr curbed its data sharing of precise user locations, amidst concerns that its availability could pose serious national security and privacy risks. But according to a Wall Street Journal article published on Monday, the dating app began selling the information as early as 2017, “and historical data may still be obtainable.”
National security officials have long warned about the various privacy and cybersecurity risks of commercially accessible data. In 2020, Chinese gaming giant Beijing Kunlun sold Grindr after a U.S government national security panel labeled it a national security risk.
Privacy and human rights groups argue that with homosexuality criminalized in several countries around the world, the accessibility of this information has serious legal ramifications. And even though homosexuality is legal in the United States, the circulation of sensitive data can still do considerable harm to members of the LGBTQ+ community. Coverage of this story also noted that a Catholic priest from Wisconsin resigned last year after similar data from ad networks were used by The Pillar, a Catholic newsletter, to identify him as a Grindr user and a regular patron of gay bars based on location data.
COVERAGE
Engadget, Grindr location data was reportedly for sale for at least three years (updated)
Wall Street Journal, Grindr User Data Was Sold Through Ad Networks
Market Watch, Grindr user data have been available for purchase since at least 2017
Gizmodo, Grindr Caught Sharing Location Data For Years, Report Says
RESPONSES
Public Citizen tweeted, “This is horrific. Grindr has been SELLING millions of users’ precise location data since 2017. Those with access can infer romantic encounters between users, their workplaces, home addresses, and other identifying information. Help us raise hell about this.”
Ari Ezra Waldman, professor at Northeastern School of Law, tweeted, “Grindr, the dating/hook app geared toward gay and bi men, not only doesn’t care about the safety of the queer community, it seems to do everything it can to make itself rich while endangering & manipulating its users.”
Wolfie Christl, researcher at Cracked Labs, tweeted, “2 years ago, we observed Grindr sharing exact location data with 8 data brokers in the 'advertising' space, including MoPub, back then owned by Twitter.Now the WSJ found that this data has actually been available for sale, via MoPub, since at least 2017”
Jason Kint, CEO of Digital Content Next, tweeted, “Here is the full report. A huge hat tip to @ByronTau @georgia_wells and their editors for chasing this down after the Pillar report last year. It’s important and didn’t get enough attention due to publisher last year. Please read the full report.”
Konstantinos Komaitis tweeted, “Here's a thought: why don't policy makers focus on fixing - but really fixing it! “
Shira Ovide, writer of On Tech, tweeted, “Your periodic reminder that there is no federal law in the U.S. that prevents companies from selling or sharing data on people's physical movements to anyone.”
Evan Greer, Director at Fight for the Future, tweeted, “this is really grim but at some point in the not too distant future historians will look back and estimate the number of LGBTQ+ people who died because of politicians dragging their feet on passing data privacy legislation”
OPEN TABS
Brands should force Twitter to uphold content policies under Musk, advocacy groups say (CNN)
Applied for Student Aid Online? Facebook Saw You (The Markup)
There Are Dozens of Facebook Groups Intentionally Spreading Islamophobia. Meta Refuses to Act. (Vice)
It's Time to Open the Black Box of Social Media (Scientific American)
The 2022 RDR Big Tech Scorecard (Ranking Digital Rights)
An urgent task awaiting Elon Musk at Twitter: Encrypting direct messages (Brookings)
Amazon workers vote against unionization in New York (Washington Post)