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Interesting

Bills of Rights Reposted

Kaliya Young · September 7, 2017 ·

The Many Bills of Rights

This was originally published 1 August 2011
The second recommendation of the World Economic Forum report Personal Data: The Emergence of a New Asset Class after innovation around User-Centricity and Trust is the definition of global principles for using and sharing personal data.
The The Startup Circle of PDEC is forming and defining its core principles now too.
This post is an aggregation of Bills of Rights and Principles developed about data, privacy and social networks.
September 2010

Visions and Principles for the Personal Data Ecosystem

by Kaliya Hamlin, Identity Woman
The future is at stake – without control over our own personal data, having a copy of all the digital bread crumbs we are leaving behind in the digital world, we leave ourselves to be tracked, and potentially manipulated by commercial interests without our knowledge.
This presents a vision for core aspects of the emerging interoperable, open standards based ecosystem of personal data services – rooted in the core functionality of a Personal Data Store – the vault/locker/services/broker where all an individuals data is collected and stored and managed.
Dignity of the Individual is Core Human dignity must lie at the core of the Personal Data Ecosystem. People must be able to shape how they represent themselves in digital contexts. People need the freedom to shape how they present themselves and how the data they generate in their lives is collected and used.
Systems Must Respect Relationships Relationships must be respected between people, between people and groups, and between groups and groups.  The Personal Data Ecosystem must respect that people and communities have different levels of publicness.  The relationships that people have with one another must be respected and the social context in which they are formed must be honored.
Remember the Greatness of Groups Personal Data and control over it give people a core human dignity.  It also must be remembered that human social life and human identity is shaped by our participation and membership in groups. It is the core organizing form of our society. Fundamental functionality must enable people to organize in groups, and it must be abstracted from any particular service or domain space.
The Social Web is not Networked Individualism People broadcasting what they do to their friends or followers does not make a social web; communities and groups do.
Protocols that Enable Broad Possibilities are Essential Protocols matter deeply: they shape what is possible by their definition of use cases that are possible or not in a given protocol landscape.   To have a truly social and dynamic web, there is a role for protocols that are designed specifically for that purpose, not just to create web pages or send emails.
Open Standards for Data and Metadata are Essential It is vital that the personal data store ecosystem be interoperable with open standards so people are free to choose which personal data services they wish to use.  Just like people are free to pick which bank to hold their money and provide services to them in the financial realm.
Defaults Must Work for Most People Most of the Time All systems have defaults.  The paradox of choice is that more options can overwhelm people and they end up not considering the choices they have. Real people need to have input into the creation and ongoing development of systemic defaults.
Norms and Practices in the Personal Data Ecosystem Must be Backed up by Law Emerging technologies need to have legal agreements and frameworks innovated to match their functionality.  The work on the legal framework for this ecosystem is as important as the protocols and code that make it go.
Business Opportunities Abound in this New Personal Data Ecosystem The paradigm of user collection, control and management of the personal data they are creating implicitly and explicitly around the web is a huge opportunity for services and ways of doing business. Creativity is needed to think through these new possibilities.
Diversity is Key to the Success of the Personal Data Ecosystem Large companies and nimble startups are all needed for the success of this emerging ecosystem.
 
 
September 2010

PDX Principles

by Phil Windley, CTO Kynetx, Technometria Blog
Here’s a list of a few things that I think distinguish a PDX from just places where your personal data is stored:

  • user-controlled – the user needs to be in control of the data, who has access, and how it is used. Once that data is in my PDX, I make decisions about it. That doesn’t mean the data might not also be somewhere else. For example, data about my purchases from Amazon will certainly be stored at Amazon and not under my control. But I might also be emailing the receipts to a service that parses them and puts the data in my PDX for my use.
  • federated – there isn’t one place where your data is stored, but multiple places that the data needs to be able to flow between, in a permissioned way. There’s no center, just a lot of cooperating system with my PDX orchestrating the interactions. While Amazon might not give my PDX access to and control over my transactions, my phone company might provide a PDX-capable contact service where I choose to store my contact information.
  • interoperable – various PDX services and brokers have to be able to operate together according to standards to perform their roles. When I take money out of my account at Wells Fargo and deposit it at Chase, I don’t lose part of the value because Chase doesn’t know how to handle some part of the transaction. The monetary system is interoperable with standards and, sometimes, shims that connect it all together.
  • semantic – a PDX knows more about the data that it holds than existing data stores do. Consider Dropbox. I can put all kinds of things in my Dropbox, but it’s syntactic, not semantic. By that I mean that if I want to put healthcare data in Dropbox and control who uses it, I create a folder and put the data in it with specific permissions. The fact that there is a folder with a certain name located at a particular place in the folder hierarchy is purely syntactic. In a semantic world, the data itself is tagged as healthcare data and no matter where it is, it’s protected according to the policies I’ve put in place.
  • portability – a PDX doesn’t trap data in proprietary formats. If my phone company is storing my contact data in the cloud and I decide that I want to move it to my own server or another service, I can—from a technical as well as a policy standpoint. Note that this doesn’t mean we have to wait until thousands upon thousands of data format specification get hammered out. Semantic metadata can provide a means of translating from one format to another.
  • metadata management – one of the primary roles of the PDX is managing data about my data. What are the roles I’ve created? What permissions have I granted as exceptions to the defaults? What semantics surround the various data fields? What data sharing, encoding, and encrypting policies have I created? All of this has to be kept and managed in my behalf in the PDX.
  • broker services – the PDX is a place where the user manages a federated network of data stores. As an example of why this is important, consider the shortcomings of OAuth. If I use an application that needs access to four OAuth mediated APIs, I have to go through the OAuth ceremnoy with each API provider separately. Now consider that I might have dozens of apps that use a popular API. I have to go through the OAuth ceremony for each of them separately. In short a broker saves us from the N x M explosion of permissioning ceremonies. Similarly for various data services.
  • discoverable – a PDX should provide discoverability for its APIs and schemas so that any application I’m interested in knows how to interact with it. Discoverability protects users from having to completely specify addresses, mappings, and schemas to every application that comes along.
  • automatable and scriptable – a PDX without automation is worse than no PDX at all because it burdens the user rather than saving effort. A PDX will be a player in a larger ecosystem of services. I don’t see is as a mere API that allows services and applications to GET and PUT data—it’s not WEBDAV on steoids. The PDX is an active participant in the greater ecosystem of services that are cooperating on the user’s behalf.

June 18, 2010

Social Network Users’ Bill of Rights

Computers Freedom and Privacy Conference
For more background on the social network users’ bill of rights, also known as #BillOfRights, please see It’s time for a Social Network Users’ Bill of Rights,
We the users expect social network sites to provide us the following rights in their Terms of Service, Privacy Policies, and implementations of their system:

  • Honesty: Honor your privacy policy and terms of service
  • Clarity: Make sure that policies, terms of service, and settings are easy to find and understand
  • Freedom of speech: Do not delete or modify my data without a clear policy and justification
  • Empowerment : Support assistive technologies and universal accessibility
  • Self-protection: Support privacy-enhancing technologies
  • Data minimization: Minimize the information I am required to provide and share with others
  • Control: Let me control my data, and don’t facilitate sharing it unless I agree first
  • Predictability: Obtain my prior consent before significantly changing who can see my data.
  • Data portability: Make it easy for me to obtain a copy of my data
  • Protection: Treat my data as securely as your own confidential data unless I choose to share it, and notify me if it is compromised
  • Right to know: Show me how you are using my data and allow me to see who and what has access to it.
  • Right to self-define: Let me create more than one identity and use pseudonyms. Do not link them without my permission.
  • Right to appeal: Allow me to appeal punitive actions
  • Right to withdraw: Allow me to delete my account, and remove my data

 
May 19, 2010

A Bill of Privacy Rights for Social Network Users

Commentary by Kurt Opsahl, EFF
Social network service providers today are in a unique position. They are intermediaries and hosts to our communications, conversations and connections with loved ones, family, friends and colleagues. They have access to extremely sensitive information, including data gathered over time and from many different individuals.
Here at EFF, we’ve been thinking a lot recently about what specific rights a responsible social network service should provide to its users. Social network services must ensure that users have ongoing privacy and control over personal information stored with the service. Users are not just a commodity, and their rights must be respected. Innovation in social network services is important, but it must remain consistent with, rather than undermine, user privacy and control. Based on what we see today, therefore, we suggest three basic privacy-protective principles that social network users should demand:
#1: The Right to Informed Decision-Making
Users should have the right to a clear user interface that allows them to make informed choices about who sees their data and how it is used.
Users should be able to see readily who is entitled to access any particular piece of information about them, including other people, government officials, websites, applications, advertisers and advertising networks and services.
Whenever possible, a social network service should give users notice when the government or a private party uses legal or administrative processes to seek information about them, so that users have a meaningful opportunity to respond.
#2: The Right to Control
Social network services must ensure that users retain control over the use and disclosure of their data. A social network service should take only a limited license to use data for the purpose for which it was originally given to the provider. When the service wants to make a secondary use of the data, it must obtain explicit opt-in permission from the user. The right to control includes users’ right to decide whether their friends may authorize the service to disclose their personal information to third-party websites and applications.
Social network services must ask their users’ permission before making any change that could share new data about users, share users’ data with new categories of people, or use that data in a new way. Changes like this should be “opt-in” by default, not “opt-out,” meaning that users’ data is not shared unless a user makes an informed decision to share it. If a social network service is adding some functionality that its users really want, then it should not have to resort to unclear or misleading interfaces to get people to use it.
#3: The Right to Leave
Users giveth, and users should have the right to taketh away.
One of the most basic ways that users can protect their privacy is by leaving a social network service that does not sufficiently protect it. Therefore, a user should have the right to delete data or her entire account from a social network service. And we mean really delete. It is not enough for a service to disable access to data while continuing to store or use it. It should be permanently eliminated from the service’s servers.
Furthermore, if users decide to leave a social network service, they should be able to easily, efficiently and freely take their uploaded information away from that service and move it to a different one in a usable format. This concept, known as “data portability” or “data liberation,” is fundamental to promote competition and ensure that users truly maintain control over their information, even if they sever their relationship with a particular service.
 
June 22, 2009

A Declaration of Health Data Rights

endorsed by many organizations and companies
In an era when technology allows personal health information to be more easily stored, updated, accessed and exchanged, the following rights should be self-evident and inalienable. We the people:

  1. Have the right to our own health data
  2. Have the right to know the source of each health data element
  3. Have the right to take possession of a complete copy of our individual health data, without delay, at minimal or no cost; if data exist in computable form, they must be made available in that form
  4. Have the right to share our health data with others as we see fit

These principles express basic human rights as well as essential elements of health care that is participatory, appropriate and in the interests of each patient. No law or policy should abridge these rights.
 
2009

The New Deal on Data

Mobility in a Networked World The Global Information Technology Report 2008-2009,  World Economic Forum
The first step toward open information markets is to give people ownership of their data.  The simplest approach to defining what it means to “own your own data” is to go back to Old English Common Law for the three basic tenets of ownership, which are the rights of possession, use, and disposal:
1. You have a right to possess your data. Companies should adopt the role of a Swiss bank account for your data.  You open an account (anonymously, if possible), and you can remove your data whenever you’d like.
2. You, the data owner, must have full control over the use of your data. If you’re not happy with the way a company uses your data, you can remove it. All of it. Everything must be opt-in, and not only clearly explained in plain language, but with regular reminders that you have the option to opt out.
3. You have a right to dispose or distribute your data. If you want to destroy it or remove it and redeploy it elsewhere, it is your call. Ownership seems to be the minimal guideline for the “new deal on data.”  There needs to be one more principle, however—which is to adopt policies that encourage the combination of massive amounts of anonymous data to promote the Common Good.  Aggregate and anonymous location data can dramatically improve society. Patterns of how people move around can be used for early identification of infectious disease outbreaks, protection of the environment, and public safety. It can also help us measure the effectiveness of various government programs, and improve the transparency and accountability of government and nonprofit organizations.
 
March 2008

The Properties of Identity

At a Crossroads: Personhood and Digital Identity in the Information Society
articulated by Bob Blakley, Jeff Broberg, Anthony Nadalin, Dale Olds, Mary Ruddy, Mary Rundle, and Paul Trevithick.
Identity behaves according to a number of observable properties, as follows:
Identity is social. Humans are naturally social. To engage in social interactions (including commerce) people need something that persists and that can be used as a basis for recognition of others – an “identity”.
Identity is subjective. Different people have different experiences with the same individual and therefore attribute different characteristics to that individual; that is, they will construct different identities for him.
Identity is valuable. By building a history of a person’s past actions, exchange of identity information creates social capital and enables transactions that wouldn’t be possible without identity.  In other words, identity lends predictability to afford a comfortable level of confidence for people making decisions.
Identity is referential. An identity is not a person; it is only a reference to a person. Even if a person develops spin-off personas so that other people know him through those various digital identities, and even if others create profiles of a person, ultimately the collection of characteristics that signal who a person is need to point back to that person.
Identity is composite. Some information about a person arises from the person himself; he volunteers it. But other information about him is developed by others without his involvement.
Identity is consequential. Because identity tells of a person’s past actions, the decision to exchange identity information carries consequences: Disclosure of identity information in a certain context can cause harm; failure to disclose identity information in another context can create risk.
Identity is dynamic. Identity information is always changing; any particular identity dossier might be inaccurate at any given moment.
Identity is contextual. People have different identities that they may wish to keep entirely separate. Information can be harmful in the wrong context, or it can simply be irrelevant. Keeping identities separate allows a person to have more autonomy.
Identity is equivocal. The process of identification is inherently error-prone.
 
September 5, 2007

A Bill of rights for Users of the Social Web

By Joseph Smarr, Marc Canter, Robert Scoble, and Michael Arrington, Open Social Web
We publicly assert that all users of the social web are entitled to certain fundamental rights, specifically:
Ownership of their own personal information, including:

  • their own profile data
  • the list of people they are connected to
  • the activity stream of content they create;

Control of whether and how such personal information is shared with others; and
Freedom to grant persistent access to their personal information to trusted external sites.
Sites supporting these rights shall:

  • Allow their users to syndicate their own profile data, their friends list, and the data that’s shared with them via the service, using a persistent URL or API token and open data formats;
  • Allow their users to syndicate their own stream of activity outside the site;
  • Allow their users to link from their profile pages to external identifiers in a public way; and
  • Allow their users to discover who else they know is also on their site, using the same external identifiers made available for lookup within the service.

 
April 25, 2007

The Data Bill of Rights

By John Battelle, The Search Blog
So, I submit for your review, editing and clarification, a new draft of what rights we, as consumers, might demand from companies making hay off the data we create as we trip across the web:

  • Data Transparency. We can identify and review the data that companies have about us. A sticky issue is whether we can also identify and review data that is made about us based on other data the company might have. (IE, based on your behavior, we at Amazon know you might also like….)
  • Data Portability. We can take copies of that data out of the company’s coffers and offer it to others or just keep copies for ourselves.
  • Data Editing. We can request deletions, editing, clarifications of our data for accuracy and privacy.
  • Data Anonymity. We can request that our data not be used, cognizant of the fact that that may mean services are unavailable to us.
  • Data Use. We have rights to know how our data is being used inside a company.
  • Data Value. The right to sell our data to the highest bidder.
  • Data Permissions. The right to set permissions as to who might use/benefit from/have access to our data.

Read more: http://battellemedia.com/archives/2007/04/the_data_bill_of_rights#ixzz1KwXPBJkN
 
July 27, 2005

AttentionTrust.org: a Declaration of Gestural Independence

By Seth Goldstein
The choruses of attention, data, privacy and identity are all converging in one giant conceptual mashup, which stretches from Web 2.0 pundits to members of Congress grappling with identity theft regulation. Lost at times are the basic rights we are fighting for, which I understand to be:

  • You have the right to yourself.
  • You have the right to your gestures.
  • You have the right to your words.
  • You have the right to your interests.
  • You have the right to your attention.
  • You have the right to your intentions.

 
May 2005

Laws of Identity

1. User Control and Consent: Digital identity systems must only reveal information identifying a user with the user’s consent.
2. Limited Disclosure for Limited Use: The solution which discloses the least identifying information and best limits its use is the most stable, long-term solution.
3. The Law of Fewest Parties: Digital identity systems must limit disclosure of identifying information to parties having a necessary and justifiable place in a given identity relationship.
4. Directed Identity: A universal identity metasystem must support both “omnidirectional” identifiers for use by public entities and “unidirectional” identifiers for private entities, thus facilitating discovery while preventing unnecessary release of correlation handles.
5. Pluralism of Operators and Technologies: A universal identity metasystem must channel and enable the interworking of multiple identity technologies run by multiple identity providers.
6. Human Integration: A unifying identity metasystem must define the human user as a component integrated through protected and unambiguous human-machine communications.
7. Consistent Experience Across Contexts: A unifying identity metasystem must provide a simple consistent experience while enabling separation of contexts through multiple operators and technologies.
 
January 26th, 2000

A Declaration of the Rights of Avatars

by Rolf Kosters
When a time comes that new modes and venues exist for communities, and said modes are different enough from the existing ones that question arises as to the applicability of past custom and law; and when said venues have become a forum for interaction and society for the general public regardless of the intent of the creators of said venue; and at a time when said communities and spaces are rising in popularity and are now widely exploited for commercial gain; it behooves those involved in said communities and venues to affirm and declare the inalienable rights of the members of said communities. Therefore herein have been set forth those rights which are inalienable rights of the inhabitants of virtual spaces of all sorts, in their form henceforth referred to as avatars, in order that this declaration may continually remind those who hold power over virtual spaces and the avatars contained therein of their duties and responsibilities; in order that the forms of administration of a virtual space may be at any time compared to that of other virtual spaces; and in order that the grievances of players may hereafter be judged against the explicit rights set forth, to better govern the virtual space and improve the general welfare and happiness of all.
Therefore this document holds the following truths to be self-evident: That avatars are the manifestation of actual people in an online medium, and that their utterances, actions, thoughts, and emotions should be considered to be as valid as the utterances, actions, thoughts, and emotions of people in any other forum, venue, location, or space. That the well-established rights of man approved by the National Assembly of France on August 26th of 1789 do therefore apply to avatars in full measure saving only the aspects of said rights that do not pertain in a virtual space or which must be abrogated in order to ensure the continued existence of the space in question. That by the act of affirming membership in the community within the virtual space, the avatars form a social contract with the community, forming a populace which may and must self-affirm and self-impose rights and concomitant restrictions upon their behavior. That the nature of virtual spaces is such that there must, by physical law, always be a higher power or administrator who maintains the space and has complete power over all participants, but who is undeniably part of the community formed within the space and who must therefore take action in accord with that which benefits the space as well as the participants, and who therefore also has the rights of avatars and may have other rights as well. That the ease of moving between virtual spaces and the potential transience of the community do not limit or reduce the level of emotional and social involvement that avatars may have with the community, and that therefore the ease of moving between virtual spaces and the potential transience of the community do not in any way limit, curtail, or remove these rights from avatars on the alleged grounds that avatars can always simply leave.
Articles:

  1. Avatars are created free and equal in rights. Special powers or privileges shall be founded solely on the common good, and not based on whim, favoritism, nepotism, or the caprice of those who hold power. Those who act as ordinary avatars within the space shall all have only the rights of normal avatars.
  2. The aim of virtual communities is the common good of its citizenry, from which arise the rights of avatars. Foremost among these rights is the right to be treated as people and not as disembodied, meaningless, soulless puppets. Inherent in this right are therefore the natural and inalienable rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.
  3. The principle of all sovereignty in a virtual space resides in the inalterable fact that somewhere there resides an individual who controls the hardware on which the virtual space is running, and the software with which it is created, and the database which makes up its existence. However, the body populace has the right to know and demand the enforcement of the standards by which this individual uses this power over the community, as authority must proceed from the community; a community that does not know the standards by which the administrators use their power is a community which permits its administrators to have no standards, and is therefore a community abetting in tyranny.
  4. Liberty consists of the freedom to do anything which injures no one else including the weal of the community as a whole and as an entity instantiated on hardware and by software; the exercise of the natural rights of avatars are therefore limited solely by the rights of other avatars sharing the same space and participating in the same community. These limits can only be determined by a clear code of conduct.
  5. The code of conduct can only prohibit those actions and utterances that are hurtful to society, inclusive of the harm that may be done to the fabric of the virtual space via hurt done to the hardware, software, or data; and likewise inclusive of the harm that may be done to the individual who maintains said hardware, software, or data, in that harm done to this individual may result in direct harm done to the community.
  6. The code of conduct is the expression of the general will of the community and the will of the individual who maintains the hardware and software that makes up the virtual space. Every member of the community has the right to contribute either directly or via representatives in the shaping of the code of conduct as the culture of the virtual space evolves, particularly as it evolves in directions that the administrator did not predict; the ultimate right of the administrator to shape and define the code of conduct shall not be abrogated, but it is clear that the administrator therefore has the duty and responsibility to work with the community to arrive at a code of conduct that is shaped by the input of the community. As a member of the community himself, the administrator would be damaging the community itself if he failed in this responsibility, for abrogation of this right of avatars could result in the loss of population and therefore damage to the common weal.
  7. No avatar shall be accused, muzzled, toaded, jailed, banned, or otherwise punished except in the cases and according to the forms prescribed by the code of conduct. Any one soliciting, transmitting, executing, or causing to be executed, any arbitrary order, shall be punished, even if said individual is one who has been granted special powers or privileges within the virtual space. But any avatar summoned or arrested in virtue of the code of conduct shall submit without delay, as resistance constitutes an offense.
  8. The code of conduct shall provide for such punishments only as are strictly and obviously necessary, and no one shall suffer punishment except it be legally inflicted according to the provisions of a code of conduct promulgated before the commission of the offense; save in the case where the offense endangered the continued existence of the virtual space by attacking the hardware or software that provide the physical existence of the space.
  9. As all avatars are held innocent until they shall have been declared guilty, if detainment, temporary banning, jailing, gluing, freezing, or toading shall be deemed indispensable, all harshness not essential to the securing of the prisoner’s person shall be severely repressed by the code of conduct.
  10. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by the code of conduct.
  11. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every avatar may, accordingly, speak, write, chat, post, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by the code of conduct, most particularly the abuse of affecting the performance of the space or the performance of a given avatar’s representation of the space.
  12. The security of the rights of avatars requires the existence of avatars with special powers and privileges, who are empowered to enforce the provisions of the code of conduct. These powers and privileges are therefore granted for the good of all and not for the personal advantage of those to whom they shall be entrusted. These powers and privileges are also therefore not an entitlement, and can and should be removed in any instance where they are no longer used for the good of all, even if the offense is merely inactivity
  13. A common contribution may, at the discretion of the individual who maintains the hardware, the software, and the data that make up the virtual space, be required in order to maintain the existence of avatars who enforce the code of conduct and to maintain the hardware and the software and the continued existence of the virtual space. Avatars have the right to know the nature and amount of the contribution in advance, and said required contribution should be equitably distributed among all the citizens without regard to their social position; special rights and privileges shall never pertain to the avatar who contributes more except insofar as the special powers and privileges require greater resources from the hardware, software, or data store, and would not be possible save for the resources obtainable with the contribution; and as long as any and all avatars are able to make this contribution and therefore gain the powers and privileges if they so choose; nor shall any articles of this declaration be contingent upon a contribution being made.
  14. The community has the right to require of every administrator or individual with special powers and privileges granted for the purpose of administration, an account of his administration.
  15. A virtual community in which the observance of the code of conduct is not assured and universal, nor the separation of powers defined, has no constitution at all.
  16. Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, and the virtual equivalent is integrity and persistence of data, no one shall be deprived thereof except where public necessity, legally determined per the code of conduct, shall clearly demand it, and then only on condition that the avatar shall have been previously and equitably indemnified, saving only cases wherein the continued existence of the space is jeopardized by the existence or integrity of said data.
  17. The administrators of the virtual space shall not abridge the freedom of assembly, save to preserve the performance and continued viability of the virtual space.
  18. Avatars have the right to be secure in their persons, communications, designated private spaces, and effects, against unreasonable snooping, eavesdropping, searching and seizures, no activity pertaining thereto shall be undertaken by administrators save with probable cause supported by affirmation, particularly describing the goal of said investigations.
  19. The enumeration in this document of rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by avatars.

 
September 23, 1980

OECD privacy guidelines, part 2: Basic Principles of National Application

Collection Limitation Principle: There should be limits to the collection of personal data and any such data should be obtained by lawful and fair means and, where appropriate, with the knowledge or consent of the data subject.
Data Quality Principle: Personal data should be relevant to the purposes for which they are to be used, and, to the extent necessary for those purposes, should be accurate, complete and kept up-to-date.
Purpose Specification Principle: The purposes for which personal data are collected should be specified not later than at the time of data collection and the subsequent use limited to the fulfilment of those purposes or such others as are not incompatible with those purposes and as are specified on each occasion of change of purpose.
Use Limitation Principle: Personal data should not be disclosed, made available or otherwise used for purposes other than those specified in accordance with Paragraph 9 except:
a)    with the consent of the data subject; or
b)    by the authority of law.
Security Safeguards Principle: Personal data should be protected by reasonable security safeguards against such risks as loss or unauthorised access, destruction, use, modification or disclosure of data.
Openness Principle: There should be a general policy of openness about developments, practices and policies with respect to personal data. Means should be readily available of establishing the existence and nature of personal data, and the main purposes of their use, as well as the identity and usual residence of the data controller.
Individual Participation Principle: An individual should have the right:
a) to obtain from a data controller, or otherwise, confirmation of whether or not the data controller has data relating to him;
b) to have communicated to him, data relating to him
1. within a reasonable time;
2. at a charge, if any, that is not excessive;
3. in a reasonable manner; and
4. in a form that is readily intelligible to him;
c) to be given reasons if a request made under subparagraphs (a) and (b) is denied, and to be able to challenge such denial; and
d) to challenge data relating to him and, if the challenge is  successful to have the data erased, rectified, completed or amended.
Accountability Principle: A data controller should be accountable for complying with measures which give effect to the principles stated above.

The Identity Film from IIW

Kaliya Young · October 19, 2016 ·

This film is getting released at IIW. When it is up it will be posted below.

Digital Death a Matrix of Questions

Kaliya Young · October 19, 2016 ·

Digital Death Day, Privacy Identity Innovation

I was invited to give a talk at Privacy Identity and Innovation about the Digital Death and the conference that has happened a few times Digital Death Day.
I chose to lay out a matrix of questions that have arisen from the work. Enjoy the talk.

Digital Death a Matrix of Questions and Considerations from Privacy Identity Innovation on Vimeo.

Identity 101, Boot Camp for Identity North 2016

Kaliya Young · October 18, 2016 ·

This June I was invited to present the Identity 101 BootCamp ahead of the Identity North Conference in Toronto. People arrived 90 min early at 8am for this presentation.
I walk through some of the core vocabulary for identity (authentication, authorization, enrollment, verification and contextualize the different contexts (Enterprise, Government and User-Centric)  and power structures that operates within. We also include the Identity Spectrum between verified and anonymous ID there is a whole range and some combinations) The presentation ends sharing Kim Cameron’s Laws of Identity and the Properties of Identity.

Identity 101: Boot Camp for Identity North 2016 from Kaliya "Identity Woman" Young

Info Sharing Agreements! Support it! Make it Real!

Kaliya Young · May 23, 2012 · 2 Comments

Joe Andrieu and the Information Sharing Working Group has put a lot of work and effort into creating a Standard set of Information Sharing Agreements represented by a standard label. They want to invest in user -research to make it really work.
I am putting in $100 and I encourage all of you to do the same. They need to raise $12000 in the next 8 days.
See the Kickstarter Campaign here.

The Relationship Paper

Kaliya Young · March 29, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Bob’s Relationship Paper is now available. If you haven’t read it yet – you should. It articulates a key point about the challenge regarding the current frame of social networks – relationships are just lines on a graph rather then being nodes that hold information about the nature and parameters of the relationship.

On Gaza

Kaliya Young · January 3, 2009 · 2 Comments

I don’t write about politics on my blog that much but have spoken up about some of my travels in the world and what I have seen.
I thought with all the twitter blips going by about “the ground invasion in gaza beginning I wanted to share what I wrote about in the summer of 2006 my own personal visit to Gaza in the summer of 2000.
This is the last 1/2 of a post a post called “Security theater and the “real” threats – inhuman conditions“.

Speaking of ‘they’ – who are they? I just watched a film from Netflicks – Death in Gaza. It was of two documentary film makers one of whom died while shooting the film. I spent the summer of 2000 in Jerusalem for 10 weeks I lived and worked there and did what I call “NGO tourism”. I worked at one of the worlds foremost human rights organizations – BTselem the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories and then also worked at the PCATI the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (while there I got my education in what torture is going on and how it affects people – really awful).
My fellow international interns and I would spend our weekends traveling about going through the Westbank and up to Nazareth, and Haifa over to Televiv down to Hebron. [[you can read what I wrote about Hebron here]]

One time we got to go to Gaza for 2 days. One of the interviewers for B’Tselem was traveling there so the two of us got to go with him. We got hooked up with two guys who worked in an NGO in Gaza and went on a tour for a day… from one end to the other … inside the camps and everything. It was amazingly powerful. Just like in the movie I saw the little kids the ones who are 5 and 6 happily playing away not really knowing there life circumstances yet. Then the older boys would glare glints of anger in there eyes. They are 10-13 years old knowing what they don’t have. The get that it is not normal to have open sewers in the streets. It is not normal to have 10 people living in one room. It is not normal to be growing bunnies up stairs that you kill to have food or a donkey living in your living room. Why do they know this…there are satalite dishes…basically everyone has a TV and can see what life is like in Isreal, and America and the rest of the normal arab world. When you think about that maybe some of this makes a bit more sense. It is not normal to feel like going to school you could get killed (as they young girl in Death in Gaza talks about). It is not normal to have your school playmates killed by gunfire (like the little boys have happen to them in the movie). Or bulldozers coming to plow your house down in the middle of the night (like threatens to happen in the movie ) How can you feel peaceful in this kind of environment?
I know after witnessing what I did that day I was shaken. I really felt my soul had been shaken up like my body was still and it was moving. It was eerily like the feeling I had after exiting the memorial museum at Hiroshima. The thing was…what I had witnessed that day was happening to real people ‘now’ not a historical event from 60 years ago. The depth of suffering is quite intense and the failure to connect with people as people and to really resolve the conflict continues to cause suffering. More bombs and planes and threats of nuclear weapons going off doesn’t make the situation better. It makes it worse. Send in armies of compassionate empathetic listeners. Make public peoples family stories and histories. Find some way through. There are some amazing stories of reconciliation that have happened in Israel/Palestine. They prove it is possible. I do have hope but not if everyone just sees an enemy instead of people, families and societies with real human and community needs.
I was sorting through my stuff over the weekend and found something from B’Tselem. They still send me the reports the write. It was a 11×17 fold over about the wall situation in Jerusalem. Just really disruptive to normal peoples lives. The whole of the Westbank is oriented around the trade flows through main cities. The most main one being East Jerusalem. The fact that they want to cut the Palestinians off from their main economic hub is just mean. People don’t like people who do mean things. Why is this so hard to understand!

It makes me very sad to hear there is a war happening. There has been a war on the Palestinian people for a long time.
Some elements that are not obvious to people is the depth of connection to land and history that is present along with the really bad living conditions.
* In the refugee camps villagers who fled their villages together – still live together 50 years later – they have a sense of identity as people of a place (a place that only the oldest people alive still remember) but that the young people feel they belong to too.
* The number of people and the conditions of living are very hard to imagine – they have the density of New York – but all in cement block houses that have tiny rooms 9×9. 1200 people a km.
* They don’t have electricity in the winter because the wiring is so ad-hoc that it is to dangerous to run in the winter.
* They don’t have sewage systems – other then the ones that run in the street.
* When the Israelis had a presence in Gaza they had their own roads – the good ones – that Palestinians could not drive on. (I was driving around with palestinians so we were on the “bad” roads).
* They have families of 10 living in one room houses.
* They have families that have a donkey’s living with them in their one room too.
These are extreme living conditions and the reason they voted for Hamas has to do with the fact that the islamic organization the religious arm of the political organization actually helps poor (as they are called to by their religious texts) impoverished people by feeding them. If you lived in these kinds of conditions wouldn’t you vote for the group that on the ground in practical reality actually helped you a bit.
There are some other interesting things to know about the Palestinian people… How do I know all this – yes I visited the territories but I wrote my senior thesis 40 pages on “The Lost Opportunity for Sustainable Development in Palestine” – 10 of them specifically about demography.
* They have HIGH levels of basic education Palestinians have the highest levels literacy in the arab world.
* They have a lot of higher educational institutions.
* They have the highest level of educational attainment of women in the arab world (normally educated women cut back on the number of children they have).
* Even though the women are relatively very educated – they are very committed to having children and lots of them
Women living in Palestine have a total fertility rate (TFR) of 5.6 children—significantly higher than women in other countries that have similar levels of education and access to health services. (Women in Gaza have 6.6 births, on average, while women in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) have an average of 5.2 births.) they are clear they are fighting a long term demographic “race” with Israel. More palestinians means more votes and more bodies to resist the injustice they have suffered.
* They have a very young population (in 2005 – 18% was below the age of 5, 45% was below the age of 15) this means that is lots of young men of marriageable age and seeking work.
So you put all this together
1. a population that watches TV from around the world on satellite dishes,
2. that lives in abject poverty
3. That is highly educated and mostly in the arts (political science, economics, english, comparative literature etc…)
4. Young men without an economic opportunities compounded by the fact that without this they can’t marry and thus can’t have sex. THEY ARE FRUSTRATED.
They know – they see every day on TV what they don’t have. We live in a globalized world and it is not just about ‘us’ those in North America and Europe knowing about the rest of the world – the rest of the world has the same tools too. They see the gap – with their own eyes and it makes them angry.
I don’t want to be all down on this post. This went by on twitter a few days ago It is about a contributor/admin on WikiHow (the wiki for how too manuals) and it made me cry – it is why I love the internet and the power it has to connect people and give people meaningful ways to contribute and help one another.

Many of you know that the dedicated wikiHowian and new admin, VC, lives in Gaza. (Actually VC is only a new admin on the English wikiHow. He has been an admin on Arabic wikiHow for a while.) And everyone knows that there is currently a war in Gaza right now. Even before the recent fighting started, VC suffered from sporadic internet access caused by electrical outages. So I felt lucky to get this email reply when I asked how he was surviving the war:
Quote:
It is terrible indeed, however, it is kind people like yourself and other wikiHow editors that keep me going on, sane and to some extent even happy that I have friends who really care about me without even really ever seeing me. Thank you very much for asking and checking on me. I’m safe and sound and so is my family and my friends. The circumstances however are hard on the children, but with some tenderness, love and patience, they’ll get through it (or so I hope). The area where I live in Gaza is considered relatively safe as it is the center of the city.
It is in rough and extremely hazardous situations like these that we usually need something to hold on to … to believe in. wikiHow and its community has been that and more to me. It was and still is what I turn to so as to find comfort and peace of mind. The wikiHow community members are so supportive and kind. When I set at the computer and start doing anything related to wikiHow, it is currently my only escape outlet where I can, for some sweet moments, forget about the war, the harsh circumstances and the suffering all around me. And when I see a message by one of the editors, whether discussing some wikiHow related matter or simply saying “hi, how are you”, it makes me feel … alive, not cutoff of the world outside … having what I call a “universal family” that cares and comforts me.
For all of that Jack, I’d like to thank you for founding this wonderful family, making it possible for me and many others to feel at home no matter what.

Nov 13th Kids Online: Balancing Safety and Fun – (un)confernece about the issues and best practices

Kaliya Young · September 24, 2008 · 1 Comment

 
I am working with Joi Podgorny and Denise Tayloe on this day following the Internet Identity Workshop Nov 10-12 in Mountain View, CA. You can register here on Event Brite. We are bringing together a range of practitioners and experts to work collaboratively for a day together.
Our goal is to leave the day with greater clarity around some core best practices and have next steps as an industry to help kids being safer online.
All of the attendees will make up the agenda together at the event itself. We do welcome ideas and suggestions for topics you hope get discussed the day of the event.
This is a day to dive in and work collaboratively on these kinds issues around kids online:

  • Who and what are we trying to protect digital kids from?
  • Are there standards and norms in practice that we can leverage to formalize best practices for industry?
  • Kids fake their ages to gain access to online content, do we as an industry care? If so, then?
  • How do we create best practices that are flexible based on age range, content and willingness for parental involvement by industry or the child?
  • How can we create cyber spaces that balance interesting and fun with safety?
  • What is the role of government in either defining or supporting best practices?

Who this (un) conference is for:

  • Online Community/Virtual World Managers
  • Policy officers and Security Officers at large companies
  • Consultants in the kids online space
  • Identity technologists
  • State Attorney Generals
  • Legislative Staffers
  • Parents and Kids
  • Academics in the field
  • Bloggers

Adult attendees of the conference are welcome to bring their children ages 10-25 to particiapte in the conversations. There will not be child care, this is about talking about the issues with the constituents we are talking about present.
(Kid’s Online is an Identity Commons Action Group)
This week the Internet Safety Task Force had a meeting this past week. dana boyd has a post about it happening here.
Here are some reports from the blogosphere worth reading:
Harry Lewis – More on Internet Safety
I was pretty shaken by the end of the first day of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force yesterday. I had a meeting right afterwards, which I entered by yelping a primal scream.

Benlog – Children vs. Anonymity
The day started with a few words from Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal….I think the only statement I agree with is that parents should be empowered.
Surveill@nce St@te – State AGs Push Online Child Safety Snake Oil
Won’t someone think of the children?
Given the intense political pressure to do something about child safety online, and a complete lack of proven, peer-reviewed, and abuse-resistant technologies available on the market, a number of private companies have stepped in to fill the void…
Braden Cox – The Safety Chase
Discussions focused mostly on what technical solutions exist for addressing the perceived lack of online safety on social networking websites. But overall there’s still a need to connect the most important dot—do proposed solutions actually make children safer?
Jim Kertetter – Help line in the works for cyberbullying victims
Perhaps the biggest reason for that is students’ behavior: A recent survey of high school students done by the Teenangels found 70 percent of the kids surveyed share passwords with other people. The reasons are often innocuous, such as asking someone to check their e-mail for them, or to find a homework assignment for them. Often, teens in relationships will share passwords to assure one another they’re being faithful.

You know your conference is to cheap when…

Kaliya Young · August 29, 2008 · 1 Comment

You know your conference is to cheap when other conferences offer you $200 discounts to register EARLY and yours only costs $200.

In case you missed it the Internet Identity Workshop has an announcement up and registration is open. Phil and I implore you to PLEASE register early so we know how many of you are coming.
We subtly softened our language about “user-centric identity” to take into account that there is some concern that this might be going to far in one direction and it may be that the parameters of the relationship in the middle is where the focus needs to be.

The Internet Identity Workshop focuses on what has been called user-centric identity. Basically asking the question how can people manage their own identity across the range of websites, services, companies and organizations that they belong to, purchase from and participate with. IIW is a working meeting for a range of groups focused on the technical, social and legal issues arising with the emergence identity, relationship and social layer of the web.

I think this year Identity as a service will make a strong appearance. Companies like Symplified are doing interesting things that have application in the enterprise market first but could have usefulness on the consumer side maybe sooner then we think.
More from the announcement:
As a community we have been exploring these kinds of questions:

  • How are social networking sites and social media tools applying user-centric identity? (this is the question I am interested in knowing more about. How is it working now that you can actually implement some of this stuff – it is not just big ideas any more)
  • What are the open standards to make it work? (identity and semantic)
  • What are technical implementations of those standards?
  • How do different standards and technical implementations interoperate?
  • What are the new social norms and legal constructs needed to make it work?
  • What tools are needed to make it usably secure for end-users?
  • What are the businesses cases / models that drive all this?

Our event is highly participatory anyone who wants to present can do so. The agenda is made all together on Tuesday morning. We do this unconference style – for those who have not yet been you can read what community leaders have said about the effectiveness of the format.
If you are NEW please come to Monday’s introductory session starting at 1pm. If you have attended before it is worth coming to get the latest updates on where things are.
Yes it is CHEAP – $200 if you are an independant, and $350 if you come from a corporateion. You get all your meals paid for (healthy food – some say the best ever conference food).
If you want to come and you can’t afford it – talk to us – we want you there if you want to be there.
If you are an Identity blogger and have been to IIW PLEASE blog about this one coming up. We also have a blog sidebar logo you an put up.
border=”0″ hspace=”3″ vspace=”3″ align=”left” title=”IIW2008 Registration banner”alt=”IIW2008 Registration banner” />

Identity Books Arrive

Kaliya Young · August 29, 2008 · Leave a Comment

So I had two book shipments arrive today – i thought I would share them in case any of you out there also are reading or hope to read these books soon. Let me know.
From AMAZON today came
Identity and Control: How Social Formations Emerge, Second Edition by Harrison C. White.
This one was recommended by the Value Networks mailing list that I am on. It dives into the construction of sociocultural context. Chapter one is titled Identities and Control. Should be good.
I am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter (author of Godel, Escher, Bach) This one was recomended to my by Scott David at lunch when I met him in Seattle recently. A mutual friend introduced us five months ago in e-mail. He is a lawyer based in Seattle and participating in the ID-Legal group . The book asks the question “What do we mean when we say “I”?
I got three books that I hope will be useful in gaining some more skills/tools for communicating about identity topics.
Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with PICTURES by Dan Roam
Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery by Garr Reynolds (I saw him present at SlideShare recently.
and
Indexed (the space betwen short, nerdy and oddly attractive) by Jessica Hagy (her blog) – think Hugh MacLeod but with diagrams on index cards rather then cartoons on the back of business cards.
Books I bought in Boston and shipped home arrived 🙂
Buckminster Fuller:Staring with the Universe is the catalogue from the Whitney Museum exhibit about him. This gets to our identity as beings on spaceship earth in the universe.
Uniforms: Why we are what we where by Paul Fussel
Ok these’s don’t exactly have to do with identity but they are fun – and besides “you are what you eat” right?
Slow Food: why our Food should be Good, Clean and Fair by Carlo Petrini – it is a translation of his manifesto originally in italian – this weekend happens to be Slow Food Nation
On Guerrilla Gardening: A Handbook for Gardening Without Boundaries by Richard Reynolds.
Last week Cody’s Books was closing in Berkeley. The bank of the company that owned the store recalled the loans. The store closed about 6 weeks ago and sat there with all the books inside. Then 2 weeks ago they sold all those remaining books at 40% off.
I got four Identity related books
Privacy on the Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption, Updated and Expanded Edition (2007) by Whitfield Diffie and Susan Landau.
Less Safe, Less Free: Why Americans are Loosing the War on Terror by David Cole and Jules Lobel
Who’s Watching You? The Chilling Truth about the State Surveillance, and Personal Freedom by Mick Farren and John Gibb
and
cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity and Identity on the Internet by Lisa Nakamura. (cybertypes is her updated word for stereotypes that appear on in the context of cyberspace).

What is the problem?

Kaliya Young · April 5, 2008 · 2 Comments


At MashupCamp 6 I lead a session about Data Sharing. Asking what is the scope of this problem. Dusty created this diagram from the session. I am going to take the Whiteboard and translate it into a diagram shortly. This conversation could have gone on for at least another hour. It is a big elephant and I hope we can get clearer on it and solve some of the problems at the Data Sharing events.

Keen attacks the "identity dog's" right to exist.

Kaliya Young · March 9, 2008 · 1 Comment

In my home town paper the headline was Disconnect 1st Amendment from Internet hatemongers. The LA times version was Douse the Online Flamers: Faceless Internet sadists who ruin reputations don’t deserve full free-speech protection. Written by Andrew Keen the Cult of the Amateur guy – who wrote the book to get attention and blogs himself .
It begins with our little friend the “identity dog“.

THE CARTOON isn’t as amusing as it once was. “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog,” one Web-surfing canine barked to another in that 1993 classic from the New Yorker. Back then, of course, at the innocent dawn of the Internet Age, the idea that we might all be anonymous on the Web promised infinite intellectual freedom. Unfortunately, however, that promise hasn’t been realized. Today, too many anonymous Internet users are posting hateful content about their neighbors, classmates and co-workers; today, online media is an increasingly shadowy, vertiginous environment in which it is becoming harder and harder to know other people’s real identities.

It goes into depth about several cases where anonymous online speech was harmful to people online.
And ends with him too..

All three of these cases indicate that the U.S. Supreme Court soon might need to rethink the civic value of anonymous speech in the digital age. Today, when cowardly anonymity is souring Internet discourse, it really is hard to understand how anonymous speech is vital to a free society. That New Yorker cartoon remains true: On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog. But it is the responsibility of all of us — parents, citizens and lawmakers — to ensure that contemporary Web users don’t behave like antisocial canines. And one way to achieve this is by introducing more legislation to punish anonymous sadists whose online lies are intended to wreck the reputations and mental health of innocent Americans.

I just finished reading Daniel Solove the Future of Reputation.
It goes in to great detail about the different forms that violations of privacy and reputation can happen and what the law has had to say about it.
One of the most important things to remember is that Virtue of Anonymity this is covered on page 139 of the chapter on Free Speech, Anonymity and Accountability (PDF).

The saga ofArticle III Groupie demonstrates how easy it seems to be anonymous on the Internet. A person can readily create a blog under a pseudonym or can post anonymous comments to blogs or online discussion groups. According to a survey, percent ofbloggers use pseudonyms rather than their real identities. Anonymity can be essential to free speech. As the Supreme Court has noted: “Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures and even books have played an important role in the progress ofmankind. Persecuted groups and sects from time to time throughout history have been able to criticize oppressive practices and laws either anonymously or not at all.”60 Anonymous speech has a long history as an important mode of expression.
Between 1789 and 1809, six presidents, fifteen cabinet members, twenty senators, and thirty-four congressmen published anonymous political writings orused pen names. It was common for letters to the editor in local newspapers to be anonymous. Ben Franklin used more than forty pen names during his life. Mark Twain, O. Henry, Voltaire, George Sand, and George Eliot were all pseudonymous authors. Indeed, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay published the Federal Papers under the pseudonym Publius. Their opponents, the Anti-Federalists, also used pseudonyms.62
Anonymity allows people to be more experimental and eccentric without risking damage to their reputations.63Anonymity can be essential to the presentation ofideas, for it can strip away reader biases and prejudices and add mystique to a text. People might desire to be anonymous because they fear social ostracism or being fired from their jobs. Without anonymity, some people might not be willing to express controversial ideas. Anonymity thus can be critical to preserving people’s right to speak freely.

He goes on to talk about the problems that non-accountable anonymous speech can create.
One page 148 he gets to Balancing Anonymity and Accountability. It covers “John Doe” Law suits and the Issues around Section 230 immunity – that ISP’s and other hosters like Yahoo! or even me on my blog are not responsible for what others say in online spaces we provide. The and cases that Keen points to are the result of the failing to find a way to apply Section 230 immunity well.
Solove proposes asks “What Should the Law Do?”

Although existing law lacks nimble ways to resolve disputes about speech and privacy on the Internet, completely immunizing operators of websites works as a sledgehammer. It creates the wrong incentive, providing a broad immunity that can foster irresponsibility. Bloggers should have some responsibilities to others, and Section 230 is telling them that they do not. There are certainly problems with existing tort law. Lawsuits are costly to litigate, and being sued can saddle a blogger with massive expenses. Bloggers often don’t have deep pockets, and therefore it might be difficult for plaintiffs to find lawyers willing to take their cases. Lawsuits can take years to resolve. People seeking to protect their privacy must risk further publicity in bringing suit.
These are certainly serious problems, but the solution shouldn’t be to insulate bloggers from the law. Unfortunately, courts are interpreting Section 230 so broadly as to provide too much immunity, eliminating the incentive to foster a balance between speech and privacy. The way courts are using Section 230 exalts free speech to the detriment ofprivacy and reputation. As a result, a host ofwebsites have arisen that encourage others to post gossip and rumors as well as to engage in online shaming. These websites thrive under Section 230’s broad immunity.
The solution is to create a system for ensuring that people speak responsibly without the law’s cumbersome costs. The task ofdevising such a solution is a difficult one, but giving up on the law is not the answer. Blogging has given amateurs an unprecedented amount ofmedia power, and although we should encourage blogging, we shouldn’t scuttle our privacy and defamation laws in the process.

He concludes

FREEDOM ON BOTH SIDES OF THE SCALE
Words can wound. They can destroy a person’s reputation, and in the process distort that person’s very identity. Nevertheless, we staunchly protect expression even when it can cause great damage because free speech is essential to our autonomy and to a democratic society. But protecting privacy and reputation is also necessary for autonomy and democracy. There is no easy solution to how to balance free speech with privacy and reputation. This balance isn’t like the typical balance ofcivil liberties against the need for order and social control. Instead, it is a balance with liberty on both sides ofthe scale—freedom to speak and express oneselfpitted against freedom to ensure that our reputations aren’t destroyed or our privacy isn’t invaded.
As I have tried to demonstrate in this chapter, a delicate balance can be reached, but it is not an easy feat. In many instances, free speech and privacy can both be preserved by shielding the identities ofprivate individuals involved in particular stories. With the Internet, a key issue for the law is who should be responsible for harmful speech when it appears on a website or blog. Much speech online can be posted by anybody who wants to comment to a blog post or speak in an online discussion forum. Commentators can cloak themselves in anonymity and readily spread information on popular blogs and websites. The law currently takes a broadly pro–free speech stance on online expression. As a result, it fails to create any incentive for operators ofwebsites to exercise responsibility with regard to the comments ofvisitors.
Balancing free speech with privacy and reputation is a complicated and delicate task. Too much weight on either side ofthe scale will have detrimental consequences. The law still has a distance to go toward establishing a good balance.

Andrew Keen is an ‘attention seeker’ (I had a ruder phrase in here but thought better then to publish it)- he is writing to be provocative, get attention and called upon to play the role of the ‘other side’ in a community that is experimenting with a range of forms of openness that challenge traditional or entrenched ‘expertise, authority and hierarchy’. Those threatened by emergence of power via new technologies ‘like’ what Andrew has to say. I think it is irresponsible for Andrew to call to the end of the First Amendment’s protection of Anonymous speech online because some small percentage of people are hurt by this – clearly there needs be some evolution in the law and the practices that we have to balance privacy and freedom.

Data Sharing Workshop and 2nd Summit

Kaliya Young · March 9, 2008 · Leave a Comment

About a week ago I posted about the choice landscape we have for these events. No one seemed to have an opinion so we went with both and are having one event leaning more towards ‘the technical’ and another leaning more towards vendors with products and potential buyers.
The Data Sharing Workshop, April 18 – 19 at the SFSU, Downtown Campus.
The Data Sharing Summit, May 15, at the Computer History Museum. (immediately following the Internet Identity Workshop)
We received such a positive response to the Data Sharing Summit in September, 2007 and, given the ongoing emergence of different data sharing initiatives, such as dataportability.org, Social Networking Portability, the 1.0 release of the Higgins Framework, DiSO, MT activity feeds, etc. we decided that it was a good time to hold another summit.
Our purpose is to provide gathering spaces in which all parties can work together on the challenge of data sharing. We create the agenda the day it happens. It is about getting things done and figuring out the tough problems – there is no committee deciding who does or does not get to ‘present’ it is about breaking up and really diving in figuring out the solutions and building the consensus to get adoption.
Data Sharing Workshop Details
April 18-19, Friday-Saturday, SFSU Downtown Campus
We selected April 18th and 19th because it seemed like an ideal time to host this event, given that it falls in between RSA and Web 2.0 Expo. People who are the Bay Area from around the world will be able to participate in figuring out how to get data sharing to happen. Although the event will focus on technical aspects, it will also include social, legal and business issues related to data sharing. The space can accommodate up to 200 attendees.
This event is being co-presented by SFSU Institue for the Next Generation Internet

We decided to hold the event on Friday and Saturday to accommodate the needs of different attendees. If you are at a company that is focused on this work and you prefer not to work on weekends, you can attend Friday. Or if you are interested in the subject but are unable to attend due to work commitments, you can come on Saturday. Those who are highly dedicated can come to both days.
Data Sharing Summit 2 Details
May 15, Thursday, Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA
This event will immediately follow the Sixth Internet Identity Workshop at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View CA. There will be a combined focus on technical work and on opportunities for vendors with solutions in this space to share and connect with potential adopters of Data Sharing tools.
You may want to arrive on the afternoon of May 14th to participate in Internet Identity Workshop activities relevant to DSS (such as the OSIS Interop). May 15th will be a long intensive day, ending around 5 or 6, in time for dinner. Because it is important to close the event together as a group, please make plans to be there all day. The space can hold up to 400 people.
If you are super into the topic of Data Sharing we highly recommend that you come to the [http://iiw.idcommons.net Internet Identity Workshop] that precedes it.
The Problems, Offerings and Solutions that we put forward at the start of the first DSS is quite informative. Proposed topics and Outcomes are also lay the ground work for these next two events.
If you are interested in sponsoring please contact Laurie Rae at sponsorship@datasharingsummit.com
Feel free to contact me if you have questions.

Death in first person shooter games

Kaliya Young · February 25, 2008 · Leave a Comment

I wonder if this applies to the death of an online persona too?
We shall see….
From Slashdot:

“Brandon Erickson has an interesting post about an experiment on players’ emotional reactions to killing and being killed in a first-person shooters (FPS) with a group of students who played James Bond 007: Nightfire while their facial expressions and physiological activity were tracked and recorded moment-to-moment via electrodes and various other monitoring equipment. The study found that “death of the player’s own character…appear[s] to increase some aspects of positive emotion.” The authors believe this may result from the temporary “relief from engagement” brought about by character death. “Part of this has to do with the intriguing aesthetic question of precisely how the first-person-shooter represents the player after the moment of death,” says Clive Thompson. “This sudden switch in camera angle — from first person to third person — is, in essence, a classic out-of-body experience, of exactly the sort people describe in near-death experiences. And much like real-life near-death experiences, it tends to suffuse me with a curiously zen-like feeling.” An abstract of the original article, “The psychophysiology of James Bond: Phasic emotional responses to violent video game events” is available on the web.” Obnoxiously this alleged scholarly research is not available for free, so we’ll just have to speculate wildly what it says based on the abstract.

There are a lot of donkey's in my neighborhood (and I know who they are)

Kaliya Young · February 13, 2008 · 1 Comment

The Huffington Post had a new feature on their website the FundRace. It is an interactive map of the whole country that lets you search addresses, zip codes, cities, names, occupations and employers to find out who is giving to political candidates.
This is the map of my neighborhood. My husband and I are talking about sending Obama some money. If we had – we would be on this map. I am not sure how I feel about that.
When Brian first showed me the map – It was shocking – in another time and place this is a map to fuel Mob violence against neighbors. I thought of this in part because of what is going on in Berkeley with thousands of out of town ‘troop’ supporters showed up in town to show their displeasure with the Berkeley City council resolution regarding the armed forces recruiting center in downtown. Emotions are high in the city at what are day long processes. Those out of towners could use something like this to ‘target’ people who had contributed to campaigns they did not approve of.
If we are going to have this kind of radical transparency we are also going to have to have a mature society that manages to keep wacky group behavior under control.
COMMENT FROM MARY HODDER:

Hey Kailya,
agreed! although that info has always been available, locally and easily, it wasn’t online, which now makes getting it super easy.
the issue is that our personal addresses, searchable with our names, are now online, and that is new and different. those of us with private addresses are now findable if we participate in campaign donations.
my advice is to get a po box or a mailing address and just use that.
but it is a new level of exposure that is strange.
mary

Six Appart Open Action Streaming

Kaliya Young · January 30, 2008 · Leave a Comment

This morning I was pleasantly surprised to learn about this announcement from 6A. I actually had seen David (he mentioned he as hacking his site on twitter so I went and checked it out) working on it this past week but I thought it was a ‘personal hack’ rather then something that would ship.

Today, we’re shipping the next step in our vision of openness — the Action Streams plugin — an amazing new plugin for Movable Type 4.1 that lets you aggregate, control, and share your actions around the web. Now of course, there are some social networking services that have similar features, but if you’re using one of today’s hosted services to share your actions it’s quite possible that you’re giving up either control over your privacy, management of your identity or profile, or support for open standards. With the Action Streams plugin you keep control over the record of your actions on the web.

How do you validate who you are?

Kaliya Young · April 14, 2007 · Leave a Comment

This story was just posted on Slashdot and raises interesting questions about how we determine how we determine who someone is in relationship to digital content.

“A fifteen year old from Perth, Australia, posed as an employee of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, demanding that YouTube remove hundreds of video clips of ‘The Chasers War on Everything.’ The amusing part is that The Chaser is a comedy company well known to perpetrate exactly this sort of prank.”

Profile Linker – is the time right for open standards…?

Kaliya Young · December 31, 2006 · Leave a Comment

Tech Crunch has a review of Profile Linker.
They have one partnership sealed already, with Photobucket, and hope to do more. But for sites where they are unable to get a partnership they’ll have to gather information using the user’s credentials. There’s a risk that networks will simply cut them off.
They have portable profiles:
Portable Profiles allow you to take your content with you anywhere on the web. Mobilize your bio, share your photos.
Best of all, you only need to make updates in ONE place and all your portable profiles will be automatically updated all over the web.
one way they do this is...Don’t feel like entering ALL your profile content again?Well we can do all the work for you. Just tell us your Facebook login or MySpace URL and we’ll get your photo and more . .
All this proves the time is really right for open standards to do this.

Which superhero are you?

Kaliya Young · December 31, 2006 · Leave a Comment

My results:
You are Superman

Superman
90%
Robin
60%
Supergirl
59%
Iron Man
55%
Wonder Woman
54%
Hulk
50%
Spider-Man
40%
Green Lantern
40%
Batman
40%
Catwoman
20%
The Flash
20%
You are mild-mannered, good,
strong and you love to help others.


Click here to take the “Which Superhero are you?” quiz…

Polar Rose soon to search photos for faces on the web

Kaliya Young · December 23, 2006 · Leave a Comment

This story comes from Slashdot. A startup Polar Rose is about to launch a face search tool.

Polar Rose relies on a combination of our unique face recognition algorithms and the collective intelligence of our users….we don’t and can’t rely exclusively on face recognition, but also harness the collective intelligence of our users who help train our software and tag names on people we haven’t seen before.
We will open up for a royalty-free use of our API’s, which will allow for partners to integrate the Polar Rose functionality into existing sites or create stand-alone applications of Polar Rose, for example:
* A news site that wants to let users help tag photos, and link stories together based on who appears in photos.
* A photo-sharing site that wants to let users automatically tag new uploads, and search and sort archives based on the people in a photo.
* A social networking or dating site that wants to wants to help users find more pictures of a person, elsewhere on the net or just in the photos of the person’s friends.
The only significant requirements we put for the use of the APIs, is that the Polar Rose signature rose is used, and data that users generate is passed back to us on a non-exclusive basis. The reason being that every piece of data helps train our engine.

Some have privacy concerns. I certainly do – when Riya was pitching similar face recongintion for a flickr like tool I was creeped out. They are now doing a visual search engine so you can put in a purse or boot that you like and it searches for purses and boots like that.

Privacy concerns from New Scientist:
Polar Rose and future developments that make facial recognition available to the masses risk encroaching on people’s privacy, warns Yaman Akdeniz, director of the UK non-profit group Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties.
“Although this sounds like a great idea, I would not like to be searchable in this way, or so easily tracked without my consent,” says Akdeniz. The database compiled by Polar Rose is similar to the kind of biometric database some governments wish to use, he points out.
“I wonder whether they have a right to build such a database,” says Akdeniz, he suggests people think twice before embracing such potentially intrusive tools, and consider which photos of themselves they allow online.
Others agree. Simon Davies, director of the campaign group Privacy International and a specialist in technology and privacy at the London School of Economics, UK, says face-searching technology is valuable but must be used responsibly.
He fears Polar Rose could help identity thieves or stalkers, or even be used by the police to monitor protesters. “They could use the service to find where people have been, what their activities are, or who they associate with,” he says.
Search engines should allow users to prevent their photos being searched, says Davies. “There should be a way to put code in a webpage that signals you want to opt out,” he told New Scientist.

Identity Cards…

Kaliya Young · September 20, 2006 · Leave a Comment

For those of you not in the loop of ‘hip’ web2.o blogs I tune into them about once a week just to make sure I know what is going on in that world (TechCrunch, BoingBoing etc). I saw MooCards on TechCrunch today…you can make little business cards with Flickr photos on them …identity cards if you will. I thought they would be fun to share with you all.

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