Privacy: The streets have eyes

Technology allows spying on your roads, computers, wallets

JOHN HANCHETTE, GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

WASHINGTON -- Civil libertarians complain that assaults on privacy are multiplying faster than they can predict them.

Only a year ago, privacy advocates were warning that law enforcement agencies by 2005 would be installing new sophisticated "face-recognition" cameras in public locations to identify criminal suspects and terrorists.

Guess what? They're already in place in Tampa, Fla. -- tested without notice on the last Super Bowl crowd. Now, Virginia Beach also plans to activate them.

The digital snapshots -- given mathematical likeness ratings based on facial contours -- are instantly scanned for salient facial features and matched with computer database photos of known criminals. Some cities already have less-sophisticated video surveillance cameras at major intersections.

Pouring millions into research on the emerging technology: the Justice Department (finding missing children); the Pentagon (identifying potential enemies, even in the dark); and the National Security Agency (intelligence).

Also previously forecast for mid-decade: a proliferation of speed-triggered hidden cameras at municipal intersections to catch unsuspecting red light runners, photograph them and ticket them by mail.

Guess what? Proliferation has come and gone. That advanced photo technology is being used in 57 cities and urbanized counties in 12 states and the District of Columbia. Several other big cities will have them installed by winter. Other states are considering legislation to permit them.

Proponents say the red light cameras -- first used 15 years ago in New York -- save hundreds of lives and dramatically reduce intersection accidents. Critics like House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, an increasingly vocal privacy advocate, claim it is an intrusive moneymaking scheme. He contends many cities have shortened the yellow light duration by a second or two to trap motorists.

Indeed, corner cameras are lucrative. The District of Columbia has collected $9 million from its cameras and expects $7 million more by the end of the year. In San Diego, where the camera system has ended up in a court test, $22.8 million has been collected over three years.

Boss looking over your shoulder?

Is your boss suspicious of your computer use? Thinks you may be loafing, accessing porno Web sites or making fun of management? Does your spouse wonder to whom you're e-mailing? Welcome to the Brave New World of computers.

Codex Data Systems now markets a clever little doodad about the size of a Double-A battery that clips onto your keyboard cable and preserves your last 65,000 keystrokes. KeyKatch costs about $100, takes fewer than 10 seconds to install, requires no external power source, can be removed easily and can be read out on another computer -- all while surreptitiously peeking over your shoulder.

"It does not get accidentally discovered because it's out of sight and provides no signal that can be detected," says James Ross, head of Privacy and Security 2001, a Manassas, Va., technology newsletter. "The organization spying on you needs only to bribe someone in the cleaning crew to replace the one on your computer every night."

Coming next? An even smaller version of the device that can transmit keystrokes digitally in real time on an FM radio wave to some interested snooper at a "listening post" who will be able to read your incriminating rhetoric as you type it.

Privacy issue everywhere

The privacy issue now permeates daily life -- little horror stories of a genre once unknown to Americans, daily grist for the media.

The FBI predicts more than a half-million stolen identities this year.

It now is virtually impossible to guarantee protection of your Social Security number -- a national identification device that never was intended to be one.

A Connecticut rental car company recently used GPS -- the Global Positioning System that employs satellites to pinpoint location -- to track customers exceeding the speed limit, then -- under the rubric of safety -- charged them heavily for each "violation." (The ensuing outcry ended the practice, at least temporarily.)

The motor vehicles department in Colorado -- until Gov. Bill Owens delayed it -- planned on using the new "face-recognition" technology to scan drivers' license photos into a database that could be compared with a national file of criminal mug shots. West Virginia is developing a similar plan.

"The big technologies are being rolled out without any policy debate, or any discussion about what procedures should govern use of these things, or any consideration of what personal rights are being captured," laments David Sobel, general counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, probably the most influential of the advocacy groups in Washington, D.C. "There are no legal guidelines on the use of these systems. In the meantime, technology is marching on."

Big Brother Inc.

Sobel fears that rather than worrying about Big Brother, as civil liberties lawyers fretting about government collection of data did for the last half-century, we should be concerned with Big Brother Inc., the voracious sweeping of personal data by private companies.

"What about those supermarket shopping cards?" he asks. "What is presented to people is that you get 20 cents off on a particular item in return for allowing the store to scan your card and keep track of your purchases. People think that's a fair trade-off, but what if that information is sold five years later to an insurance company and their health insurance is denied because of the specifics of their diet? Most people would say 'no, that's not fair.'

"The truth is, once any of these problems are captured in a database, you don't really know what's going to happen. ... There's going to be a company interested in making a decision about you based on that kind of information."

The problem comes up almost daily on Capitol Hill. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Judiciary Committee, brought it up recently at confirmation hearings for Robert S. Mueller III to head the FBI.

Leahy said he realizes the FBI has a necessary function of surveillance in keeping track of criminals, but added, "We also have to protect one's sense of privacy. I think Americans would be surprised at how little privacy they have."

Catching on

Well, maybe. But Americans seem to be catching on.

A recent Gallup Poll released by The American Banker publication showed 62 percent of 1,001 heads of households surveyed are concerned that their primary financial institution may release their personal information without permission. Even more surprising: 28 percent of men and 18 percent of women believe a bank at some time has "violated their personal privacy."

The high-tech "face-recognition" program is certain to spawn more controversy. In Tampa, the system identified 19 wanted criminals attending Super Bowl XXXV, but cops said they were too busy with the huge crowd to make arrests.

Now Tampa has installed the system in its lively 16-block nightlife center, Ybor City, where the product of 36 subtly placed cameras will be compared with a stored computer database of 30,000 criminals' mug shots. Early "matches" turned out inaccurate.

No matter. The police, and many citizens, insist the technology will prove a boon against crime. But the topic has produced some rare political bedfellows. The American Civil Liberties Union calls face-recognition systems "high-tech racial profiling," and the liberal group is backed by Armey, the conservative House majority leader, who warns of future "virtual lineups" of innocent Americans.

Proponents insist it all is perfectly legal, because the streets and stadiums in question are, by definition, public. Others disagree.

Princeton attorney Grayson Barber, writing in the current issue of the New Jersey Law Journal, contends "in fact, there is a constitutional right to be anonymous on a public street."

Barber cites a 1983 Supreme Court decision, Kolender v. Lawson, that government could not require people to provide "credible and reliable" identification, "even if they are loitering and wandering on the streets."

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. [Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml]

Back to Current Edition Citizen Review Archive LINKS Search This Site