Privacy and Surveillance in Web 2.0 A study in Contextual - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Michael Zimmer, PhD

Fellow, Information Society Project Yale Law School

ASIS&T Annual Conference Milwaukee, WI October 11, 2007

Privacy and Surveillance in Web 2.0

A study in Contextual Integrity, and the Emergence of Netaveillance

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Privacy and Surveillance in Web 2.0

• Requires conceptualization of

privacy as “contextual integrity”

• Informational voyeurism leads to

notion of “netaveillance”

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Personal Information Flows

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Personal Information Flows

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No Expectation of Privacy?

Kids today. They have no sense of shame. They have no sense of privacy. They are show-offs, fame whores, pornographic little loons who post their diaries, their phone numbers, their stupid poetry—for God’s sake, their dirty photos!—online.

New York Magazine

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No Expectation of Privacy?

[The] Internet has unleashed the greatest

• utburst of mass exhibitionism in human
• history. …millions of Americans are gleefully

discarding – or at least cheerfully compromising – their right to privacy. They're posting personal and intimate stuff in places where thousands or millions can see it.

Washington Post

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Freddi Staur

(ID Fraudster)

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Freddi Staur

(ID Fraudster)

• 87 of the 200 Facebook users contacted

responded to Freddi, with 82 leaking personal information (41% of those approached)

– 72% divulged one or more email address – 84% listed their full date of birth – 87% provided details about their education or workplace – 78% listed their current address or location – 23% listed their current phone number – 26% provided their instant messaging screenname

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Privacy as Contextual Integrity

• Privacy != Secrecy
• Privacy != Dichotomy of public/private
• Privacy is contextual
• Governed by norms of information flow
• If norms are breached, contextual

integrity is violated

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Facebook’s Mini-Feed

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Facebook’s Mini-Feed

“We didn’t take away any privacy options. The privacy rules haven’t changed. None of your information is visible to anyone who couldn’t see it before the changes. … Nothing you do is being broadcast; rather, it is being shared with people who care about what you do—your friends”

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Pre Mini-Feed

Before After

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Facebook’s Mini-Feed

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Privacy as Contextual Integrity

To teens, all personal information is not created equal. They say it is very important to understand the context of an information- sharing encounter

“Teens, Privacy, and Online Social Networks”

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Shifting Norms?

• Contextual Integrity is dependant on

preservation of existing norms of information flow

• Are open information flows becoming a

new norm?

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Informational Voyeurism

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Informational Voyeurism

Plazes Dopplr Upcoming

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Informational Voyeurism

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Informational Voyeurism

Digg Flickr YouTube Twitter

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Strained Terminology & Theory

• Surveillance: to watch over

– Lateral surveillance – Peer-to-peer surveillance

• Panopticon:

– Participatory panopticon – Non-opticon

• Equivaillence
• Sousvaillance

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“Netaveillance”

• “Neta” ネタ

– Tidbits of life shared as social currency

• Netaveillance

– Openly and purposefully providing a continual stream of the details of one’s daily life – Coupled with ability to view and capture similar streams from others

Michael Zimmer, PhD

Fellow, Information Society Project Yale Law School michael.zimmer@yale.edu http://michaelzimmer.org

Privacy and Surveillance in Web 2.0

A study in Contextual Integrity, and the Emergence of Netaveillance