Tech Policy

Political Ads

Cambridge Analytica (CA) paid people to take in-app survey; mined FB profile data including friends’ data; crafted tailored sensitive ads to sway-able voters. Elections are about emotions, not facts. Data science and social media can help us make sense of and manipulate the chaos.

Facebook to Pay $550 Million to Settle Facial Recognition Suit. Natasha Singer; Mike Isaac. www.nytimes.com . Jan 29, 2020.

Illinois’ biometric privacy law requires companies to obtain written permission before collecting a person’s biometrics. Residents have the right to sue for up to $5,000 per violation.

Facebook’s Tag Suggestions harvested facial data without getting written consent nor telling Illinois users for how long the data would be kept.

Should Platforms Be Neutral?

Facebook banned praise, support and representation of white nationalism and separatism, because the two concepts cannot be meaningfully separated from white supremacy and organized hate groups. Furthermore, people that search for related terms will have “Life After Hate” suggested to them.

Myths and Fallacies of 'Personally Identifiable Information'. Narayanan, Arvind; Shmatikov, Vitaly. dl.acm.org . Jun 1, 2010.

What is PII?

From Breach Notification Laws:

For example, California Senate Bill 1386: SSNs, driver’s license numbers, financial accounts.

The list can never be exhaustive, e.g. email addresses and telephone numbers are not mentioned in Bill 1386.

Focuses on data that are commonly used for authenticating an individual. Ignores data that reveals some sensitive information about an individual