How to make data privacy real

How to make data privacy real

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The U.S. government last week cracked down on an app that allows women to track their periods over allegations that it shared the health information of its users with Google and Facebook. A photo storage app also claimed to have used people’s images to build a face recognition system.

These application manufacturers did not get into trouble because what they were doing seemed creepy, but because they were not aware of it beforehand.

In the United States, there are not many legal restrictions on what they can do with our private information, as long as companies do not mislead their customers.

Isn’t that wonderful? But California has introduced a relatively new law on the protection of privacy – albeit inconvenient and flawed – showing interesting ways to empower Americans to limit how our data can be used.

Last week, the Federal Trade Commission said the women’s app, Flo Health, has broken its promise to its users to keep their information private when sharing sensitive data, including women’s pregnancy status, with other companies.

According to the terms of the settlement, Flo must now obtain people’s consent before sharing their health information. (Flo did not acknowledge that it had done anything wrong. The company said it did not share the health data of users without permission.)

People need to be able to choose which companies trust our personal information, as long as they are honest about what they do. However, it is often an all-or-nothing, confusing choice: either say yes to a vaguely worded privacy document, or use the website or app at all.

And it feels strange to me that if Flo just announces a new privacy policy, he can then share intimate information about women. But that’s mostly how it works in the United States. Companies can do just about anything they want regarding their users’ data once they outline their actions in a privacy policy.

The California Consumer Privacy Act, which went into effect a year ago, is beginning to point to a promising alternative path.

Under the law, state residents – and in some cases all Americans – can demand that large companies show people what data they have about you and with whom they shared it. People can also instruct the businesses to delete the data they have about you and not “sell” it. (There is no agreement on the legal definition of ‘sell’.)

The law is not perfect, and it’s complicated. People need to go to every organization that has their data to delete or limit what they can do with it.

But California law also envisioned the possibility of ‘authorized agents’ exercising data rights on our behalf. Instead of filling out 100 forms to ask 100 companies to delete your data, choose a privacy assistant to do it for you. Consumer Reports started offering last month as a test project to be a privacy assistant.

The most interesting idea is that the Privacy Assistant might just be a web browser where you check once and every website you visit will then receive an automatic notification to prevent the personal information collected there from being shared or sold word. Consider it a version of the marketer’s “Do not call” list.

So far, a few websites have started adding this feature to privacy agents. (The New York Times is among the relevant organizations, which both help to develop the browser specifications and agree to implement people’s choices.) If California finds that this type of privacy agent is legally binding, I expect this project to expand.

These privacy ideas are just off the ground. But I’m intrigued by the possibility of giving Americans real power over our digital lives.

Tip of the week

Many Americans Work At Home During Pandemic printers bought – and with it often swear and shout. Brian X. Chen, the New York Times columnist for personal technology, is here to help:

Printers are probably the worst technology product ever made. My first job at university was to review printers for a small technology magazine. So I know more than I ever wanted about the machines. Here are some common problems and solutions:

My wireless printing stopped working: Last week, you printed that Amazon return label over your Wi-Fi network. Today you can not. Why?

Sometimes printers go into sleep mode and disconnect them from your internet network. Sometimes reloading the printer may restart it.

Another possibility is that the printer has changed its IP address – the identification number assigned to each Internet-connected device – and that your computer cannot find it now. You can fix this by going to the advanced settings of your internet router and setting a static IP address for the printer. (Do a Google search for the make and model of your router and instructions for setting up a static IP.)

I get an error when I try to print: It’s common and crazy. Often the problem is outdated software. Do an internet search on your printer model to check for new drivers or firmware updates and follow the instructions to update the software.

The ink runs too fast on: This can happen if you have purchased a branded ink cartridge. If this becomes a recurring problem, try switching to a different brand – preferably the ink cartridge made by the printer manufacturer.

Another possibility is that the printer software is burning incorrectly and that the printer is incorrectly saying that it is no longer ink. Again, an update of the firmware or driver may help.

Lastly, remember the golden rule of printers: If in doubt, restart your printer and the device you are trying to print with. This sometimes makes the problems go away.

  • More about a possible smoking weapon in the Google antitrust lawsuit: One of the interesting allegations in a government lawsuit against Google is that the company and Facebook are working together to help their businesses at the expense of everyone. New reporting by my colleagues Dai Wakabayashi and Tiffany Hsu found that Google gives Facebook preferential treatment in computerized auctions and that the two companies are concerned that they could be investigated to reduce competition.

  • To say that you are doing something is not the same as doing it: Facebook has said that people do not automatically recommend joining the kind of partisan political or social groups that sometimes send people to extreme ideas. An analysis of the Facebook newsletters by the Markup found that the site does not stop the automated recommendations.

  • This is a good time to indulge in nostalgia: On eBay, you can make use of a loving childhood of Sassy.

Two groups of penguins – one goes to water and the other returns – stop for a chat. (OK, I do not know if they are talking. Enjoy my imagination.)

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