Ezor on Secure Times: Recent FTC Actions and Statements Show Continuing Focus on Privacy

IBLT Director Jonathan I. Ezor is blogging this week at the American Bar Association Privacy & Security Law Committee's Secure Times blog. His first contribution is below:

Recent FTC Actions and Statements Show Continuing Focus on Privacy

The Federal Trade Commission has long taken a lead role in issues of privacy and data protection, under its general consumer protection jurisdiction under Section 5 of the FTC Act (15 U.S.C. §45) as well as specific legislation such as the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 ("COPPA") (which itself arose out of FTC reports). The FTC continues to bring legal actions against companies it believes have improperly collected, used or shared consumer personal information, including the recent settlement of a complaint filed against Aaron's, Inc., a national rent-to-own retail chain based in Atlanta, GA. In its October 22, 2013 press release announcing the settlement, the FTC described Aaron's alleged violations of Section 5:

Aaron’s, Inc., a national, Atlanta-based rent-to-own retailer, has agreed to settle FTC charges that it knowingly played a direct and vital role in its franchisees’ installation and use of software on rental computers that secretly monitored consumers including by taking webcam pictures of them in their homes. According to the FTC’s complaint, Aaron’s franchisees used the software, which surreptitiously tracked consumers’ locations, captured images through the computers’ webcams – including those of adults engaged in intimate activities – and activated keyloggers that captured users’ login credentials for email accounts and financial and social media sites.... The complaint alleges that Aaron’s knew about the privacy-invasive features of the software, but nonetheless allowed its franchisees to access and use the software, known as PC Rental Agent. In addition, Aaron’s stored data collected by the software for its franchisees and also transmitted messages from the software to its franchisees. In addition, Aaron’s provided franchisees with instructions on how to install and use the software. The software was the subject of related FTC actions earlier this year against the software manufacturer and several rent-to-own stores, including Aaron’s franchisees, that used it. It included a feature called Detective Mode, which, in addition to monitoring keystrokes, capturing screenshots, and activating the computer’s webcam, also presented deceptive “software registration” screens designed to get computer users to provide personal information.

The FTC's Consent Order Agreement with Aaron's includes a prohibition on the company using keystroke- or screenshot-monitoring software or activating the consumer's microphone or Web cam and a requirement to obtain express consent before installing location-tracking technology and provide notice when it's activated. Aaron's may not use any data it received through improper activities in collections actions, must destroy illegally obtained information, and must encrypt any transmitted location or tracking data it properly collects. The FTC is also continuing its efforts to educate and promote best practices about privacy for both consumers and businesses. On October 28, 2013, FTC Commissioner Julie Brill published an opinion piece in Advertising Age magazine entitled Data Industry Must Step Up to Protect Consumer Privacy. In the piece, Commissioner Brill criticizes data collection and marketing firms for failing to uphold basic privacy principles, and calls on them to join an initiative called "Reclaim Your Name" which Commissioner Brill announced earlier this year. Brill writes in AdAge:

The concept is simple. Through creation of consumer-friendly online services, Reclaim Your Name would empower the consumer to find out how brokers are collecting and using data; give her access to information that data brokers have amassed about her; allow her to opt-out if a data broker is selling her information for marketing purposes; and provide her the opportunity to correct errors in information used for substantive decisions. Improving the handling of sensitive data is another part of Reclaim Your Name. Data brokers that participate in Reclaim Your Name would agree to tailor their data handling and notice and choice tools to the sensitivity of the information at issue. As the data they handle or create becomes more sensitive -- relating to health conditions, sexual orientation and financial condition, for example -- the data brokers would provide greater transparency and more robust notice and choice to consumers.

For more information on the FTC's privacy guidance and enforcement, see the privacy and security section of the FTC Web site.

via The Secure Times

New Article: Privacy, Transparency and Google's Blurred Glass

I have just posted a new short article, Privacy, Transparency and Google's Blurred Glass, which looks at Google's privacy disclosures and how they may fall short of being as transparent as Google (and many others) would wish. The piece can be downloaded (as a PDF) from this link. Comments and questions are always welcome.

Path Pays $800,000 to FTC for Alleged Privacy Violations

On the same day that the FTC released its new report on mobile privacy, the Commission also announced its latest online mobile privacy enforcement action, an $800,000 settlement with the operator of the Path social networking app. According to the FTC's news release:

Path operates a social networking service that allows users to keep journals about “moments” in their life and to share that journal with a network of up to 150 friends.  Through the Path app, users can upload, store, and share photos, written “thoughts,” the user’s location, and the names of songs to which the user is listening.

In its complaint, the FTC charged that the user interface in Path's iOS app was misleading and provided consumers no meaningful choice regarding the collection of their personal information.  In version 2.0 of its app for iOS, Path offered an “Add Friends” feature to help users add new connections to their networks.  The feature provided users with three options: “Find friends from your contacts;” “Find friends from Facebook;” or “Invite friends to join Path by email or SMS.”  However, Path automatically collected and stored personal information from the user’s mobile device address book even if the user had not selected the “Find friends from your contacts” option.  For each contact in the user’s mobile device address book, Path automatically collected and stored any available first and last names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, Facebook and Twitter usernames, and dates of birth.
The FTC also alleged that Path’s privacy policy deceived consumers by claiming that it automatically collected only certain user information such as IP address, operating system, browser type, address of referring site, and site activity information.  In fact, version 2.0 of the Path app for iOS automatically collected and stored personal information from the user’s mobile device address book when the user first launched version 2.0 of the app and each time the user signed back into the account.

The agency also charged that Path, which collects birth date information during user registration, violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) Rule by collecting personal information from approximately 3,000 children under the age of 13 without first getting parents’ consent.  Through its apps for both iOS and Android, as well as its website, Path enabled children to create personal journals and upload, store and share photos, written “thoughts,” their precise location, and the names of songs to which the child was listening.  Path version 2.0 also collected personal information from a child’s address book, including full names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, dates of birth and other information, where available....

The case documents may be found here.

The FTC has been actively enforcing violations of children's privacy for more than ten years, and is explicitly increasing its enforcement activities in mobile privacy and data security. (The FTC recently announced changes to its COPPA rule, but those have not yet gone into affect; the Path enforcement arises out of the current rule.) This latest action is consistent with the Commission's ongoing efforts to both encourage proper practices with regard to consumers' personal information, and punish those firms that fail to appropriately respect privacy and data security.

The Other Google Search: 8438 Data Requests by U.S. Gov't

Google has released the latest version of its Transparency Report, covering the period from July 1 through December 31, 2012. In the report, Google states that the U.S. government made 8,438 requests of user data from Google during the period, covering a reported 14,791 users/accounts, and that Google responded fully or partially to an aggregate of 88% of those requests, broken down as follows:

July to December 2012	Records Requested	Users/Accounts	Percentage Fully/Partially Complied With
Search Warrant	1,896	3,152	88%
Subpoena	5,784	10,390	88%
Other	758	1,249	90%

The number of of these requests, particularly from the U.S. government, has been steadily increasing over the past few years; the U.S. government made only 3,580 total requests in the same period in 2009. Google states in the introduction to its report, "We review each request to make sure that it complies with both the spirit and the letter of the law, and we may refuse to produce information or try to narrow the request in some cases." It also attributes some of the increase to its own growth: "Usage of our services have increased every year, and so have the user data request numbers."

While Google is to be commended for its efforts to disclose (some of) the requests for information it receives, the report and the increases it shows serve as a reminder of the size, scope and value of Google's collection of data about its users. Given how many products Google owns, many of which may not bear obvious Google branding (such as the Zagat Restaurant Guide) but may still be feeding user data into Google's central servers (Zagat's privacy policy is the Google shared one, as is that of its fellow non-obvious Google acquisition, the Frommer's Travel Guides site), one may legitimately question whether all users are able to provide truly informed consent to Google's data collection, which is increasingly a governmental resource as well.

Facebook “Hoax” Shows Privacy A Serious Matter for Users

In recent days, numerous Facebook users have posted a legal-sounding statement as an update to their pages containing some version of the following:

“In response to the new Facebook guidelines I hereby declare that my copyright is attached to all of my personal details, illustrations, comics, paintings, professional photos and videos, etc. (as a result of the Berner Convention). For any commercial use of the above my written consent is needed at all times! Anyone reading this can copy this text and paste it on their Facebook Wall. This will place you under protection of copyright laws. By the present communiqué, I notify Facebook that it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, disseminate, or take any other action against me on the basis of this profile and/or its contents.

The aforementioned prohibited actions also apply to employees, students, agents and/or any staff of Facebook or under their direction or control. The content of this profile is private and confidential information. A violation of my privacy is punishable by law (UCC 1 1-308-308 1-103 and the Rome Statute).

Facebook is now an open capital entity. All members are recommended to publish a notice like this, or if you prefer, you may copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once, you will be tacitly allowing the use of elements such as your photos as well as the information contained in your profile status updates.”

This is not the first time Facebook users have felt the need to add a legal disclaimer to their statuses in an effort to protect their rights. A similar statement made the rounds a few months ago, with a greater focus on privacy:

Facebook is now a publicly traded entity. Unless you state otherwise, anyone can infringe on your right to privacy once you post to this site. It is recommended that you and other members post a similar notice as this, or you may copy and paste this version. If you do not post such a statement once, then you are indirectly allowing public use of items such as your photos and the information contained in your status updates.

PRIVACY NOTICE: Warning - any person and/or institution and/or Agent and/or Agency of any governmental structure including but not limited to the United States Federal Government also using or monitoring/using this website or any of its associated websites, you do NOT have my permission to utilize any of my profile information nor any of the content contained herein including, but not limited to my photos, and/or the comments made about my photos or any other "picture" art posted on my profile.

You are hereby notified that you are strictly prohibited from disclosing, copying, distributing, disseminating, or taking any other action against me with regard to this profile and the contents herein. The foregoing prohibitions also apply to your employee , agent , student or any personnel under your direction or control.

The contents of this profile are private and legally privileged and confidential information, and the violation of my personal privacy is punishable by law. UCC 1-103 1-308 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED WITHOUT PREJUDICE

These two statements have a few elements in common. First, there was no new policy (or change to a policy) at Facebook to trigger these notices. Next, even had there been such a policy, the notices themselves were ineffectual and inaccurate from a legal perspective (e.g. profile notices do not modify contracts; there is a Berne Convention regarding copyright but no “Berner Convention”; the U.C.C., or Uniform Commercial Code, is a state law regarding the sale of goods, having nothing to do with Facebook profiles or privacy). Additionally, both notices went viral very quickly, spreading to literally tens of thousands or more Facebook users, even as others posted rebuttals and links to sites such as Snopes.com and news sites covered and furthered debunk the warnings about “new Facebook guidelines.”

The main factor that these viral postings share, though, is the lesson that they can provide to Facebook and numerous other organizations: namely, that users care deeply about, and do whatever they think they can to ensure, their privacy. This is not a new idea, nor is this the first time a rumored (though inaccurate) threat to privacy generated vast consumer and even legislative response. In late 1996, e-mails spread warning about the supposed revelation by Lexis/Nexis of Social Security numbers and mothers’ maiden names (two important pieces of data that could be misused by identity thieves to steal account access) in its new P-Trak consumer information database. In reality, P-Trak had originally included Social Security numbers but had been quickly revised to allow only searching by such numbers if the searcher already knew them, and the database had never contained mothers’ maiden names. Nonetheless, consumers jammed Lexis/Nexis’ customer service lines demanding to be removed, and the incident sparked a letter from three senators to the FTC and a resulting FTC public workshop and report to Congress on privacy of social security numbers and other information.

The overall idea of consumers and other users being able to know and manage the information being collected about them has long been a significant part of privacy best practices. The FTC and numerous other bodies in the U.S. and throughout the world have promulgated some version of Fair Information Practice Principles (“FIPP”), which generally include sections on notice, choice and participation. More recently, in February 2012, the Obama Administration published a report entitled Consumer Data Privacy In A Networked World: A Framework For Protecting Privacy And Promoting Innovation In The Global Digital Economy, which included a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights incorporating individual control, transparency, and access and accuracy among its elements. The whole concept of a Web site’s “privacy policy” is that it serves as a disclosure document, informing and empowering consumers with regard to the personal information collection and use by the site’s owner, and even absent general federal mandates for privacy policies in the United States, the vast majority of sites offer them, largely because consumers might otherwise suspect a site without a privacy policy of misusing their personal data.

Unfortunately, the theory of privacy policies and fair information practices does not always translate into reality. The double wave of Facebook viral postings, which were frequently made by those who weren’t either privacy advocates or lawyers, shows both that accurate information about Facebook’s practices was not being effectively communicated to its millions of users, and that users did not know how to find and use Facebook’s actual privacy controls. As confusing as Facebook’s controls may be, those of search/software/service giant Google are substantially more challenging, given how many different products Google offers, the numerous platforms on which they run, and the sheer volume of information being collected and used by Google.

If Facebook is paying attention to its users, it can do a huge service to them and the overall Internet community by taking this latest viral reaction to heart. Facebook should use this incident as a spark to substantially improve user access to and understanding of, its information collection practices. Other sites, including those many news sites that covered the story, should likewise reexamine and improve their own user privacy experiences. Otherwise, they may face not only unhappy and confused users, but regulatory and legislative actions that have a much more severe and longlasting impact on their businesses and their ability to properly (and transparently) use what they learn about their customers.