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Privacy Lecture 2

The document discusses privacy risks from new technologies and how they weaken Fourth Amendment protections. It covers topics like Supreme Court decisions on expectation of privacy, searches of computers and phones, and issues around video surveillance and face recognition technologies.

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25 views19 pages

Privacy Lecture 2

The document discusses privacy risks from new technologies and how they weaken Fourth Amendment protections. It covers topics like Supreme Court decisions on expectation of privacy, searches of computers and phones, and issues around video surveillance and face recognition technologies.

Uploaded by

Hibba
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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PRIVACY

Post-Mid Lecture 2
Topics
1. Privacy Risks and Principles
2. The Fourth Amendment, Expectation of Privacy, and
Surveillance Technologies
3. The Business and Social Sectors
4. Government Systems
5. Protecting Privacy: technology, markets, rights, and laws
The Fourth Amendment
The Fourth Amendment
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,
and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not
be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,
supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the
place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
—Fourth Amendment, U.S. Constitution
Two key problems arise from new technologies
which weaken Fourth Amendment protections
• First, much of our personal information is no longer safe in our homes or the
individual offices of our doctors and financial advisors. We carry a huge amount of
personal information on smartphones and laptops. Much personal information is in
huge databases outside of our control. Many laws allow law enforcement agencies
to get information from nongovernment databases without a court order. Federal
privacy rules allow law enforcement agencies to access medical records without
court orders

• The second factor weakening Fourth Amendment protections is that new


technologies allow the government to search our homes without entering them, to
search our persons from a distance without our knowledge, and to extract all the
data on a cellphone (including deleted data and password protected data) in less than
two minutes at a traffic stop.
New Technologies, Supreme Court Decisions,
and Expectation of Privacy
“Noninvasive but deeply revealing”
searches
Include
• particle sniffers that detect many specific drugs and explosives
• imaging systems that detect guns under clothing from a distance
• devices that analyze the molecular composition of truck cargo without
opening the truck
• thermal-imaging devices (to find heat lamps for growing marijuana,
for example), and devices that locate a person by locating his or her
cellphone.
Supreme Court decisions
Several Supreme Court cases have addressed the impact of earlier technology on Fourth Amendment
protection.
• In 1928, the government had used wiretaps on telephone lines without a court order. The Supreme
Court allowed the wiretaps. It interpreted the Fourth Amendment to apply only to physical intrusion
and only to the search or seizure of material things, not conversations

• In 1967, the Supreme Court reversed its position and ruled that the Fourth Amendment does apply to
conversations and that it applies in public places in some situations. In another case, law
enforcement agents had attached an electronic listening and recording device on the outside of a
telephone booth to record a suspect’s conversation. The court said that the Fourth Amendment
“protects people, not places,” and that what a person “seeks to preserve as private, even in an area
accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected.” To intrude in places where a reasonable
person has a reasonable expectation of privacy, government agents need a court order.

• In Kyllo v. United States (2001), the Supreme Court ruled that police could not use thermal-imaging
devices to search a home from the outside without a search warrant. The Court stated that where
“government uses a device that is not in general public use, to explore details of the home that would
previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a ‘search.’” This
Supreme Court
decisions and
expectation of
privacy
Court’s interpretation of “expectation of
privacy” vs Our expectation of it!
• The Court has interpreted “expectation of privacy” in a very restrictive way.
• For example, it ruled that if we share information with businesses such as
our bank, then we have no reasonable expectation of privacy for that
information Law enforcement agents do not need a court order to get the
information.
• We do expect privacy of the financial information we supply a bank or other
financial institution.
• We share our Web activity with ISPs, websites, and search engine
companies merely by typing and clicking.
• We share many kinds of personal information at specific websites where we
expect it to be private. Is it safe from warrantless search?
Search and Seizure of Computers and
Phones
Search and Seizure of Computers and Phones

• Seizure the action of capturing someone or something using force.


• The plain view doctrine allows a police officer to seize objects not
described in a warrant when executing a lawful search or seizure if
he observes the object in plain view and has probable cause to
believe that it is connected with criminal activities.
• How should we interpret “plain view” for a search of computer or
smartphone files?

The Fourth Amendment’s requirement is that a warrant


be specific!
Examples
• In one case, while searching a man’s computer with a search warrant for evidence of drug
crimes, an officer saw file names suggesting illegal content not related to the warrant. He
opened files and found child pornography. An appeals court said the names of files might
be considered to be in plain view, but the contents of the files were not. Although the
crime in this case is a very unpleasant one, the principle protects us from abuses by the
police.

• In an investigation of the use of performance-enhancing drugs by professional baseball


players, law enforcement agents obtained a search warrant for computer files of
laboratory records on drug tests for 10 specific players. The lab files they seized contained
records on hundreds of baseball players, hockey players, and ordinary people who are not
athletes. A federal appeals court ruled that the information on all but the original 10
players was beyond the scope of the search warrant and the government was wrong to
seize it
Phones and laptops
• Is a search warrant required before police can search the contents of an
arrested person’s cellphone? Should a search warrant be required?

The answer is….YES!

• People have an expectation of privacy for the contents of their


phones.The vast collection of information on a cellphone is the kind of
information the Fourth Amendment is intended to protect
Examples
• We have a ruling by a judge who ruled against a cellphone search

• But the California Supreme Court ruled otherwise where search of the
contents of a cellphone was permitted!

• Is searching a laptop equivalent to searching luggage? A federal


appeals court ruled that customs agents at the border do not need
reasonable suspicion of a crime to search laptops, phones, and other
electronic devices. Lawsuits and debate on the issue are ongoing.
Video Surveillance and Face Recognition
Video Surveillance and Face Recognition

• Video surveillance systems monitor traffic and catch drivers who run
red lights.

• Cameras alone raise some privacy issues. When combined with face
recognition systems, they raise even more
Applications and Issues
• In the first large-scale, public application of face recognition, police in
Tampa, Florida, scanned the faces of all 100,000 fans and employees who
entered the 2001 Super Bowl (American football game). The system
searched computer files of criminals for matches, giving results within
seconds.

• Tampa installed a similar system in a neighborhood of popular restaurants


and nightclubs. Police in a control room zoomed in on individual faces
and checked for matches in their database of suspects. In two years of use,
the system did not recognize anyone that the police wanted, but it did
occasionally identify innocent people as wanted felons.
Applications and Issues
• Some cities have increased their camera surveillance programs, while others
gave up their systems because they did not significantly reduce crime.

• Some applications of cameras and face recognition systems are reasonable,


beneficial uses of the technology for security and crime prevention exist.
BUT there is a clear need for limits, controls, and guidelines. How should
we distinguish appropriate from inappropriate uses?

• If we consider these issues early enough, we can design privacy-protecting


features into the technology, establish well-thought-out policies for their
use, and pass appropriate privacy-protecting legislation before.

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