News & Commentary

Good news today for the location privacy of all California FasTrak users.Legislation authored by State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) to protect the privacy of drivers using the FasTrak payment system for toll bridges and roads was signed into law today by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The ACLU of Northern California (ACLU-NC) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) are calling for answers to critical privacy and safety questions that loom over a controversial federal program to track preschoolers with radio frequency identification (RFID) chips at George Miller III Head Start program in Richmond, California.

On Tuesday, preschoolers in Richmond, California showed up for school and were handed jerseys embedded with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags. RFID tags are tiny computer chips that are frequently used to track everything from cattle to commercial products moving through warehouses. Now the school district is apparently hoping to use these chips to replace manual attendance records, track the children's movements at school and during field trips, and collect other data like whether the child has eaten or not.

A few weeks ago, we wrote about United States v. Maynard, a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit requiring the government to obtain a warrant when it uses a GPS tracking device to monitor someone's movements.

Hundreds of millions of sensitive records have been compromised by data breaches. If your personal records were compromised by a breach, wouldn't you want companies to be required to tell you important information about the breach and how to protect yourself?

While the ACLU of Northern California and Facebook both agree that location information is very sensitive, we disagree that Places gives users adequate control of how and when to share this information. (Next time I visit my hometown, I'd like to be able to hang out with some of the Facebook crew at the Nut House without being asked again and again and again if I want that shared with everyone nearby!).

Following Facebook's announcement today about its new location-based product, Places, here's what the ACLU of Northern California has to say on the privacy front:

Last Friday, the district court in the Western District of Washington granted the motion to intervene that the ACLU filed on behalf of our clients in the lawsuit challenging the North Carolina Department of Revenue's (DOR) repeated requests for Amazon's customer records in the course of its tax audit of Amazon. These customer records reveal highly personal and intimate details of people's lives that DOR does not actually need for its tax audit, including what books people are reading, what films they are watching, and what other private and expressive materials they are purchasing. The First Amendment bars the government from demanding and collecting this information.

Got a cell phone? Use Facebook? What about Gmail? Read books on your shiny new iPad? Did you buy that new iPad online?