Origins of Privacy Issues and Its Change with Technology

In the past, privacy issues first arose when federal laws prohibited access to historically open public records without individual consent and sweeping health privacy rules. However, as technology grew, the issues of privacy grew much greater than that (Cate 2001.). Previous privacy laws show us that people in the past were concerned with their privacy even when information about others was difficult to obtain. During this time, the only means to receiving information was through physical (paper) forms. This meant all the relevant information had to have been transferred by hand and put a geographical constraint on information sharing. This mean of transferring information can be difficult, time consuming, and susceptible to loss or damage. However, as the technology grew, computers came into play and the information transfer was largely facilitated.

Through one disk, people were able to store personal information on many different computers, making information sharing much easier.  As technology grew even more rapidly, wireless forms of communication became one of the main sources of information transfer. Although this did simplify various tasks essential to the growth of society and the economy, through misuse it also created a detrimental concern to the privacy and security of many innocent people. When people use this technology to transfer personal information with different companies or when they have access to this information, it can be used in many unpleasant ways.  This causes damage not only to individual, but to society as a whole. Now, through a click of a button on the computer, people are able to distribute massive amounts of information rapidly around the entire globe. Whether or not the information being sent is good or bad is completely dependent on the user, and unfortunately not all users of this wireless technology utilize it in the honorary fashion.

Another concern is with the wireless technology in relate to computers and the internet comes with the fact that the medium can be largely insecure. Although people may send information to specific individuals, others lurking around the web can easily find out how to extract that information in one form or another. These lurkers can use the information they obtain to benefit themselves or cause harm to the affected parties. One can never be certain that information sent via a computer technology won’t be intercepted by someone else.

This problem is not only present in computer technology, but also poses great concern when discussed in reference to cellular phones. With the spread of wireless around the country, numerous people began buying into the technology and a massive network of interconnected users began to shape.  Because of the nature of the devices which they use, people can easily eavesdrop into a conversation. Eavesdropping on a cellular phone conversation can be seen to be even easier than hacking into a computer system or accessing private information through other means. Cellular phones operate by transmitting radio waves, and thus can be picked up by even the least expensive scanners. (Phillips 2001).  Voice mailing systems bound to cellular phones make this concern even greater, as it is in this format that information is most easily accessed. It is important to understand that when making use of a wireless technology for sensitive information transfer, the potential for a breach or monitor of the transfer is always present.  (Phillips 2001).

Laws Governing Wireless Communications

Due to this increase in technology and the wide use of wireless communications, many more laws and regulations needed to be passed in order to ensure the privacy of the general public. Many people are concerned that not only the government, but other people with a grasp on modern technology or corporations that have such people on staff would easily be able to track essential information about a person.  This invasion of privacy would compromise trust and create a potential advantage in various forms for the party who posses it. Upon noticing these issues, the government has passed several laws that would answer for the concerns of the people.

One of the Federal laws that the government issued was the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Both President Reagan and the congress during his tenure approved of this act. It stated that the advances in technology required updating the law, extended title III’s safeguards against unwarranted interception to “non-audio communications” thereby protecting electronic mail and other data transmissions. This law expanded these protections by barring the government officials from obtaining data held by a communications company, such as MCI, without a warrant that met the probable cause standard and extended “minimization” rules to electronic communications. However, not all communications is protected by this law. The law does not protect the radio portion of the cordless phone conversation because radio communications are easy to monitor. (Hendricks, Hayden, and Novik 1990)

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act protects against a wide range of communications. The act makes it a federal crime to do the following: (i) intercept an electronic form of communication; (ii) disclose a communication with knowledge or reason to know that it was unlawfully intercepted; (iii) access an electronic communications facility without authorization; and (iv) exceed an authorization to access an electronic communications facility. (Phillips 2001). However, there are some exceptions to this law. First of all, the government can violate any of these criteria for law enforcement, administrative of national security issues, or similar reasons. Secondly, the service provider can do so for system maintenance issues. The final breach form would come if the information was available to the general public, making it fair game for universal access. (Phillips 2001).

Alongside this act, there are also other laws that protect the privacy of the people. As one example, there California Cordless and Cellular Radio Telephone Privacy Act prohibits unauthorized interception on the telephone conversations. There is also the Evid Code, § 952 from California law that protects communications by cellular phones, facsimiles, or “other electronic means. (Phillips 2001). Although there are continuous efforts by the government to protect the privacy of the people, with wireless technology it is becoming increasingly difficult to do so. And as if the technology itself were not enough, people now are trying to make it legal to easily access other people’s information.

Wireless 411 Privacy Act and Its Controversy

The Wireless 411 Privacy Act is one example of the kind of law that is causing some controversy in the United States today. People are debating whether or not there should be a wireless 411 information service that gives out other people’s cellular phone numbers upon demand. This issue has polarized many across the nation, but both sides can see the many pros and cons that it presents.  First, cellular phone owners would not want random people calling them and wasting their minutes. Cellular phone numbers are considered by many to be a private communicative medium and the distribution of these numbers has long been controlled by its possessor.  On the other hand, the Denver Post states that a growing number of cellular customers that own small businesses are choosing wireless as their primary phone service. So there is also reason for the need for some kind of directory of mobile telephone numbers. The question then arises for who to include in the directory and who to exclude.  The answer seems to vary from person to person. According to New York Times, when the Wireless 411 Consumer Privacy Act was introduced to both the House and the Senate before the holiday recess.  This bill would give existing customers the option to add themselves the national database and any new subscribers, entered by default, the option to exclude themselves.  Many question the feasibility and use of such a database, however, if many do decide to exclude themselves from it.

Even with the passage of this law, there are many other means to protect personal numbers as well. Travis Larson, a spokesman for the FTC, said wireless subscribers are eligible to protect their phone numbers further by listing them on the Federal Trade Commission's do-not-call registry. However, questions of fairness arise with such a request.  Many question the right to have access to anyone’s number unless the individual without authorization.  These people believe that the public should not have access to numbers unless with the individual’s consent is granted.  Yet there are also those that feel publicly maintained databases are necessary.  Many privacy issues and debates can arise with this new proposed act. People can argue that with this 411 directory, we can easily access lost numbers of clients or friends. However, people can also argue that the 411 directory disrupts the privacy of many individuals by making their private numbers available to the public.

In an article written by the New York Times, the Zelos Group, a research firm based in San Francisco conducted a survey last year that found that only 2 percent of consumers said they would agree to list their wireless numbers in any sort of centralized form.  This result was conditional upon privacy protections not being offered, however, it showed the deep concern people have with the potential misuses of their information. When the question was rephrased to include a guarantee of privacy protection, the number of willing parties jumped to nearly 51 percent. With this number it can be seen that having privacy protection could possibly persuade more people into considering participation in the directory.  Yet nothing can be stated as certain until the efforts are conducted and the truth is known. Many people have strong voices for both sides and once again the ethical perspectives of individuals play a major role in deciding which side to choose. The question of privacy is still vague for this directory to take place and so the most reasonable action has been to wait until these problems have been cleared up.

Verizon Wireless, the nation’s largest cellular phone carriers, decided not to participate in the proposition of the 411 wireless directory in order to protect their customers’ privacy.  So in order for the CTIA (the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association) to go ahead with its plans, it would have to do so without their largest component.  According to John Johnson, the company dropped out of the database effort because it did not see “a pressing need” for the service. Without Verizon Wireless’ participation in the directory, many people may find the efforts futile. After all, Verizon does have the largest number of cellular phone carriers and without their participation, many of the numbers that are wanted in the directory would not be found. 

Regulations On Laws

As stated previously, aside from this directory, there are laws that are being passed in order to secure the privacy of individuals. Although idealistically, we would like to have the laws counteract the growth of technology, many issues also arise even in creating these laws. According to Fred H. Cate in the book Privacy in Perspective, Constitutional provisions on government protection of privacy have also provoked controversy in the debate on privacy. He asserts that no law or regulation should stand if it violates these provisions. Thus, not only do legislators have to determine that a privacy law generates more benefits than costs, but they also have to determine that it does so in a manner that is consistent with the doctrine. Once people find ways to manipulate the constitution and evade people’s privacy, the government must find another way to counteract that as well. Although the reason is legitimate, this makes it even harder for the government to protect the privacy of the people and makes it even harder to keep up with the rapidly growing technology in the current era.

Even after passage, however, laws need to be updated continuously in response to changes in technology or social climate. For example, wiretapping did not violate the fourth amendment because there was no searching, seizure of anything tangible, or physical trespassing component to it (Hendricks, Hayden, and Novik 1990). This was, however, a clear form of a privacy violation.  In response to wiretapping, the government issued the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, including Title III. This act restricted wiretapping and extended the law to protect information transferred using it. According to the book, Your Right to Privacy, the government has to show a court the exact length of a surveillance operation if the government failed to show probable cause. However, the president can intercept calls during which the parties would have an expectation of privacy. Even after approved, however, the government must first identify who’s communications will be intercepted, the nature and location of the communications facilities for which authority to intercept is granted, a statement of the related particular offense, the identity of the agency authorized to intercept the communications and the person authorizing the application, and the period of time during which such interception is authorized.  This would also include a statement as to whether or not the interception shall automatically terminate when the described communications have been first obtained. Therefore, given this law, it is not easy for even the government to wiretap, further accenting the difficulty placed on commoners. However, since cellular phone conversations are easier to pick up, the law changed from willful to intentional intrusion so as to protect inadvertent interceptions that were not considered invasive. (Hendricks, Hayden, Novik 1990).

Aside from the constitutional “correctness” of law issues of privacy, there are also issues regarding the cost of privacy. Obviously, in order to ensure the privacy of people, some money must be spent to promote and pass laws. And once laws are passed, the cost of maintaining the law must be less than the cost before the law was passed. Fred H. Cate states that there is a debate over what the costs of privacy should be. Simply put, the benefits of privacy laws should be greater than the costs of it.  Not only can this idea be seen in terms of financial costs, but also in terms of threats to other areas such as research information and financial findings. He suggests that lawmakers must ensure that laws intended to enhance the protection of privacy do not diminish or interfere with existing privacy protection.

Precautions and Awareness

Although we can rely on the government to a certain extent to try and make an effort to protect our privacy, Pamela Phillips suggests that we take certain precautions ourselves when dealing with the wireless communication technology. First of all, she tells us that when dealing with cellular phones, we always have to be careful. She tells us not to speak of confidential information on the cell phones because although the information may be protected by statute, once the information gets out there is no way to reverse it. Cellular phone conversations are very easy to intercept and thus Pamela Phillips advises us to take cautious measures accordingly, such as keeping the conversations short and talking in generalities. Also, when dealing with email or internet, we need to implement extra security measures to ensure the privacy of our communications. Phillips tells us that just because our line is secure, that does not mean that the other line is secure as well. She tells us that we have to be careful about forwards when replying to an email and to leave the address field blank until we are done writing the email. She also tells us that emails are hard to erase completely from memory and thus we should be careful about what we write so that the content would not be misinterpreted at a future time.  Another topic that she brought to our attention in her paper was fax modes of communication. Although fax may seem like a secure way of sending messages, there are numerous possibilities where the fax can be intercepted or sent in error. Phillips states that when receiving an email that was not intended for us, by law, we are required to not read the information. If everyone in this world was trustworthy, then we would not have to worry about that. Unfortunately, however, we cannot guarantee that our erroneously sent faxes will not be read by other individuals. 

Pinpointing Cellular Phone Locations

According to Richard Glenn, author of America’s Freedoms, the Right to Privacy, “wireless communication technology can pinpoint the location of cellular phones. (Glenn 2003)” This technological breakthrough functions as a quasi detector to determine where a certain cellular phone, or more importantly a certain person is. From this issue, arise a number of ethical considerations. Primarily, who has access to the tools that allows for pinpoint location of cellular phones, and how is this access used.  Access to the tools of pinpointing cellular phones is generally restricted to the cellular phone companies themselves. For the most part, keep the locations of their users’ private, as they should rightfully do. However, they are obligated by law to provide the locations of certain users under certain specific circumstances. For example, if law enforcement officials obtain a warrant from a judge, or other forms of authorization from a judge, they can request the location of a cell phone from the phone company, and the phone company has to oblige. This procedure of the law does not seem too bad, but it cannot be changed.

For instance, it is possible for several branches of the government to develop tools to supersede the companies acting as middle men between law enforcement and the cell phone users. For all intents and purposes, the CIA or FBI could easily develop tools, similar to spying tools, to allow for location pinpointing of cell phones. If these secretive branches of government develop and implement these tools, they will be tempted to use their tools without first obtaining permission from judges. This would be an abuse of the law, and legally an invasion of privacy. No doubt, it will happen.

Even though the ability to pinpoint the location of a cellular phone seems like an invasion of privacy, and a bad thing, it does have some positive aspects. For example this feature is absolutely vital in emergency situations. If someone is threatening you and you cannot visibly call for help for fear of being hurt, you have an option. Your option is to call 911, and to hope that they will hear what is going on and trace your call and to pinpoint your location. Or if you are in your car and fall off a bridge, you can call 911 and they can pinpoint your location and send help immediately.  Glenn continues to say, “This explosive growth in networked acquisition, storage, and dissemination of information, much of which links various facts with identifying characteristics of individuals and is maintained by federal, state, and local authorities, poses a serious threat to informational privacy by increasing the potential for security breaches and subsequent abuse of such information. (Glenn 2003)”

In a way, Glenn is hearkening back to an Orwellian view of government and how it watches over society. First the government builds a network encompassing all of its citizens. Then it starts to store and keep information on all of its citizens, for no particular reason to begin with, but assuming a good reason will come up. Ideally, the government will keep this entire information secret. However, the government is not a perfect system, and eventually information will be leaked out that will compromise the privacy of many citizens. These citizens can cry fowl at the fact that this information was kept in the first place. Also, this information can be abused. For example, racial profiling could be used to only pinpoint the locations of African-American cellular phone users. Or, even people living in poor neighborhoods.

Other Location-Based Technology Issues

According to James Harvey and Christopher Rosselli of GigaLaw.com, the ability of wireless telecommunications service providers to pinpoint the geographic location of people who use wireless devices (such as cell phones) has caused industry and government to consider alternative uses for location-based technologies (Harvey and Rosselli 2004). Harvey and Rosselli provide some examples of the future uses of location-based technologies: “a patron’s favorite restaurant may be able to send her a coupon when it detects that she is nearby; a hotel may be able to determine a guest’s location and send him directions when he gets lost on the way from the airport; police may be able to locate stolen cars; or a prosecutor may be able to subpoena archived information to demonstrate that a suspect was in the vicinity of a crime shortly before it was committed. (Harvey and Rosselli 2004)”

This ability of wireless telecommunication service providers to use this technology has its advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, it can be very inconvenient to be constantly emitting a public signal of your location to anyone around you. Like Harvey and Rosselli mention, commercial interests can pick up on your location and send you advertisements of their services. For the typical consumer, the majority of these offers will be unwanted, and conceptually the same as receiving junk e-mail. Who really wants an electronic coupon messaged to their phone every time they drive by McDonald’s? This inconvenience being the case, it is worth spending some time observing the other side of this issue.

Location-based technologies presently have many useful functions, and could continue to help society in the future. The first such example Harvey and Rosselli talk about is a hotel sending driving directions to your cell phone or PDA if you are having trouble locating the hotel from the airport. This service provided by the hotel is indeed helpful and desirable by consumers. However, there is a fundamental difference between a hotel sending you directions, and a restaurant beaming you a coupon as you drive by. The former case is a voluntary request for information, and the latter is receiving information involuntarily. The next useful example that Harvey brings up is the idea of locating a car once it has been stolen. Once again, the important concept here is that the location being monitored is that of the car, not the person. Also, there is no invasion of privacy if this monitoring occurs once a car owner notifies the police, and not beforehand.

Finally, the last example that Harvey and Rosselli mention is that of a prosecutor getting a subpoena for the archive of a person’s position at a given time. We do not have this ability in our current infrastructure, but it is scary as to how easily we could implement this functionality. For example, we could pass laws to require every adult over the age of eighteen to wear a transponder that will broadcast their location to a governmental satellite. This satellite will in turn keep a massive database of everyone’s location at any given time. On account of this fact, once law enforcement has a good estimate as to what the time and location of a certain crime is, all they would have to do is to query the database and find out who did it.

On the surface, this technological capability seems like a gift from God in order to make our streets safer. However, when you look deeper into this ability, one of the most fundamental rights of American society would be compromised. Thomas Jefferson stated clearly in the Declaration of Independence that all men have the right to liberty. This mandatory monitoring of everyone’s location infringes on a person’s ability to live freely. Most importantly, we should have the right to go where we want to whenever we want to without fear of being constantly monitored. By constantly monitoring people of society, you are turning them into animals that cannot function independently, and cannot be trusted.

Not to be forgotten is what will happen to our judicial system. With a technology as powerful as this, the judicial system will become lazier and less rigorous. A judge and jury are going to be presented with evidence of a person’s location that cannot be refuted. This will lead to the jury being trigger happy and assuming that the suspect is guilty. What is lost in this process is that the law enforcement is not one hundred percent accurate in determining the time of a crime. What were to happen if law enforcement concluded that a murder happened on January second, but it actually happened on January third? Well, the person in the location of the murder, a whole day before it happened, would be held responsible! It is crucial that this absurdity never take place.

Radio Frequency Identification

 The best way to understand the societal impact of radio frequency identification is to look at a simple way it will affect all of our lives. David Crowell and Tim McCollum present the example of shopping to illustrate this societal impact. They state that shopping is one of the essential parts of our daily living. Whether we are shopping for clothes, or groceries, we are constantly going out and buying things. One of the most annoying and time consuming aspects of shopping is waiting in line for the cashier to ring up our goods and to go through the process of paying the cashier. This is a very time consuming process, and many people would consider it a waste of time. With the advent of internet shopping, some of this pain has been alleviated. However, you really can’t get everything you are looking for online, and people in general like to see and feel what they’re buying before they actually buy it. So how do we combine the joys of shopping in person and the time saving of technology (Crowell and McCollum)?

In a perfect world, you would just go to the store, take what you needed and leave. As you are leaving the store, a device near the exit senses the items in your shopping cart and keeps track of what you have taken. The store would then bill your credit card account just like any other ordinary credit purchase. On the surface, this doesn’t seem very realistic at all. With the boom in technology, this dream can turn into reality in only a several years from now. The technology that will make this happen for consumers is RFID.

Crowell and McCollum explain the technicalities of RFID in detail. They state that from a high level perspective, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is comparable to bar code identification technology. Both technologies identify the object by scanning and they facilitate assist in data connection. However, RFID offers limitless improvements over simple bar coding. To begin with, RFID devices can be read at a greater range and more importantly, they do not require that the object be in a direct line of sight. RFID systems are composed of two main components: a tag and a reader. The tag, also known as a transponder, is a tiny device that is attached or embedded to the product. The tag has an antenna and a microchip to transmit information such as its identifier code. Readers, are similar to the bar code readers we have become accustomed to at supermarkets. The reader can be put on a door exit to read the tags on your way out (Crowell and McCollum).

Even though most of the public does not even know what RFID is, it has served society with many practical applications up to this point. Crowell and McCollum provide some of these examples. For example, some highways with toll booths use RFID. They let the motorist pass through and just flash his tag at the reader, and they bill the motorist at the end of the month. Surprisingly, this far reaching technology is even used in many farms. Farmers simply put the tags in their cows and monitor them for different purposes such as tracking their location. People with pets can put RFID tags in their pets and track them down when they are lost. Up to this point, the most popular usage of this technology has been in warehouses where companies keep inventories of their product. This is done for the main purpose of shipment and delivery (Crowell and McCollum). 

In addition to normal RFID tags, Crowell and McCollum discuss smart RFID tags. Over time the development of RFID technology has allowed for the tags to become much smarter. They are not simply restricted to only responding with the tag’s identification code, but can actually receive and store useful information. Amazingly, soldiers in the Iraq war who have been wounded have their status kept track of by a wrist bracelet that comes with an RFID tag. Their bracelet is constantly updated as they pass through the healing process. This ability to receive updates allows companies to follow an item wherever it may go (Crowell and McCollum).

Current RFID Problems and Solutions 

Clearly, RFID technology is an important advancement for supply chain management and logistics. However, outside of business people and industry insiders, the publicity surrounding this technology has been more negative. How could something so technologically amazing and convenient have negative publicity? James Rappold of Industrial Engineering magazine tries to answer this issue. He begins by saying that the main issue for consumers in regards to RFID is privacy. It is one thing to track products within a store or warehouse, solely for the purposes of keeping information on the product. However, the issue is changed when the tag is still enabled after the consumer purchases a certain item. Now, the store has the ability to not only keep track of information on the product, but also to keep track of information on the consumer (Rappold).

The question of why a company might want to do this will arise. Rappold outlines two scenarios that may answer this question. The first scenario is companies that make products for shopping stores place tags on their products. So for example, a company that makes shaving products like Gillette would place tags on their products. Through their products, these companies can follow their customers into the home of the customer and monitor the customer’s activities with these products. In Gillette’s case, the company can observer how long customers use certain products before they dispose of them. The second scenario is a shopping center that places tags on the products it sells for other companies, like a supermarket. The issue at hand here is that the supermarket can monitor each customer’s spending habits. After they do so, they can send specific advertisements geared toward your spending habits. Either way, they are taking information from the customer in an involuntary manner that can be thought of as ethically wrong (Rappold).

Having brought up the negative aspects of RFID, all is not lost. Rappold states that many scientists and researchers are working on feasible solutions for these privacy concerns. One idea, which is probably not going to be supported by businesses that put RFID in their products, is to always warn or inform the customer wherever RFID tags are present in products. This is being honest, but at the same time could harm business by attracting an air of negativity to a product. Another proposal would be to kill the RFID tag once a customer purchases the item. This could be done by programming self terminating tags, or by having the cashier kill the tag. Potential problems from this are what if the cashier’s store doesn’t want to constantly waste time killing tags, or what if the tag that was supposed to kill itself malfunctioned and did not. We could have a way for customers to kill the tag, but that in itself is an inconvenience that customers want to avoid (Rappold).