Olives @olives@qoto.org

Turns out that Ashton lied about having an algorithm which could scan encrypted environments (as revealed by new leaked documents), though in a typically Silicon Valley display of presumably "fake it till you make it", he promised he might have it "in the future".

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/01/ring-announces-it-will-no-longer-facilitate-police-requests-footage-users

"Amazon’s Ring has announced that it will no longer facilitate police's warrantless requests for footage from Ring users."

"Despite this victory, the fight for privacy and to end Ring’s historic ill-effects on society aren’t over. The mass existence of doorbell cameras, whether subsidized and organized into registries by cities or connected and centralized through technologies like Fusus, will continue to threaten civil liberties and exacerbate racial discrimination."

#privacy

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/01/eff-and-more-100-ngos-set-non-negotiable-redlines-ahead-un-cybercrime-treaty

"EFF has joined forces with 110 NGOs today in a joint statement delivered to the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee, clearly outlining civil society non-negotiable redlines for the proposed UN Cybercrime Treaty, and asserting that states should reject the proposed treaty if these essential changes are not implemented.

The last draft published on November 6, 2023 does not adequately ensure adherence to human rights law and standards. Initially focused on cybercrime, the proposed Treaty has alarmingly evolved into an expansive surveillance tool."

"Historically, cybercrime legislation has been exploited to target journalists and security researchers, suppress dissent and whistleblowers, endanger human rights defenders, limit free expression, and justify unnecessary and disproportionate state surveillance measures. We are concerned that the proposed Treaty, as it stands now, will exacerbate these problems."

#Cybercrime #privacy #HumanRights

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/01/eff-and-more-100-ngos-set-non-negotiable-redlines-ahead-un-cybercrime-treaty

I see EFF (and friends) wrote about this nasty piece of work again (though, it's not entirely clear to me that these recommendations are sufficient[1]).

Anyway, here's my thoughts:

It has so many problems, it's honestly hard for me to know where to even begin. One part encourages the rapid takedown of content [2 Article 53.3.h], and that is not necessarily a good thing, as it could drive companies to over-censor (and we have seen them do this).

We've also seen attempts to chase after pet issues (and even hypotheticals)[3], rather than actual serious crimes, and these would overwhelmingly affect legitimate activities.

Article 53 is, (probably) deliberately, open-ended, and seems to encourage an endless parade of possible totalitarianism.

It still doesn't appear to require that a crime is a crime in both countries (Article 22.2.b) in all cases?

Article 20 encourages longer statutes of limitations without any particular regard to the severity of the crime. It would also appear to create justifications for even greater surveillance than that even asked for here, by encouraging states to chase minor crimes from a long time ago.

The term "serious crime" is problematic in that a state can designate what might otherwise be an undeserving crime to have a certain "sentence", then to in practice, give someone a much lighter sentence as a consequence of judicial discretion, or as some other artefact of their judicial process. Alternatively, they might give someone a straight-up disproportionate punishment, particularly if they have little regard for human rights. They can then use this as "evidence" that they are pursuing a "serious crime" which might otherwise be quite minor. It is also not unusual for "crimes" like "insulting the king" to already carry pretty hefty sentences in a few countries, does that suddenly mean that is a "serious crime"?

Article 6 stipulates that a state *can* require intent for "unlawful access", however, it does *require* it, nor does it *recommend* it (they don't appear to have trouble making "recommendations" elsewhere in this document). That means this vehicle could still be misused in that manner. This is a common issue you might find elsewhere in this document.

As mentioned before, and repeated here below, "human rights are optional clauses" do not fundamentally make a blatant human rights violation any less of one, simply because a state which cares about human rights might be able to make use of it to avoid violating someone's human rights. It also wouldn't be particularly difficult to say "you cannot use this treaty as a vehicle for this"... They're not even trying.

Here's another example (which I touched on before):

Article 13 (the very same name as that revolting E.U. copyright legislation, though that was later renamed to Article 17, very different in nature though). It could be described as a "won't anyone please think of the children?"[4] section. Immediately, if we look at the language, it immediately looks extremely suspicious, and it is clear to anyone with a functional brain that they're not talking about protecting children, but seem intent on protecting someone from being offended.

"include written or audio content"

So, what comes to mind when you see words like this? Perhaps, a novel Time listed as one of it's best hundred novels? (this one keeps coming up, so I gotta mention it)[5][6] Maybe, something silly like a chatbot?[7] Stories about fictional cartoon characters?[7] Perhaps, a horror novel?

Also, even a "real people" definition would be fundamentally flawed. What if someone writes a story about what happened to themselves? If they talk about it, it would fall under the audio term. Is this a joke? It might also sweep up fantasies, including private fantasies, including ones communicated for the purposes of telehealth (so, there goes medical confidentiality). It cannot be stressed enough how bad of a definition that would be, and for no real legitimate purpose, it would seem[7].

If someone has committed a real crime, someone can simply pursue those. That said, it's really bad to punish innocent people in some War on Drugs type style[7][8][9]. It is incomprehensible how this sort of language even came to be, and I have many questions about the process which brought about this text, which brings complete and utter disgrace upon the entire United Nations, and it's organs. In less polite words, what the f-ck?

Also, while there is a clause saying that a State *could* only include cases "depicting", "describing", or "representing" (not is this wordplay game redundant, it is also iffy, suspicious, experimental, and likely abusable) "real children" for "imagery, etc", or to exclude written text / audio (it also appears to say nothing of deliberate intent, which could be problematic), it doesn't actually mandate that for use in this treaty, which is really, the entire point of having a safeguard to protect human rights. It also has other rather vague and highly abusable language, such as "describes", and this is an especially bad document to be experimenting with novel language in.

Repeating what a free speech group said (I think it was the EFF), there already appear to be other venues for dealing with these sorts of crimes, and messing around here only creates room for new possible human rights violations. Of course, this doesn't mean that I support vague / problematic definitions elsewhere either[10]. Still, it would seem that including this section in here could only create problems, all things considered.

1 https://www.eff.org/files/2024/01/22/joint.advocacy.statement-cybercrime.convention-jan.23.2024.pdf
2 https://www.unodc.org/documents/Cybercrime/AdHocCommittee/Concluding_session/Documents/A_AC.291_22_Rev.1_E.pdf
3 https://qoto.org/@olives/111497528228022091
4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children
5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time%27s_List_of_the_100_Best_Novels
6 https://entertainment.time.com/2005/10/16/all-time-100-novels/slide/lolita-1955-by-vladimir-nabokov/
7 https://qoto.org/@olives/111191543236620885
8 https://qoto.org/@olives/111448111216663879
9 https://qoto.org/@olives/111516011246609826
10 https://qoto.org/@olives/111763532531169050

I might comment on it again further later but my reaction to the proposed Cybercrime treaty is "what the f-ck". It is absolutely riddled with issues. It is hard to know where to even begin.

1) There seems to be confusion over what the terms even mean.

2) It undermines the security of communications.

3) It is possible it would be replicated in a State with poorer human rights standards, even if higher human rights standards were upheld.

And that is ignoring the obvious implication of it essentially being a search or the false positives.

Oh, cool, an interesting article, I will read it after... Unchecking all these pre-checked "legitimate interest" boxes sending my data to several hundred trackers. #privacy

I'm always somewhat sceptical when someone shows up claiming that "AI will take all our jobs".

As a reminder to U.S. lawmakers, the EARN IT Act (or similar anti end-to-end encryption measures) are still as bad and unconstitutional as the last time these came up.

These mainly punish innocent people (i.e. everyone else). #privacy

I'm seeing quite a bit of chatter against the #chatcontrol (which remains a bad / inherently disproportionate idea) lately.

https://reclaimthenet.org/court-rules-trudeau-freezing-civil-liberties-protesters-bank-accounts-violated-canadas-charter

"Presiding over the case, Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley found that whereas these Freedom Convoy protests generated harm, they did not elevate to a threat against national security as per the legal definition.

Proclaiming the Emergencies Act in such a scenario, according to Mosley, lacked the attributes of sound decision-making, including justification, transparency, and intelligibility. Tracing the legal and factual constraints that must inform such a resolve illuminated this lack for Mosley.

“I have concluded that the decision to issue the Proclamation [of the Emergencies Act’ does not bear the hallmarks of reasonableness – justification, transparency and intelligibility – and was not justified,” Mosley wrote.

Civil liberty groups, including the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) and the Canadian Constitutional Foundation (CCF), had challenged this historic precedent. They contended that the Liberal government stretched its power too far while dealing with the Freedom Convoy blockades in Ontario and Alberta in February 2022. The court’s verdict aligned with their argument."

https://reclaimthenet.org/harvey-eugene-murphy-jr-wrongful-arrest-facial-recognition-technology

"Harvey Eugene Murphy Jr, a 61-year-old man, is launching a legal battle against Macy’s and EssilorLuxottica, Sunglass Hut’s parent company, alleging a misidentification by facial recognition technology led to his unlawful arrest. Murphy’s lawsuit asserts that owing to a flawed criminal identification by a low-quality camera image, he spent days unjustly incarcerated where he underwent horrific physical and sexual violence.

In January 2022, a robbery at a Houston-based Sunglass Hut led to the theft of merchandise worth thousands. However, Murphy’s legal counsel insists that Murphy was living in California, not Texas, during that time frame."

#FaceRecognition #privacy #CriminalJustice

https://reason.com/2024/01/23/appeals-court-fbis-safe-deposit-box-seizures-violated-fourth-amendment/

"The FBI violated the Fourth Amendment when its agents rifled through the contents of more than 700 safe-deposit boxes in the aftermath of a March 2021 raid, a panel of federal appeals court judges ruled unanimously on Tuesday.

In doing so, the judges at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed what innocent victims of the raid and their attorneys have been arguing for years: that the FBI overstepped the bounds of its warrant issued in the case and failed to follow proper protocol when federal agents cracked open safe-deposit boxes, ran the contents past drug-sniffing dogs, and tried to seize some of the money and other valuables found in the boxes."

#privacy

https://reason.com/2024/01/24/man-sues-sunglass-hut-after-faulty-ai-facial-recognition-tech-led-to-wrongful-arrest/

"Harvey Murphy was arrested in October 2022 for the armed burglary of a Huston-area Sunglass Hut store after a facial recognition device identified him as the burglar. The only problem? Murphy was in Sacramento, California at the time of the crime—thousands of miles away.

Making matters worse, Murphy, now 61, says he was brutally sexually assaulted in jail just hours before he was set to be released after the charges against him were dropped. In a lawsuit filed last week, Murphy claims that his arrest was the result of gross negligence from the facial recognition company—and he demands $10 million in damages to compensate for his wrongful imprisonment."

#CriminalJustice #FaceRecognition #privacy