Personal Data

Personal Data

There is a growing concerns that companies are misusing personal data and is not deleting "data" that the user have requested to be deleted:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/9695021.stm

Here are a couple of videos on the subject from the European Union Justice Department:

Link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ByVaZ0rg8U


Link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoE7SZiouVA

... complete with flash videos. Oh the irony

Originally posted by Macallan:

... complete with flash videos. Oh the irony

What irony? There is no HTML5 substitute for the YouTube videos.

Originally posted by wikipedian:

Originally posted by Macallan:

... complete with flash videos. Oh the irony

What irony? There is no HTML5 substitute for the YouTube videos.

This one for example. And then you do know who owns youtube these days, do you?

I'm not too concerned with tracking cookies since I can easily dump it / delete it.

Still missing the point. Ah well.

Once upon a time, "They're after me, they're following me" was almost exclusively the cry of the paranoid. Now, it's a cry that can be taken up by anybody who uses Google. Welcome to the brave new world. And get your tinfoil hats here.

Originally posted by mjmsprt40:

Once upon a time, "They're after me, they're following me" was almost exclusively the cry of the paranoid. Now, it's a cry that can be taken up by anybody who uses Google. Welcome to the brave new world. And get your tinfoil hats here.

And Facebook or just about any social networks.

It's not only the Internet. Abusive control it's already taking place over too much aspects of citizen's day to day life.

I use the subway because it's very practical for me. So, since I was paying hundreds of euros monthly in subway tickets, I bought a card (it's a magnetic card with a microchip) that allows me to travel unlimitedly for 30 days just for 35 euros. What happens is that for buying the card you have to identify yourself. And simple as this, all your movements around town are registered into the system.

I was speaking with a friend that works for the company that implemented that system and telling him that that was totally abusive. He told me that the system has another feature, you enter someone card's number and the person will be always automatically photographed at all the subway network by video surveillance cameras without even knowing that that's happening.

People don't even imagine what is already being done against their personal freedom, and the justification is always the same, it's for your own safety. Safety will kill us all.

I use something called "I-Pass". It's a radio device that fits in your car's windshield and allows you to drive the tollways without having to stop and pay the toll--it's done automatically. You drive through the gates, their equipment "reads" your tag and deducts the toll paid from your account. "I-Pass" is good in Illinois, Indiana and much of the East Coast (territories covered by I-Pass, I Zoom and EZ Pass). Obviously, not having to stop to pay the toll makes the trip faster (and in Illinois, it costs less too) but of course the downside is that if you're trying to travel incognito, you can forget about the tollway system because these tags track your car's movement on the tollway system. Example: I get an order making a delivery in Philadelphia. I pick up in Aurora, Illinois, then get on the tollway here. I-Pass tracks me through the state down to the 183rd Street plaza on the Tri-State Tollway. I get on the Indiana Turnpike, and I-Zoom tracks me through Indiana. Entering Ohio, EZ-Pass tracks me from there through Ohio and Pennsylvania. Then back again. They know where my vehicle was and when I was there, at least as far as the tollgates are concerned.

I use a cellphone too, and as anybody who has kept up with the technology knows these things have their own tracking issues. They're able to pinpoint where your signal is coming from. Good in an emergency (like, when you've gone into a ditch and need help) maybe not so good if somebody wants to get snoopy on you and find where you've been.

Hiding is getting more difficult in the digital age. Not impossible though. If you're willing to cut the digital umbilical cord, it's still entirely possible to disappear in plain sight. Question: Can you do without all the stuff that modern society tells you that you must have?

Originally posted by mjmsprt40:

Question: Can you do without all the stuff that modern society tells you that you must have?

Yes, we can.

That "I-pass" you refer for cars we also have it and that is one of those things that I refuse to have, even if very practical for not stopping at tolls.

Originally posted by mjmsprt40:

Hiding is getting more difficult in the digital age. Not impossible though. If you're willing to cut the digital umbilical cord, it's still entirely possible to disappear in plain sight.

It is not possible to have a system that controls everyone, but what is being mounted is a system that controls 95% of people without possible escape.
For the remaining 5% of us, the problem is how to use the benefits without having the problems associated to digital control. That card for the subway I said, if for some reason I want to go somewhere without being traced, I just don't use it and buy a simple ticket. Problem solved, but most people don't even think about that.

Do you believe that either already today or at a very near future all this info will be registered, analyzed and processed by super computers and it will be crossed with internet usage habits and content?
If yes, there's no option but to fight it. If you don't think so, you are being cheated.

Originally posted by Belfrager:

I use the subway because it's very practical for me. So, since I was paying hundreds of euros monthly in subway tickets, I bought a card (it's a magnetic card with a microchip) that allows me to travel unlimitedly for 30 days just for 35 euros. What happens is that for buying the card you have to identify yourself. And simple as this, all your movements around town are registered into the system.

Right now we have a subscription that allows us to just get on and if tickets are checked that's that, but I believe that within a couple of years we'll get a similar system. I'm not looking forward to having to "validate" my unlimited travel subscription all the time, if they implement it in a manner similar to the Netherlands (which is, indeed, aimed at tracking movement rather than traveler comfort, to some extent killing the goodness of the 1913 law of common public transit cards).

Not to speak about this irritating Google's request for having my phone number when I access to Gmail.
I only give my phone number to beautiful women, get it Google?

I certainly didn't give them mine. Btw, you could try the alternative https://mail.opera.com (I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that I personally use Gmail at present.)

Originally posted by Frenzie:

Btw, you could try the alternative https://mail.opera.com

Well... we were all forced to use it since it substituted PM...
But I recognize that's a better solution and a nice light and functional mail for Opera users. However, regarding private data, Opera has a few things that don't satisfy me too much. As the trouble you have for deleting your account or, regarding the mail, where's the privacy policy?

Originally posted by Belfrager:

Well... we were all forced to use it since it substituted PM...

True, I forgot they did that the other day. If you wanted to you could've been using it for about a year already though.

Originally posted by Belfrager:

As the trouble you have for deleting your account or, regarding the mail, where's the privacy policy?

The same as at the bottom of the forum. http://www.opera.com/privacy/#webmail Dunno why it's not listed in a similar manner at the bottom of the webmail.

I use the Opera mail but fetches it through POP3 to my Gmail account

Originally posted by Belfrager:

I only give my phone number to beautiful women, get it Google?

Link now and she'll always know where to find you...

Originally posted by ensbb3:

Link now and she'll always know where to find you...

Uhmm maybe I'll reconsider my position about Google... I don't care if she's the devil, I'll gladly sell my soul...
12 345 678 910, here you have it babe

Those letters look as if in danger of falling off.....?

Posting it in public means that anybody can use the data, because it's the only realistic option. What goes in the internet, stays in the internet.

Originally posted by beiren:

Posting it in public means that anybody can use the data, because it's the only realistic option. What goes in the internet, stays in the internet.

Yeah but I didn't post the contacts in my phone to the Internet. What gives google the right to do anything with that information?

Originally posted by rjhowie:

Those letters look as if in danger of falling off.....?

Nope, the letters are putted there by American marketeers, for fulfilling American teenager's dreams.
Which means 99% of the local population's mental age target.

We just have to dissimulate that we don't know it, rjhowie. Do I have to explain you everything orangist?

Originally posted by ensbb3:

Originally posted by beiren:

Posting it in public means that anybody can use the data, because it's the only realistic option. What goes in the internet, stays in the internet.

Yeah but I didn't post the contacts in my phone to the Internet. What gives google the right to do anything with that information?

Nothing. You didn't post it in public, after all.