Computers, Privacy & the Constitution

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DanielHarrisFirstPaper 13 - 16 Apr 2009 - Main.DanielHarris
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What’s the Real Issue?

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<		I suspect that opposition to contactless smart cards stems from the idea that, when used for identification, they make life too easy. The user wants to be able to get through his day; the privacy advocate might rather see cumbersome identification technology hassle the user out of his complacency. The question is whether we should be requiring identification at all (or using payment cards rather than cash). Fighting that question on the merits would take more than 1,000 words, but going by Octopus’s uptake and our use of mobile phones we can assume that convenience is a compelling, perhaps deciding factor. The energies of privacy advocates will be better spent education people about their exposure to privacy-invasion and lobbying for a legal framework protective of privacy: it’s too easy to look like an irrelevant Luddite when you’re smashing chips and playing with tinfoil.
>
>		I suspect that opposition to contactless smart cards stems from the idea that, when used for identification, they make life too easy. The user wants to be able to get through his day; the privacy advocate might rather see cumbersome identification technology hassle the user out of his complacency. The question is whether we should be requiring identification at all (or using payment cards rather than cash). Fighting that question on the merits would take more than 1,000 words, but going by Octopus’s uptake and our use of mobile phones we can assume that convenience is a compelling, perhaps deciding factor. The energies of privacy advocates will be better spent educating people about their exposure to privacy-invasion and lobbying for a legal framework protective of privacy: it’s too easy to look like an irrelevant Luddite when you’re smashing chips and playing with tinfoil.
 

Revision 13r13 - 16 Apr 2009 - 01:36:04 - DanielHarris
Revision 12r12 - 15 Apr 2009 - 19:55:47 - EbenMoglen
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