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Content type: Examples
Ohio teenager Aaron Ogletree has won a lawsuit he filed against Cleveland State University after he was required to pan a webcam around his bedroom to eliminate possible cheating before taking a remote exam.
The court agreed that Ogletree's Fourth Amendment rights were violated by the scanning requirement, which briefly exposed tax documents and medications. The university has filed an appeal and in the meantime has told students that they will not be permitted to take remotely proctored…
Content type: Examples
In a 2010 case, the Lower Merion school district in suburban Philadelphia school district agreed to pay $610,000 to settle two lawsuits brought by students who had discovered that the webcams attached to their school-issued laptops had secretly taken hundreds of photographs of them in their homes along with hundreds of screen shots. In one of the cases, a teenaged boy was accused of popping pills; in fact, he was eating jelly beans.
https://www.wired.com/2010/10/webcam-spy-settlement/
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Content type: Examples
Even though schools are back in session in person, their teachers can still monitor the screens on their school-issued devices via software such as GoGuardian. In a new report from the Center for Democracy and Technology, 89% of teachers say their schools will continue to use student-monitoring software, up from 84% in 2021, raising worries about how the data will be used in a climate increasingly hostile towards abortion and LGBTQ+ issues.
CDT also reports that 44% of teachers say that at…
Content type: Examples
A new report from the education news site The 74 Million finds that in-school digital surveillance programs are flagging LGBTQ+ content as "pornographic". For example, Gaggle, comprehensive monitoring software implemented in the Minneapolis public school system, has led administrators to notify parents that their children's submissions have been flagged, without context, for mentioning suicide, gay, and lesbian. Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ed Markey (D-MA), and Richard…
Content type: Examples
Following the US Supreme Court's Dobbs decision that paved the way for states to enact legislation criminalising abortion, health advocates warn that the surveillance software schools use to algorithmically monitor students' messages and search terms could be weaponised against teens looking for reproductive health care. These systems can automatically alert school administrators, parents, or police when they detect "dangerous behaviour", which may include anything from imminent suicide…
Content type: Examples
Emails obtained by EFF show that the Los Angeles Police Department contacted Amazon Ring owners specifically asking for footage of protests against racist police violence that took place across the US in the summer of 2020. LAPD signed a formal partnership with Ring and its associated "Neighbors" app in May 2019. Requests for Ring footage typically include the name of the detective, a description of the incident under investigation, and a time period. If enough people in a neighbourhood agree…
Content type: Examples
The 20 years since the 9/11 attacks have fundamentally changed the way the New York Police Department operates, leading it to use facial recognition software, licence plate readers, and mobile X-ray vans, among other surveillance tools for both detecting and blocking potential terrorist attacks and solving minor crimes. Surveillance drones monitor mass protests, antiterrorism officers interrogate protesters, and the NYPD’s Intelligence Division uses antiterror tactics against gang violence and…
Content type: News & Analysis
Today Apple announced a set of measures aimed at improving child safety in the USA. While well-intentioned, their plans risk opening the door to mass surveillance around the world while arguably doing little to improve child safety.
Among the measures, Apple has announced that it is to introduce “on-device machine learning” which would analyse attachments for sexually explicit material, send a warning, and begin scanning every photo stored on its customers’ iCloud in order to detect child…
Content type: Examples
US Customs and Border Protection Data show that the Department of Homeland Security deployed helicopters, airplanes, and drones over 15 cities, including New York City, Buffalo, Dayton OH, and Philadelphia, where demonstrators assembled to protest the killing of George Floyd and collected at least 270 hours of video surveillance footage. That deployment, which sparked a congressional inquiry, was only part of a nationwide operation that repurposed resources usually sent to the US border to find…
Content type: Examples
According to records obtained under a freedom of information request, the San Francisco Police Department used the camera network belonging to downtown Union Square Improvement District to spy on protesters during the end of May and early June 2020. The high-definition cameras, manufactured by Motorola brand Avigilon, can zoom in on a person's face and are linked to a software analysis system. Motorola is expanding its tool lineup to make it easier for police to gain access to private cameras…
Content type: Examples
A surveillance plane flown by the Florida Highway Patrol circled repeatedly over a news conference in which two civil rights lawyers announced a lawsuit against local police and demanded a federal investigation into the killing of two unarmed black teenagers. Publicly available flight data confirmed the flight path. Surveillance flights over protests against police brutality have been dployed by law enforcement agencies in Washington, DC, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, and Portland, Oregon.
https://…
Content type: Examples
In response to an FOI request, US Customs and Border Patrol released the video collected by a Predator drone it flew for 90 minutes at a height of 6,000 feet over the Minneapolis protests following the murder of George Floyd. CBP has been repeatedly found engaging in this type of surveillance; past such efforts have included the homes of indigenous pipeline activists. The video mostly shows clouds over the city.
https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2021/04/cbp-releases-video-from-predator-drone-deployed…
Content type: Examples
As the long Minnesota winter came to an end in March 2021, both protesters and police began preparing for the beginning of tunneling work to build the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline. Intended to update the decaying previous structure and double its capacity. Police practiced a variety of crowd control tactics and countering different types of imagined threats, honing their strategies by monitoring social media.
https://theintercept.com/2021/03/23/enbridge-line-3-mississippi-minnesota-police/…
Content type: Examples
Police in Phoenix, Arizona called leaders of a peaceful protest in October 2020 "targets" while surveilling them with drones, cameras, and vehicles. ABC15 found that police and prosecutors collaborated to charge protesters as a "criminal street gang". Although the charges were later dropped, protest leaders said they had a chilling effect on later protests and caused them to change tactics.
https://www.abc15.com/news/local-news/investigations/protest-arrests/phoenix-police-called-protesters-…
Content type: Examples
Over 2020, EFF supported the right to protest without being surveilled by bringing lawsuits, offering protesters legal support, teaching protesters surveillance self-defence, and providing tools for people on the ground to use to determine what equipment their local police departments are using to spy on activists. Via public records requests, EFF discovered that the San Francisco Police Department gained access to over 400 cameras belonging to the Union Square Business Improvement District to…
Content type: Examples
When Dallas police posted on Twitter asking for videos of the protests taking place after George Floyd's killing, a flood of videos and images of K-pop stars were uploaded to its anonymous iWatch Dallas tip-off app. Law enforcement can call on vast numbers of networked cameras - from cars, food and retail chains that are typically willing to share with police, law enforcement agencies' own networks of surveillance and body cameras as well as object and face recognition software, protesters and…
Content type: Examples
Despite having promised in 2016 not to facilitate domestic surveillance, the AI startup Dataminr used its firehose access to Twitter to alert law enforcement to social media posts with the latest whereabouts and actions of demonstrators involved in the protests following the killing of George Floyd. Dataminr's investors include the CIA and, previously, Twitter itself. Twitter's terms of service ban software developers from tracking or monitoring protest events. Some alerts were sourced from…
Content type: Examples
Following the January 6 invasion of the US Capitol Building, federal law enforcement used a wide variety of surveillance technologies to track down participants, including facial recognition, licence plate readers, policy body cameras, and cellphone tracking. While many of the people being tracked and charged are members of white supremacist groups, human rights organizations such as ACLU and EFF are concerned that the level of surveillance was excessive and poses a threat to peaceful protests…
Content type: Examples
New data emerged in January 2021 to show that the National Guard deployment of more than 43,350 troops during the nationwide demonstrations following the killing of George Floyd was far more extensive than had been realised, and far greater than the 6,200 troops deployed at the Capitol during the forewarned insurrection. At least 20 military surveillance and reconnaissance helicopters flew over protests in Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Atlanta, and Washington DC, raising concerns about the data…
Content type: Examples
Hundreds of emails and documents obtained in response to a freedom of information request by BuzzFeed News show that US federal agents monitored social media for information on planned Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Minneapolis, Washington DC, Los Angeles, and other cities. Researchers and activists (such as EFF) warned that technology-driven surveillance of protesters could set a dangerous precedent and chill assembly and speech, particularly in the case of Black Lives Matter. The…
Content type: Examples
Human rights activists and Democratic members of the US Congress wrote to top law enforcement officials in the Trump administration to demand they cease surveilling Americans engaging in peaceful protests. Trump and others in his administration called those protesting the killing of George Floyd "domestic terrorists" and "anarchists". Recent efforts to surveil Americans have included facial recognition, automated licence plate readers, and Stingrays, as well as spy planes and drones.
https://…
Content type: Examples
During the Black Lives Matter protests of summer 2020, US police took advantage of a lack of regulation and new technologies to expand the scope of people and platforms they monitor; details typically emerge through lawsuits, public records disclosures, and stories released by police department PR as crime prevention successes. A report from the Brennan Center for Justice highlights New York Police Department threats to privacy, freedom of expression, and due process and the use of a predator…
Content type: Report
In Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. Department of Defense developed its biometric program in confluence with US military operations in. Its expansion was tightly linked to the goals of military commanders during the “War on Terror”: to distinguish insurgents and terrorists from the local civilian population. This research shows how the DOD’s biometric programme was developed and implemented without prior assessment of its human rights impact and without the safeguards necessary to prevent its…
Content type: Examples
In the spring of 2020 the Trump administration pushed FEMA to award more than $760 million in contracts, bypassing the usual bidding process. The largest of these was a White House-ordered March $96 million no-bid contract to AirBoss of America for 100,000 powered respirators and filters for medical workers treating patients in New York for delivery in July. More than a quarter of the federal government’s more than 2,000 orders worth nearly $2.5 billion were signed without competitive bidding…
Content type: Examples
As a condition of returning campus, all 1,500 students at Michigan’s Albion College were required to download and install a contact tracing app called Aura, which was developed by Pennsylvania-based Nucleus Careers and tracks students’ real time locations 24/7 with no opt-out. collects and stores location data to determine whether a student has come into contact with someone who has tested positive for the virus. Students are also not allowed to leave campus without permission, and can be…
Content type: Examples
Florida law graduates are reporting that they have encountered significant data breaches, including attempted hacks on bank accounts, as a result of using software from Missouri-based ILG Technologies that they were required to download in order to take the bar exam virtually, a necessity because of the pandemic. The online test was later cancelled, but since then would-be test takers have reported attempts originating from Russia to access sensitive accounts and, in a few cases, having their…
Content type: Examples
The California bill AB2004 would direct the state to set up a blockchain-based system for immunity passports that would empower the California Department of Consumer Affairs to authorise health care providers to issue verifiable health credentials that could be used to grant or deny access to public places. The bill is scant on detail such as how long a credential should be valid, how it should be updated, or how it can be revoked following exposure. The use of phones for these credentials…
Content type: Examples
Numerous US colleges are forcing students to download location-tracking apps or wear symptom-tracking devices, many of them similar to tracking systems student athletes are often required to install on their phones. Tracking athletes did little to help them gain either an education or a professional career and backfired when they bypassed the system to reclaim some privacy. Tracking the student body at large is likely to follow suit, with dangerous consequences for public health. In addition,…
Content type: Examples
After discovering that the online platform for virtual learning Edgenuity uses an algorithm to grade tests comprising short-answer question, students and their parents have learned to game the system by writing extra sentences and adding a list of keywords that the algorithm is likely to be scanning for. Edgenuity offers more than 300 online classes for secondary school students that include instruction videos, virtual assignments - and tests and exams. Others have discovered that simply…
Content type: Examples
Students arriving for the fall semester at the University of Arizona were required on arrival to take a rapid COVID-19 test. Those testing negative could proceed to move into their dorms and begin campus life; those testing positive were required to spend ten days in a special isolation dorm and take classes online. The university also set up wastewater sampling to provide an early warning system to detect emerging hot spots. The system enabled the university to detect and isolate two cases…