Ethics paper 2

Paper 2: Eavesdropping or Facebook-collected data

Pick one topic.
Due: June 24. Your paper must be submitted electronically, either via email or through the Blackboard digital dropbox.

Eavesdropping

Phone calls are easy to record now; with VoIP calls, this can potentially be done entirely in software. Just about everyone carries a video camera with them. Laptops can act as remote recorders. Do we need laws protecting our privacy by restricting such recording, or is the ubiquity of such recording possibly even beneficial? For example, as I write this, jurors are debating the future of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich; at his trial, recorded evidence played a major role.

In Italy, you cannot video someone without their consent, even outdoors (we'll get to the Google convictions based on that law later). In California, you cannot record telephone conversations without the consent of both parties, even if the party doing the recording is calling California from a state where single-party recording is legal. In Illinois, it is illegal to make an audio recording of anyone without their consent, even if they are in a public place (there is an exception for recording by the police). While most prosecutions under the Illinois law to date have been for recording of the police, the law clearly has broader coverage. There is a long tradition of upholding still photography without consent if it was done in a public place, but this appears to be the result of absence of regulation.

In your paper, discuss the tradeoffs between our right to privacy versus the right to record for noncommercial use. Maintaining our "public persona" at all times is exhausting; constantly fearing that our next fumble or off-the-cuff remark will end up on Facebook or Youtube is exhausting. <sarcasm>And large companies such as BP may suffer financial damage if people photograph the oil on the beaches.</sarcasm> On the other hand, here are a few possible justifications for recording; can you think of some others?

Private collection of evidence about bribery shakedowns
Recording of public figures
Recording of public scenes
Desire to have a permanent record of a conversation, perhaps to protect our rights
Protecting ourselves against later accusations of misconduct
Incidental recording of people when we were trying to record something else

Commercial use of still images may require a "model release", but that's a separate area.

If you don't come down solidly on one side or the other, consider trying to identify some compromise positions. Are there situations where recording of others in public should be prohibited? Are there some contexts where recording should be forbidden, or others in which it should be allowed? What about the differences between audio and video? Between requiring consent, notice, or nothing at all? What about "private" recording versus posting of the video? Keep in mind the great power of Internet video gone viral, and of audio recordings to settle definitively who said what.

Facebook-collected data

Facebook collect lots of information about you. Much of it you intentionally gave to them; this is the "user-posted" content. But some is less obvious, or "Facebook-collected". On Facebook's privacy policy (http://www.facebook.com/policy.php (the version I read was dated Dec 2010), they refer to this as Information we collect when you interact with Facebook. For example,

Facebook knows whose pages you have been visiting. Currently they allow "anonymous" browsing. But they could make the information available directly, either through a "who has viewed you" widget that the other party can use, or else by some indirect means. For example, if B is visiting A's page regularly, then Facebook might increase the rate at which B's wall posts are propagated to A.
Facebook has all your message history (which many people use instead of email). Not only do they have the messages, but they have lists of who you write to regularly.
Facebook knows a lot about your location. They know your approximate location through IP geolocation if you're connecting from home, work or a cafe
If you use Facebook from a GPS-equipped smartphone then they (and perhaps your friends!) know your location pretty much exactly, and pretty much minute by minute.

Discuss the ethical obligations of Facebook (and similar commercial services) to its user community regarding privacy for this Facebook-collected data, versus user-posted data. For the latter, Facebook supplies privacy options but has claimed in the past that if those options do not meet your needs then you can always refuse to share information simply by quitting Facebook entirely. Is that approach reasonable for Facebook-collected data? Is there any other obligation? After all, you may not even be aware Facebook has the information about your browsing history and your location. Should such information be covered by "opt-in" rules, or is "opt-out" sufficient (ie Facebook does what they want unless you explicitly deny access)?

Note that, when it comes to much of your user-posted data (eg profile picture, your schools, and other basic identifying information), Facebook's interest in encouraging you to make this information widely shared is basically that it makes it easier for others to find you, thus increasing the number of user interactions and thus the overall Facebook usage and thus potential advertising revenue. Facebook is interested in growing its service, and to that end it is important to make publicly available as much information as possible that allows people to find friends.

For user-posted data, Facebook has a history of changing the fine print of their privacy policies. In major cases, they have sometimes required users to click "ok" in order to continue using Facebook (or at least "ok, I have understood the policy and will remove any information I do not want shared"). For the above Facebook-collected data, can the same rules work, or do any special rules apply? Should users be given an option to delete or otherwise manage the information? How much explanation does Facebook owe its users as to the existenceof this data? Is Facebook within its rights to say "take it or leave it; sharing this is required for continued use of Facebook"? Some Facebook-collected data may continue to exist even after you have deleted your account; may Facebook still use it? Does Facebook have an "ownership" interest in it? The Facebook privacy policy cited above does mention most Facebook-collected data, but doesn't appear to address what the rules are. Should it? Are the rules under "How we share information" sufficient?

When making ethical arguments in a business context, it is often helpfucebook's earliest controversial decisions was the creation of "mini-feeds", a mechanism that notifies you whenever any of your Friends updates his or her page. Today, this feature is widely accepted as reasonable, but see the analysis in the sidebar on page 55 of Baasel to recognize that ethical behavior can be closely tied to a business's own long-term self-interest. That is, Facebook would wish to avoid alienating its user base, and also would wish to avoid unforeseen liabilities.

While you may consider privacy for conventional user-posted data by way of comparison, to some degree your primary focus should be on the "Facebook-collected" data.

As an example of past Facebook privacy issues, one of Facebook's earliest controversial decisions was the creation of "mini-feeds", a mechanism that notifies you whenever any of your Friends updates his or her page. Today, this feature is widely accepted as reasonable, but see the analysis in the sidebar on page 55 of Baase.

Your paper will be graded primarily on organization (that is, how you lay out your sequence of paragraphs), focus (that is, whether you stick to the topic), and the nature and completeness of your arguments.

It is essential that all material from other sources be enclosed in quotation marks (or set off as a block quote), and preferably with a citation to the original source as well.

Expected length: 3-5 pages (800+ words)