After sitting below a pile of trade journals on my nightstand for the past couple weeks, I finally got the chance to peruse the latest edition of Car and Driver magazine last night. Normally, their articles give me a chance to escape the information technology space to spend time ogling the latest automotive advances. Like many people, I often enjoy reading about things I have no need for and will surely never have sitting in my garage ─ an F150 with a plow is way more useful for me than a Ferrari.
Automotive magazines normally give me that separation from the real world. That is, until I read the article Screen-Plate Club: How License-Plate Scanning Compromises Your Privacy. With video cameras on many city street corners and in most businesses, schools and shopping centers, we’ve become an extremely trackable society. Location applications in smartphones and vehicles let anyone with the right skills know where we are and where we were with little or no effort.
Without noticing and, in many instances, without caring, we have given away some of our privacy rights. To be fair, it’s much easier for government entities to find and track suspected terrorists today. Police are more likely to have crime scene footage today, with clear images of the culprit. Safety officials can respond faster after reviewing videos of workplace accidents, and lawyers have more evidence handy to make sure they do!
Most private citizens seem to have little concern with all these location devices and cameras, especially when they’re used for the greater good (public safety), but what happens when they learn private companies are not only accessing the data, but selling it to others? The Car and Driver article mentions several businesses that are doing just that, in some cases skirting federal and state laws to build databases they can sell commercially. While public safety officials need a court order to get this type of information, private organizations are often free to sell it with few, if any restrictions.
Potential Risks for the Channel
License plate readers mounted on tow trucks and other vehicles are capturing a large amount of data today. While they’re taking just a single snapshot from every vehicle they pass, when that image is uploaded and compiled using specially-designed software, driving and parking patterns emerge and exceptions can be noted. That’s where big data comes in, allowing businesses to build and reconcile a massive amount of information, including the millions of plate numbers and locations currently being collected by towing companies and other contractors.
While matching that information with DMV records surely helps police and repossession companies find specific vehicles, in the wrong hands it could be a major safety concern. What would a burglar or stalker pay to have this kind of information? Whether they obtain data legally through an approved supplier or buy it from a hacker, the current situation and systems are primed for misuse.
These types of information gathering applications bring up a variety of ethical issue that channel companies offering surveillance and similarly designed public safety solutions have to be thinking about. What are the moral and legal repercussions to those who build these systems and what obligations do they have to their end customers and the general public? If their solutions capture images or compile information on private individuals, could they be drawn into civil litigation or be fined for misuse by their customers?
People often become quite passionate when discussing their privacy rights ─ and for good reason. We all have certain expectations of what others should know about our homes, families and actions. While that line varies, companies need to be open and honest about what their systems can and can’t do, the types of information they collect and what they do with that data. Those working in the financial and healthcare industries have had to address those types of concerns over the past few years and the IT community may be forced to follow similar disclosure and privacy rules in the future.
It may not be long before the higher courts are asked to weigh in on what businesses can and can’t do with these applications as well. Those responsibilities remain somewhat murky. That’s why channel organizations should be aware of all the potential moral and legal implications associated with surveillance and physical security solutions. Technologies that can easily identify a user’s location, including the latest wearable devices, should be assumed to have an associated risk.
What’s your company’s legal exposure? Do you present customers with disclosures related to the information being captured by your solutions, or help them provide similar documents to their end users? Channel firms that want to minimize their exposure should check out the CompTIA Legal Services Program. It’s a cost effective way channel organizations can get the specific professional advice and support services they need to
While the legal and financial liabilities are rather low right now, solution providers offering these solutions should keep engaged in the conversation. Legislators are already proposing regulations on certain location and video-enabled technologies. Several states have bills pending that limit the use of license plate readers. And the New Jersey House of Representatives recently introduced legislation that would allow municipalities to require the registration of all private outdoor video surveillance cameras.
Privacy concerns, whether real or imaginary, are gaining a lot of attention these days. It’s an ethical issue solution providers have to pay attention to, especially with the advanced capabilities of the latest technologies.
Brian Sherman is principal consultant at Tech Success Communications, an IT channel business development and marketing firm. He served previously as chief editor at Business Solutions magazine and senior director of industry alliances with Autotask. Contact Brian at Bsherman@techsuccesscommunications.com.
