Wireless ISP Starry Says It Will Apply California's Privacy Requirements Nationwide

from the swimming-with-the-currents dept

Like Microsoft, wireless startup Starry -- the brain child of Aereo creator Chet Kanojia -- has decided to view the public's desire for solid privacy rules as a marketing opportunity instead of something to ceaselessly undermine or whine about.

Knowing that the telecom giants they're hoping to disrupt have an abysmal record on privacy, Starry has announced that, like Microsoft, it will be using California's looming privacy law as a template for its business nationwide. While California's looming law is admittedly under-cooked and needs some major revisions before serious enforcement begins later next year (it takes effect in January but won't be seriously enforced until June), Starry, which is slowly pushing uncapped wireless service to major metro areas around the US, announced it's going to adhere to its core principles in every state it does business.

That includes getting permission before sharing data, being transparent about what data is being collected and who it's sold to, and giving consumers at least some passing control over what data is already stored (largely mirroring the FCC broadband privacy rules industry lobbyists killed in 2016). Both Starry and Microsoft seem to understand that after an endless sea of corporate privacy scandals and incompetence, the public wants at least some baseline privacy protections, and swimming against that sentiment is going to prove counterproductive:

"Inevitably, there will be grumblings that these common-sense privacy principles are too simple, or conversely, that they go too far. To us, this is a starting point, a baseline from where we believe all companies need to begin, not necessarily end, when it comes to consumer privacy. We prioritize privacy because it’s the right thing to do, even if it means we give up short term opportunities and shortcuts. In today’s climate, that can be a hard choice to make – but it’s not."

There are any number of companies (AT&T, Facebook) that claim they support the US having an actual privacy law for the internet era, but you shouldn't be fooled. In reality, what they want is a law their lawyers write, filled with so many loopholes as to be utterly useless, with one real goal: pre-empting tougher, better state or federal efforts. They don't really want a meaningful law, since any law worth its weight would inform and educate consumers, who'd in turn opt out of data collection and monetization, costing them billions.

It goes without saying that building a meaningful US privacy law for the internet era is going to be an unholy mess courtesy of Congressional Luddites and corrupt lawmakers and cross-sector lobbyists who'll attempt to undermine the process at every conceivable opportunity. The alternative however is to just keep stumbling idiotically down the path we're on, which as Facebook, Equifax, the DMV and countless others make very clear, involves giant corporations and government agencies routinely trampling your privacy rights then seeing little to no penalty as a result.

At least some companies seem to realize that swimming against the current is a waste of calories, the quest for some basic privacy rules are an opportunity to compete on privacy and ethics, and there might be some PR benefit in winning the support of a very pissed off US public.

Filed Under: broadband, california, ccpa, privacy
Companies: starry

California Makes $50 Million Annually Selling Your DMV Data

from the dysfunction-junction dept

Earlier this year leaked data revealed that the Department of Motor Vehicles in numerous states has spent years selling citizen data to a laundry list of third parties, often without making such financial relationships or data transfers clear to patrons. Some of the data wound up being sold to the usual suspects (auto insurance and credit reporting companies being the most obvious), but much of it is routinely sold to more dubious third-party outfits and private investigators, which fairly obviously poses a risk to folks dealing with stalkers and psychotic exes.

A new report this week revealed that the California DMV alone is making $50 million annually selling this data to a laundry list of companies and third parties:

"In a public record acts request, Motherboard asked the California DMV for the total dollar amounts paid by commercial requesters of data for the past six years. The responsive document shows the total revenue in financial year 2013/14 as $41,562,735, before steadily climbing to $52,048,236 in the financial year 2017/18.

The document doesn't name the commercial requesters, but some specific companies appeared frequently in Motherboard's earlier investigation that looked at DMVs across the country. They included data broker LexisNexis and consumer credit reporting agency Experian. Motherboard also found DMVs sold information to private investigators, including those who are hired to find out if a spouse is cheating. It is unclear if the California DMV has recently sold data to these sorts of entities."

Granted all of this is perfectly legal due to the Driver's Privacy Protection Act (DPPA), a 90's law that critics say is in dire need of an update. That law was created in response to a series of abuses of DMV data, including the 1989 murder of actress Rebecca Schaeffer, after her killer obtained her home address from the DMV. And while the law was intended to stop the abuse of DMV data, it contained (surprise!) plenty of intentional loopholes making it okay to sell this data to a wide variety of individuals, including PIs, bail bondsmen, and consumer credit reporting agencies.

While the data sold can vary from state to state, it generally includes names, addresses, zip codes, dates of birth, phone numbers, and email addresses. Past leaks have shown that the Wisconsin DMV, for example, has personal data sales relationships with more than 3,100 different entities, and that the sale of this data is hugely profitable. California, for its part, insisted that it was doing everything it could to ensure this data isn't abused:

"The DMV takes its obligation to protect personal information very seriously. Information is only released pursuant to legislative direction, and the DMV continues to review its release practices to ensure information is only released to authorized persons/entities and only for authorized purposes. The DMV also audits requesters to ensure proper audit logs are maintained and that employees are trained in the protection of DMV information and anyone having access to this information sign a security document."

But if you hadn't noticed by now, these kinds of promises, be they coming from the DMV or Equifax, haven't been worth all that much. And when and if the data is leaked and abused, the penalties are usually a far cry from the profit made from selling this kind of data in the first place.

Filed Under: california, dmv, privacy, profit, selling information

Journalists Publish List Of Convicted Cops The State's Attorney General Said Was Illegal For Them To Have

from the bluff-called dept

The list of convicted cops the California Attorney General tried to keep secret has just been made searchable by the Sacramento Bee. It contains hundreds of current and former police officers who've been convicted of criminal acts over the last ten years.

This collaboration of multiple newsrooms and journalism advocates began with an unforced error by a state agency. Taking advantage of a new state law allowing the public to access police misconduct records, journalists asked the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training for relevant documents. The agency handed over a list of 12,000 former and current officers -- a list that apparently was never supposed to be made public.

The state's Attorney General claimed the journalists had broken the law simply by possessing a document the Commission never should have given them. This couldn't be further from the truth, but AG Xavier Becerra continued to make this claim, as though it were possible to codify something just by saying it out loud often enough.

I can see why AG Becerra wants this list buried. There's nothing on it that makes cops or their oversight (which includes Becerra) look good. While the 12,000 officers in the database are a small percentage of the total number of California law enforcement officers employed over the past ten years, this small portion includes a number of cops who were never fired from their agencies despite committing criminal acts that would have put regular people out of a job.

Reporters found at least a dozen deputies with prior convictions are still on the roster at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. And the five officers with convictions working for the Riverside police include the acting chief — Larry Gonzalez was a lieutenant in 2013 when he pleaded guilty to DUI after reportedly crashing a city-owned SUV with a blood-alcohol level nearly twice the legal limit.

There’s a Kern County Sheriff’s deputy still working despite a conviction for manslaughter after running over two people while recklessly speeding to a call. And a Santa Clara County Sheriff’s deputy is back on the force after dozing off at the wheel and killing a pair of elite cyclists on a training ride.

Sheriff's departments are especially fond of hiring and retaining the worst people. They're the agencies most willing to overlook long histories of misconduct and the most hesitant to hand down significant punishments when laws are broken by law enforcers on their payroll. The L.A. Sheriff's Department is filled with suspicious individuals who hang out in a high crime area every time they show up at the office.

The list has been trimmed considerably since its surprising release to journalists. Due to the lack of cooperation from law enforcement agencies and the general sloppiness of large-scale bureaucracies, the names in the database are only those that have been verified by journalists. The original list had 12,000 names but the database only contains 630 current and former officers.

Even so, there's plenty to be concerned about. Some officers have multiple convictions but were never fired. Officers have driven drunk, left their children in cars with their loaded guns, and engaged in fraud. There's also lots of domestic abuse -- most of which has gone unaddressed by officers' employers.

Richard Sotelo was an Imperial County Sheriff’s Department correctional officer in February 2013 when he was charged with domestic violence for assaulting his estranged wife. He was allowed to keep working despite the pending charges. But months later he was accused of a crime again, this time sexual battery against a male co-worker. He was charged for that as well. Sotelo ultimately took plea deals and was convicted in both cases and left the force.

[...]

In one incident investigated by the Bell Police Department months before his reckless driving, [LAPD Officer David] Guerrero allegedly “threatened, assaulted and battered” a woman who was in a dispute with his girlfriend, according to court records.

“That’s how you do it, LAPD style,” Guerrero allegedly said as he drove away.

The DA’s office didn’t file charges. It also didn’t prosecute Guerrero in 2013 when he allegedly threatened to kill the mother of his child, court records show.

The recycling of California cops isn't going to stop unless the state legislature steps up and makes it possible for officers to lose their certification following a conviction. California is one of only five states with no decertification process, so officers can avoid accountability simply by drifting from agency to agency in the (apparently unlikely) event they've been fired. A few more firings will probably occur as a result of increased access to misconduct records, but that's hardly going to budge the needle when some agencies in the state have shown they don't feel staffing their departments with known criminals is a problem.

Filed Under: california, database, journalism, police, xavier becerra

Microsoft Says It's Cool With California's New Privacy Law

from the competing-on-privacy dept

We've made it abundantly clear that California's new privacy law is aggressively undercooked, and will require some very serious fine tuning if it's going to be workable for many California companies. At the same time, giant companies like Google, Comcast, and AT&T have spent a lot of time aggressively misrepresenting what the law actually does, running ads outright lying about the bill's impact, and downplaying the fact that states wouldn't be wading into the privacy waters if these companies hadn't lobbied to kill modest federal privacy requirements in the first place.

Whereas companies like Facebook have repeatedly and routinely tripped over themselves in almost dystiopian fashion to make their existing regulatory headaches worse, it has been interesting to watch Microsoft, steeled from its experiences in the late 90s, navigate the current minefield more deftly. That was on display again this week when Microsoft came out in seemingly total support of California's new privacy law, with a blog post by Chief Privacy Officer Julie Brill stating the company intends to apply its adherence to the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) law nationwide:

"CCPA marks an important step toward providing people with more robust control over their data in the United States. It also shows that we can make progress to strengthen privacy protections in this country at the state level even when Congress can’t or won’t act.

We are strong supporters of California’s new law and the expansion of privacy protections in the United States that it represents. Our approach to privacy starts with the belief that privacy is a fundamental human right and includes our commitment to provide robust protection for every individual."

It may just be that I've covered telecom companies like AT&T for too long, but it's interesting to note that nowhere in the blog post does Microsoft even fling so much as an underhanded, veiled criticism of California's efforts. It's a notable contrast to other Internet Association members, many of which have been running advertisements falsely claiming the bill will result in people having to pay per click just to access websites that used to be free:

While Microsoft is still a member of the group running these ads, the blog post seems to indicate at least a few people at Microsoft understand that this is a battle you're not going to win by swimming upstream or doubling down on idiotic behavior (oh hey Facebook, didn't see you standing there).

Outside of the problematic COPPA, there's no meaningful US privacy laws for the internet era, and the endless series of hacks, breaches, incompetence (like leaving private data in openly exposed Amazon cloud buckets) make it clear modern US industry is too incompetent to self regulate and we need at least some basic rules of the road on privacy. Yes, government dysfunction and corruption means it's going to be ugly as hell as we figure out what that looks like, but that doesn't somehow magically eliminate the necessity for some meaningful penalties for incompetent privacy-violating corporate giants.

Microsoft's clear support for existing efforts is a far cry from the response by companies like Facebook and AT&T. Both companies claim they want a federal privacy law, but what they really want is their lawyers to write a loophole-filled federal law with only one real purpose: to pre-empt any tougher state or federal measures. They're well aware that any good bill will result in informed, empowered consumers who'll opt out of snoopvertising, costing them billions, and their response is to try and undermine those efforts at every opportunity.

And while it's certainly possible Microsoft feels the same way and is just engaged in a convincing head fake here, it's also possible Microsoft seriously intends to actually compete on privacy, realizes the die is already cast thanks to an incredibly pissed off public, and knows that swimming against the tide is going to prove counterproductive and harmful to their brand--and their customers--over the longer haul.

Filed Under: california, ccpa, privacy
Companies: microsoft

Caifornia Governor Vetoes Law That Would Have Mandated Retention Of State Government Emails

from the passing-the-savings-on-to-you! dept

California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed off on some significant wins for state residents. He approved a bill banning the use of facial recognition tech in law enforcement body cameras -- the first such statewide ban in the United States. Well… I guess that's it really. To be fair, he hasn't been in office all that long.

He also signed off on a mostly-worthless police use of force reform bill and Hancocked a bill that will prevent "hollowing out the middle class" by hollowing out the middle class -- namely, freelance writers who will find it almost impossible to make a living under the state's gig economy law.

To sum up, Governor Newsom may be doing more harm than good this year. Let's hope things improve. One week after signing a bill that would eliminate (some) excessive public record duplication fees by allowing residents to take pictures of documents with their cellphones (rather than pay a public servant an exorbitant amount of money to run a copier), Newsom has restored a bit more opacity to the halls of power. Matthew Keys has the details:

California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a measure last weekend that would have required local governments to preserve copies of email records for disclosure under the state’s public records law.

The measure, Assembly Bill 1184, would have required local and state agencies to preserve communications sent by email for at least two years so that members of the public may inspect and copy them.

California government agencies have been arguing for years now that emails are not subject to the state's two-year retention period. Since they're not going to voluntarily retain records that many residents would certainly consider to be public records, the bill would have erased the faux confusion over government agency emails.

Instead of providing clarity, Governor Newsom went the other way, leaving it to individuals at individual agencies to make personal judgment calls on email retention… all in the interest of "striking a balance."

Expressing concern for the taxpayers he just screwed out of records, Newsom claims email retention is cost prohibitive.

Gov. Newsom said he was concerned that codifying a preservation requirement for email could require additional personnel and data management policies, the costs of which would be passed on to taxpayers.

But of course taxpayers would be expected to absorb the costs. This much taxpayers understand. They fund the agencies creating the records. They fund public records response efforts. They fund the creation of these emails -- the ones the governor has now decided they can't have access to.

With this veto, agencies have the official blessing to delete emails whenever they feel like it. They can alter policies and practices to ensure as many emails as possible are destroyed, putting them permanently out of reach. Transparency and accountability are great... but maybe they're just too expensive? This isn't logic. It's post hoc rationalization by a governor who's decided there should be a bit more distance between the government and governed.

Filed Under: california, emails, foia, gavin newsom, retention, transparency

Prager University Loses Another Of Its Silly Lawsuits Against YouTube Over Non-Existent 'Bias'

from the can-we-go-for-three? dept

Dennis Prager has been peddling complete and utter nonsense via his PragerU efforts for quite some time, and it expands beyond that too, because he's been peddling complete and utter nonsense in his still ongoing joke of a lawsuit against YouTube in which he tries to insist that YouTube is biased against conservatives because they put a small number of his videos in "restricted mode." This, despite the facts that (1) YouTube has no legal obligation to host his videos (for free!) in the first place, (2) less than 1.5% of people use "restricted mode" in the first place, (3) "Restricted mode" is to help parents block inappropriate content from kids, (4) the videos that were put into restricted mode had content that many would consider inappropriate for kids, and (5) most importantly, YouTube showed that many other sites -- including those that people consider to be "liberal" had their videos put in restricted mode at a much higher rate than PragerU.

Prager still sued, and a court tossed out the lawsuit with ease last year -- though Prager and his true believers keep pointing to it as some sort of "proof" even though it's not. The lawsuit is still ongoing, sort of. They appealed the original ruling, and the appeals court recently heard arguments in it. I would be shocked if the original ruling wasn't affirmed, but you never know (crazy 9th circuit and all...).

However, there was a separate case filed as well, in California state court. That's because when Judge Koh tossed out the federal case, she focused on all the nonsense federal claims, and noted that she was also tossing out the state claims without analysis, because without the federal claims the case didn't belong in federal court. So, PragerU turned around and sued in state court as well.

And now the state court has tossed out that lawsuit as well. The ruling is pretty thorough and makes fairly quick work of calling out PragerU's ridiculous legal theories for what they are. I've seen more than a few people kicked off of social media platforms insist that California law is on their side, based on some odd readings of both the California Constitution and the so-called Unruh Act. Prager uses both in this case (even though it's not even for being kicked off a platform, just moderated). And the court doesn't buy it. It laughs off the idea that California's constitutional protections of free speech mean YouTube is required to host your nonsense:

it is apparent that Prager does not state a claim under the California Constitution. Prager contends that “YouTube is the cyber equivalent of a town square where citizens exchange ideas on matters of public interest” and that defendants have opened their platform to the public by advertising its use for this purpose. However, Prager does not allege that it has been denied access to the core YouTube service. Rather, it urges that its access to “Restricted Mode” and YouTube’s advertising service has been restricted. Prager does not persuade the Court that these services are freely open to the public or are the functional equivalent of a traditional public forum like a town square or a central business district. Considering “the nature, purpose, and primary use of the property; the extent and nature of the public invitation to use the property; and the relationship between the ideas sought to be presented and the purpose of the property’s occupants” (Albertson’s, Inc. v. Young (2003) 107 Cal.App.4th at p. 119), it is clear that these services are nothing like a traditional public forum. “Restricted Mode” is an optional service that enables users to limit the content that they (or their children, patrons, or employees) view in order to avoid mature content. Limiting content is the very purpose of this service, and defendants do not give content creators unrestricted access to it or suggest that they will do so. The service exists to permit users to avoid the more open experience of the core YouTube service. Similarly, the use of YouTube’s advertising service is restricted to meet the preferences of advertisers.

And then of course there's Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act which the court rightly notes makes this entire case silly. What's interesting here is that the court actually does an analysis based on section (c)(2) of CDA 230. Nearly all CDA cases are based on section (c)(1), which is the part focused on correctly applying liability. (c)(2) is the part that directly talks about why sites should be free to moderate and not held liable for their own moderation choices. I've always found it odd that even in past moderation cases, courts have mostly still just relied on (c)(1) and ignored (c)(2) even though it has even more relevance.

Here, the court actually does look at (c)(2) and highlights how Prager misrepresents it. Here's Section 230(c)(2) in case you've forgotten it:

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of—

(A)any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or

(B)any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described in paragraph (1)

PragerU tried to argue that putting its videos into restricted mode were not done "in good faith" as noted in part (A). First off, that's silly. There is no evidence that anything was not done in good faith. But, more to the point, the judge notes that PragerU is actually pretending that part (B) has a "good faith" requirement, as that's the most relevant section. And there is no good faith requirement there.

Rather than unilaterally restricting access to material on its core platform as contemplated by section 230(c)(2)(A)—which contains a “good faith” requirement— defendants allow users to voluntarily restrict access to material that defendants deem objectionable for the stated reason that, like the categories of material enumerated by the statute, it may be inappropriate for young or sensitive viewers.6 The Court views this as a critical difference between the two provisions...

PragerU really leaned hard on the "good faith" claim, but the court says "nope."

While the Court understands Prager’s argument that all three provisions of section 230 should have a good faith requirement, this argument is contrary to the plain language of the statute. (See Hassell v. Bird, supra, 5 Cal.5th at p. 540 [noting that Barrett v. Rosenthal, supra, 40 Cal.4th 33 voiced “qualms” that Zeran’s interpretation of section 230 provides blanket immunity for those who intentionally redistribute defamatory statements, but held “these concerns were of no legal consequence” where principles of statutory interpretation compelled a broad construction].) And while it is not this Court’s role to judge the wisdom of the policy embodied by section 230, there are good reasons to support it.

It goes on to explain that requiring good faith in all aspects of 230 protected moderation would force companies to regularly have to defend each and every editorial decision "on a case by case basis" and that would undermine the entire point of Section 230.

The court also laughs off PragerU's ridiculous argument that YouTube's content moderation practices remove immunity under (c)(1) because its moderation choices create liability (again, this would undermine the entire point of CDA 230).

In opposition to defendants’ demurrer, Prager cites a number of cases that affirm the principle applied in Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommates.Com, LLC, supra, 521 F.3d 1157, which held that a service provider is not entitled to CDA immunity with regard to content it develops itself. However, this principle is inapposite here. Prager does not allege that defendants developed any of Prager’s content or appended any commentary to it— to the contrary, they allege the content became completely invisible in “Restricted Mode” or was simply demonetized. Applying CDA immunity under these circumstances does not conflict with Roommates.

A claim of "prior restraint" is also easily dismissed:

Finally, Prager contends that applying CDA immunity here would constitute an unlawful prior restraint on its speech in violation of the First Amendment. However, a federal court has already held that defendants’ conduct does not violate the First Amendment, and this Court agrees with that analysis for the reasons discussed in connection with its analysis of Prager’s claim under the California Constitution. Moreover, Prager does not allege that defendants prevented it from engaging in speech, even on their own platform—again, it contends that certain videos were excluded from “Restricted Mode” and/or were demonetized.

Lastly, Prager argued that this bit of moderation somehow was a "breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing under California's Unfair Competition Law (UCL)." Again, the court has a quick "nope" for the legal geniuses from PragerU:

Prager does not and cannot state a claim for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing in light of the express provisions of YouTube’s Terms of Service, which provide that “YouTube reserves the right to remove Content without prior notice” and which also allow YouTube to “discontinue any aspect of the Service at any time.”... Similarly, YouTube’s AdSense Terms of Service reserve the right “to refuse or limit your access to the Services.”

The court also discusses another of PragerU's laughable theories -- that YouTube's public statements that "the same standards apply equally to all" makes their UCL argument valid. The court again explains how that makes no sense:

Prager does not allege that it suffered a loss of money or property as a result of its reliance on this statement. “There are innumerable ways in which economic injury from unfair competition may be shown,” including where a plaintiff “ha[s] a present or future property interest diminished.”... The “lost income, reduced viewership, and damage to brand, reputation, and goodwill” that Prager alleges... would certainly satisfy this requirement if there were a causal connection between Prager’s alleged reliance on defendants’ statement in participating in the YouTube service and these harms. However, these injuries cannot have resulted from Prager’s decision to use YouTube: they could only have been caused by YouTube’s later decisions to restrict and/or demonetize Prager’s content....

In short, as basically everyone has said all along, there is no legal argument here. There is nothing but nonsense. Just like PragerU itself.

Filed Under: bias, california, cda 230, dennis prager, section 230
Companies: google, prageru, youtube

Freelance Columnist Suggests Workaround To California's AB5: Submit One Giant, Regularly Edited, Column

from the something's-wrong-with-the-law dept

We recently wrote about the many problems (even if created through good intentions) with California's new AB5 law that will turn many freelancers into employees. As we noted, a big part of the problem is that many freelancers don't want to be employees, and the law will almost certainly backfire, in making companies wary of hiring freelancers in California. The one area we focused in on (though many are impacted) is journalism, where the author of the bill, Lorena Gonzalez admitted upfront that she chose 35 submissions per year as the dividing line "arbitrarily," despite the fact that many freelancers will contribute a much higher number than 35 stories for many publications.

Andy Kessler, who is a freelance columnist for the Wall Street Journal, has a new piece highlighting how silly this new law is, including the fact that it seems based on the assumption that freelancers all really desire to be employees.

Like many independent contractors, I prefer not to be hired as an employee. I don’t want to attend company picnics or sit through mandatory sensitivity training. Shouldn’t I have the ability to choose? Apparently not in California, a job-destroying wrecking ball. On a more serious note, many disabled people or parents with young children would rather work freelance from home than trudge to an office. Retaining more workers directly will send employers’ costs up, up, up.

But Kessler has come up with a... uh... unique workaround so that he can continue his (mostly) weekly column at the Wall Street Journal. Just do it all as one giant submission that is regularly edited:

I could invoke the First Amendment and free speech, but I doubt it would fly. Maybe I could roll out the big guns by telling the court the law restricts my life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. Especially liberty, which to me means, “Stop telling me what I can or can’t do.”

Maybe I should just keep quiet, but I guess that train has left. Instead, I plan to send one giant “submission” to The Wall Street Journal on Jan. 1, subject to updating and editing by me, which they are free to cut into 48 pieces (I do get the Monday holidays off). If that doesn’t work, I’ll claim I’m a psychologist, easing the pain of every lab rat abused by California politicians. After that, I hear Nevada is nice this time of year.

This is all obviously kind of silly, but that's part of the problem. When the law has people looking at these kinds of silly solutions, perhaps the problem is with the law.

Filed Under: ab5, andy kessler, california, freelancers, lorena gonzalez, workarounds

Bad Laws And The Best Of Intentions: Law Designed To 'Protect' Gig Workers May Destroy Journalism Freelancers

from the bad-ideas-done-badly dept

For years there have been arguments about the whole "gig work" economy, and how the various "gig workers" should be classified. Specifically, it historically came down to a question of whether or not they should be seen as contractors/freelancers or employees. Of course, the real answer should probably be "neither" and there should be a different classification altogether (if we must classify them). However, following a California Supreme Court ruling that found that the so-called "ABC Test" should be used for determining employment, California pushed for a law codifying that rule, which would, in theory, force tons of companies to reclassify contract/gig workers as "employees." Governor Gavin Newsom signed the bill into law last month with a signing statement that claimed it was to combat the "hollowing out of our middle-class..." and suggesting this will somehow help workers.

Of course, there's what politicians say, and what their bills will actually do. And, so far, this bill, AB5, is looking like it will be a complete and utter disaster. First of all, on the side of gig workers for companies like Uber/Lyft/etc., those companies have already made it clear that they don't think the law applies to them, even though they were the kinds of companies most often cited when discussing the law. On top of that, they're pushing for a ballot measure that would effectively exempt them from the law even if it does apply to them (we've already discussed in the past just how ridiculous California's ballot measure procedure is...).

So, there's a damn good chance that this law won't come close to impacting the types of workers everyone was told it was designed to benefit. Instead... who it might hurt most are... journalists. A huge part of the journalism world works with freelance journalists, and they're now all realizing that the law may make journalism freelancing close to impossible. The author of AB5 had an apparently arbitrary and nonsensical standard applied to the bill concerning who would no longer qualify as a freelance journalist: anyone who writes more than 35 articles per year for a publication.

As for how lawmakers settled on the 35-submission figure, Gonzalez says that she and her team decided that a weekly columnist sounded like a part-time worker and so halved that worker's yearly submissions. After protest from some freelancers, the number was bumped up to 35. "Was it a little arbitrary? Yeah. Writing bills with numbers like that are a little bit arbitrary," she says.

That... is not good. When the lawmaker herself is admitting the process was effectively picking a number out of thin air and then making arbitrary adjustments. That's bad. And journalists are quite reasonably freaking out:

The author of the bill, Lorena Gonzales, has been responding on Twitter aggressively defending the plan. She eventually felt enough pressure to admit that she's open to change... but that they can't be put in place until after the law goes into effect in January.

Of course, that doesn't ease any of the concerns of tons of journalism freelancers, especially in California, who are completely screwed by this "arbitrary" standard that completely messes up their ability to be journalism freelancers. Also this comes after she retweeted someone calling one of the freelance journalists calling out the problems of this bill "a selfish piece of shit."

There are, clearly, good intentions behind this law. The concern about exploitation of workers by companies -- especially giant multi-billion dollar operations -- is a legitimate concern. But, as with so much that happens when you get politicians trying to write legislation without truly understanding what's happening, you get an end result that that doesn't solve the actual problem of exploitation, and only serves to make life worse for people who have the least power in the situation in the first place.

Filed Under: ab5, abc test, california, classifications, freelance, freelancers, gig economy, gig work, jobs, journalism, lorena gonazalez

California Governor Signs Bill Banning Facial Recognition Tech Use By State's Law Enforcement Agencies

from the coastal-elite-cops-now-complaining-about-coastal-elites dept

California has become the first state in the US to ban facial recognition tech use by local cops. Matt Cagle has more details on the ACLU-backed law.

Building on San Francisco's first-of-its-kind ban on government face recognition, California this week enacted a landmark law that blocks police from using body cameras for spying on the public. The state-wide law keeps thousands of body cameras used by police officers from being transformed into roving surveillance devices that track our faces, voices, and even the unique way we walk. Importantly, the law ensures that body cameras, which were promised to communities as a tool for officer accountability, cannot be twisted into surveillance systems to be used against communities.

As Cagle points out, San Francisco was the first city in the nation to ban use of facial recognition by city agencies. Oakland followed closely behind. And all the way on the other side of the country, Somerville, Massachusetts became the second city in the US to enact a facial recognition ban.

This statewide ban will hopefully lead to others around the nation. The tech multiple companies are pushing government agencies to adopt is unproven, at best. The rate of false positives in live deployments is alarming. Just as alarming is the flipside: false negatives that allow the people, who law enforcement agents are actually looking for, to slip away. Despite this, everyone from the DHS to local police departments thinks this is the next wave of acceptable surveillance -- one that allows government agencies to, in essence, demand ID from everyone who passes by their cameras.

The resistance to facial recognition's seemingly-unchecked expansion is finally having some effect. Axon (formerly Taser) has temporarily halted its plans to introduce facial recognition tech into its body cameras and Google is stepping away from its development of this tech for government agencies. Unfortunately, Amazon has shown no desire to step away from the surveillance state precipice and is continuing to sell its own brand of facial recognition to law enforcement agencies as well as co-opting citizens' doorways into its surveillance network with its Ring doorbell/cameras.

It's a solid win for residents of the state. The ban blocks the use of facial recognition tech by state law enforcement until the end of 2022. It also blocks the use of other biometric surveillance tech and prevents law enforcement from using existing biometric data to feed any predictive policing tools agencies might be using or planning on implementing. With more states and cities willing to at least undertake serious discussions of the implications of facial recognition tech, it's unlikely California will remain the odd state out in the biometric surveillance race.

Filed Under: california, facial recognition, gavin newsom, law enforcement