[LINK] RFID Issues: Privacy in Public Places

[Richard Chirgwin]

Some musings ...

One of the problems with privacy in terms of the debate and the "thing 
in itself" is that too many things have been swept under a single 
heading.  There is a difference between:
a) The right to close the door of my home on the world without 
unreasonable intrusion
b) The right to hold beliefs without submitting them to audit by the state
c) The right to conduct legal transactions anonymously
d) The right to expect that identity data cannot be abused or misused
e) The right to go about lawful activities in public without constant 
surveillance

On one side of the argument, all of these are called 'privacy' so they 
can be treated as equal and indivisible. On the other side of the 
debate, they are all called 'privacy' so that a violation of one can be 
justified as being trivial ("you are in a public place, therefore you 
have no privacy, therefore we can do what we like to you".).

I would also note that much of the American contribution to the debate 
is coloured, on both sides, by the way in which 'property rights' are 
used as a hole card ... "ah, but you are on *my* property, therefore 
..." The elevation of property rights above all other rights; the 
assumption that the property rights of a company are superior to the 
property rights of the citizen - these pollute the debate. It means that 
to put a "pro-privacy" position, you either have to ignore the specious 
property rights argument, or you have to divert some of your energy to 
dealing with the limits of property rights.

(One of the reasons the lunar right in the US likes to hang 'property 
rights' on every hook it can find is so it can say 'communist!' to 
anyone taking a contrary position. Something that is a non-property 
right is subject to debate; corporate property rights are sacrosanct. so 
it's a stated strategy: "this is not a trademark right, it's a property 
right, and if you don't believe in property you're a communist". It's a 
disaster that this scrubby trick is being imported into Australia, and 
even worse that it passes unnoticed.)

Back to "privacy in public places". Going down the list above, (a) 
doesn't apply in a public place; (b) does apply and should not be 
diluted merely because of where I happen to be; (c) is not particularly 
subject to difference of place; (d) is more important in the public 
place, since that's where exposure is greatest; and the same applies for 
(e).

Turning to the article below, what do we see? The first is "property 
rights trump privacy rights" (implicit but never justified):
> A number of recent news articles and commentaries have decried the 
> potential for employers to locate their employees in real time in the 
> workplace.  This, some insist, is a gross invasion of personal 
> privacy.  The logic of their fear is somewhat difficult to grasp.  
> After all, this is a work place, not a private club or home. 
Note also that the author, having raised the question "how much privacy 
in a public place", turns in fact to "privacy on someone else's private 
property". The workplace is only semi-public - the owner can deny entry 
to the workplace to people who have no cause to be there. So you cannot 
reasonably or sensibly draw a general "in a public place" conclusion 
from rules in a workplace.

And, as I said, the author has simply put the position that the owner's 
rights automatically trump the citizen's rights.

Does the property right trump any other citizens' rights? Try these 
statements:
- you are on my property, so I have the right to require that you attend 
work in the nude.
- you are on my property, so I have the right to demand that you use a 
ladder with a missing rung.
- you are on my property, so I have the right to audit any personal 
financial documents you carry into the workplace (for example, the bill 
you carry in the briefcase to pay at lunchtime).

These are all ridiculous; so why can the implicit assumption that "you 
are on my property, therefore my rights trump your privacy" be allowed 
to stand without any more justification than a sprinkling of the 
'property rights' holy water?

Next, going back into the public place (the airport). First, the author 
commits (deliberately) the logical error of equivocation: the workplace 
is a piece of property owned by someone; the airport is a piece of 
property owned by someone; therefore the 'rights status' of the 
airport's owner is the same as that of the workplace owner. There are 
two clear differences between the two:
- the airport is explicitly created for the use of the public; and therefore
- most of the people within the airport have no relationship with its 
owner (they are not employees or contractors, but members of the public 
required to use the airport for the purpose of their travel).

So even granting that ownership of a workplace grants a certain set of 
rights over activities within that workplace, ownership of an airport 
does not grant rights to the same degree of control.

Richard Chirgwin


Geoff Ramadan wrote:
> This article is from AIM - the American "Association of Identification 
> and Mobility". (similar organisation to ADCA)
>
> Obviously the Airport RFID application has generated some local 
> concerns about RFID and privacy. Brett Moore is the editor of AIM.
>
> I would be interested in your views to his reply on this, especially 
> the last paragraph.
>
> Regards
>
> Geoffrey Ramadan, B.E.(Elec)
> Chairman, Automatic Data Capture Australia (www.adca.com.au)
> and
> Managing Director, Unique Micro Design (www.umd.com.au)
>
>
> http://www.aimglobal.org/members/news/templates/aiminsights.asp?articleid=1849&zoneid=43 
>
>
> For those following the various privacy concern debates, two new 
> applications have surfaced to fuel fears of privacy invasion: one 
> designed for access control that allows companies to track employees 
> within their facilities and one intended to track passengers in 
> airline terminals. These applications are, in the eyes of many 
> concerned with personal privacy, embodiments of their worst 
> nightmares.  But now it's time to ask the question, "How much privacy 
> are we entitled to in a public place?"
>
> A number of recent news articles and commentaries have decried the 
> potential for employers to locate their employees in real time in the 
> workplace.  This, some insist, is a gross invasion of personal 
> privacy.  The logic of their fear is somewhat difficult to grasp.  
> After all, this is a work place, not a private club or home.
>
> The scariest scenarios most of these negative reports paint is of 
> companies monitoring an employee's bathroom use or noticing that a 
> "pink" tag and a "blue" tag routinely visit the store room during lunch.
>
> In the first scenario, it's also possible to look at this as tracking 
> how much time an employee spends away from his or her work station, in 
> other words, time not working.  In the second scenario, this might 
> well be a case of entirely inappropriate office behavior that might be 
> cause for dismissal.  In both of these cases, the employer has a right 
> to know what employees are doing on company time -- just as they have 
> to right to block access to pornographic web site access from company 
> computers.
>
> One has to ask whether critics who assert that employers are "spying" 
> on their employees by determining their whereabouts would feel that it 
> was "spying" to monitor a contractor in their own home who is billing 
> for their work by the hour.  Or would they simply insist they're just 
> making sure they're not being overcharged?  Is there a difference 
> because of the scale of the monitoring, technology used or who's doing 
> it?
>
> These so-called privacy concerns also ignore some other important 
> scenarios.
>
> In an emergency evacuation (fire, bomb threat, etc.) it would be good 
> to know where people were, who got out of the building and, more 
> importantly, who might still be trapped inside.
>
> There are times when being able to locate a particular individual 
> who's not at his or her desk can be important (or critical in a 
> healthcare facility) to handle a call or answer a question.
>
> In some workplaces, it may be important to monitor who's in a secure 
> area where visitors and even some employees aren't allowed without an 
> escort.
>
> The airline passenger tracking application is another example of how 
> "privacy" is bandied about loosely without much consideration to the 
> actual location or application.
>
> Personal privacy in an airport, bus terminal or rail or subway station 
> may be a bit of an oxymoron.  People are in a public place -- public 
> being the operative word.
>
> Airlines want to be able to be able to locate passengers who have not 
> arrived at the gate for their flight.  Knowing the person's location, 
> the airline could send someone to alert the passenger that the plane 
> is boarding.  This could help ensure that passengers don't miss their 
> flights -- a benefit to the consumer. Or, if the passenger isn't in 
> the terminal, it could help clear the stand-by list more quickly.
>
>
> More importantly, if a passenger does not board a flight, that 
> passenger's checked luggage must be removed from the plane for 
> security purposes.  If a passenger leaves the airport, the airline 
> could be alerted and the baggage could be located and removed before 
> boarding time.  If the passenger subsequently shows up, the baggage 
> could be reloaded.  In essence, the process could be "invisible" to 
> the other passengers while increasing their security and helping avoid 
> delays.
>
> It should also be noted that both of these applications have been 
> publicized as being broadly applicable, as initial marketing releases 
> tend to do.  It is likely that these won't be universally implemented 
> and that the airport application may well initially be an opt-in 
> service.  As consumer convenience, safety and other benefits are 
> better understood by the public, these types of systems may, in fact, 
> be embraced by consumers.
>
> The notion of privacy in a public place is, by definition, rather 
> limited.  One has the right to expect privacy of one's person and 
> possessions but, beyond that, it's a matter of common sense to realize 
> that, no, you can't expect complete privacy when you're in an office, 
> airport or other public place.
>
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