Smart TV viewership data collected by way of Gracenote automatic content recognition (ACR) is one of several signals that goes into the calculation of the company’s Video Popularity Score metric, emailed a Gracenote spokesperson Thursday to our question on data privacy. Gracenote announced Video Popularity Score Wednesday (see 1906190052) to help customers deliver discovery experiences where viewers are “connected to the movies and TV shows they want with the least amount of friction." Viewership is measured through a proprietary algorithm that analyzes consumption data covering linear TV, VOD and over-the-top from Nielsen Total Content Ratings, movie box office data from Gracenote and additional raw data from third-party sources, said the company. Awareness is calculated based on social media conversation measurement from Nielsen Social Content Ratings combined with engagement data from outside sources. The spokesperson told us viewing information is “fully anonymized and cannot be linked to Personally Identifiable Information. As with all ACR implementations on Smart TVs, users must opt in to privacy policies during the set-up process to enable the functionality,” he said. Users can activate or deactivate ACR “at any time,” he said.
An FTC investigation of YouTube for improperly getting kids' data when they watch videos targeted at them is nearing an end and a fine is possible, The Washington Post reported Wednesday. Groups complained the Google affiliate violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (see 1804090036). The company and agency declined to comment. This investigation "is long overdue,” said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass. “Kids flock to YouTube every day, but the company has yet to take the necessary steps to protect its youngest users." Markey said in coming weeks, he will introduce legislation to "combat online design features that coerce children and create bad habits, commercialization and marketing that manipulate kids and push them into consumer culture, and the amplification of inappropriate and harmful content on the internet."
Microsoft representatives weighed in on secure handling of asserted information using tokens (Shaken) technology, in meetings with FCC staff. The agency is considering mandating rules if providers don’t come forward to implement Shaken/secure telephone identity revisited (Stir) technology on their own (see 1905150041). "Industry-led efforts [can] improve upon the current iteration of SHAKEN so that legitimate voice calls from a broader set of calling technologies and business models would be eligible for highest level attestation ,” Microsoft said, posted Monday in docket 17-59. “We also raised concerns about the possibility that voice service providers may implement SHAKEN in a non-uniform manner by inextricably commingling attestation values with other analytics.” The commission plans a Shaken/Stir summit on July 11.
Federal privacy legislation should include a private right of action, opt-in consent requirements and should avoid pre-empting state laws, the Electronic Frontier Foundation said Monday. It should include “non-discrimination rules to avoid pay-for-privacy schemes,” EFF said. The proposal urges a user right to know, duty of care standards, right to data portability and data broker registration.
No Senate Commerce Committee privacy group meetings are scheduled for the six members (see 1905160021), but staffs continue talking, Senate Majority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Thursday. Ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said staffs met throughout the week, and she also got together with Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss. “I’m hoping we can get that jump-started because the California law kicks in January next year. If we don’t have a national standard in place by then, it’s going to be a free for all with the states," Thune said.
Three groups filed an informal FCC complaint against the nation’s four largest wireless carriers for selling customers’ data to aggregators. The Georgetown Law Center on Privacy & Technology, New America Open Technology Institute and Free Press asked for an investigation and potentially enforcement actions. The Communications Act requires providers “to observe heightened privacy obligations for location information,” said the complaint in docket 16-106. AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint "broadly violated those obligations and their customers’ privacy expectations. The Carriers have disclosed customer location information to location aggregators, other location-based services companies, and unauthorized individuals without customer approval. That location information has in some circumstances found its way into the hands of bounty hunters and stalkers.” In May, Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel sent letters to CEOs of the carriers asking what they're doing to make sure real-time location information they collect isn’t being sold to data aggregators (see 1905010167). Commissioner Geoffrey Starks also complained about the practice (see 1902080056). The four companies didn't comment Friday.
Employees from ITTA members and other carriers that don't offer sales incentives to enroll Lifeline customers should be exempt from registering their own personally identifiable information (PII) as Universal Service Administrative Co. develops a Lifeline representative accountability database (RAD), the group told the FCC, posted Friday in docket 17-287. Executives from ITTA and its member companies met Tuesday with Wireline Bureau officials to get clarification on who will be required to register. The RAD is part of a national verifier program to ensure beneficiaries are qualified (see 1903080016). ITTA noted the vast majority of abuses in the Lifeline program involve sales agents not employed by member companies. If USAC determines carrier employees must register with the RAD, the association said, registration information should be limited to name, employee status and business-related contact information rather than birth dates or social security numbers. ITTA called it an "undue risk" to require PII "when massive data breaches are a near daily occurrence." On the Lifeline consumer side, beginning last Thursday, any changes in information for the qualifying person requires service providers to de-enroll the consumer, make edits to the enrollment information, and reapply for benefits using the new information, USAC said.
Some 50 million surveillance cameras in the U.S. could soon make judgments about citizens based on their “actions, emotions, skin color, clothing, voice” and other details, the American Civil Liberties Union reported Thursday. The advancement of artificial intelligence could fundamentally shift surveillance from a “fragmented, collection-and-storage only model to a mass automated real-time monitoring system that raises significant civil liberties and privacy concerns,” the ACLU said: Congress should prohibit the technology’s “use for mass surveillance, narrow its deployments, and create rules to minimize abuse.”
The FCC should assure mobile phone and other originating carriers that they need to provide "fuzzy" -- rather than precise -- location information, which wouldn’t violate customers’ privacy protections, said Ignition Toll Free, MessageComm and 800 Response Information Services, recapping a meeting with Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel’s chief of staff to discuss geographic routing of toll-free calls. An opt-in, opt-out approach would be unnecessary and create possible safety issues for callers, they said in a docket 95-155 ex parte posting Monday. They also urged that assurance come in a decision on an 800 Response Information Services petition.
FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said privacy issues loom large and need to be addressed. O’Rielly also spoke Monday about the importance of spectrum and infrastructure to smart cities. “I see a real issue developing over the combination of data with police and military powers, and a government’s ability to use data for the purpose of controlling or punishing its citizenry,” O’Rielly said at an American Society of Civil Engineers smart city conference. “How governments can create a comfort level with the potential privacy implications of Smart Cities remains to be seen and represents an increasingly problematic area.” Finding spectrum won’t be easy, O’Rielly said. “Fallow spectrum is not just laying around,” he said: “Recently, our attention has been focused on high-band and mid-band spectrum, with high bands providing the capacity needed to connect the plethora of devices and the mid bands offering both good capacity and added coverage.”