But I don't want your Glasses on me

Recently in a locker room of a local public swimming pool, I was changing from my swim suit back into my street clothes, naked from the waist down, when I looked up to see a cell phone camera pointed at me. My heart actually stopped. When I followed the camera back to its user, two women were crowded around a cell phone presumably sharing pictures of an event that they had just attended. I asked them to put away their phone and that it was really inappropriate to do that in a change room.

The person holding the camera told me to f*** off. But she put the camera away and they both left offended.

I actually asked people, Am I crazy to not want a camera pointed at me in a change room? Everyone I asked said I wasn't. But according to this blog post from Bits, I'm going to have to get used to it, since the landscape has no feelings.

Now, I will have to contend with Google Glasses roving around in the change room and I'm not pleased. I also don't agree that a private change room in a public facility is public, and I don't feel that I have to get used to it. I do think that the majority of people are generally decent and that they can successfully monitor themselves. However, it only takes one indecent, cruel or ill person to make a lasting impact on a person's life and fortune, so we should take steps to protect everyone from harm. I'm also among a group of people who feels they are out in public to accomplish their goals--shopping, dining, changing clothes--which does not negate their personal rights and turn them into your landscape or background noise.

I think it might be time for facilities to have disruptors that they can turn on so people who can't control themselves with their devices in public spaces don't impinge on people who don't want a camera (or other recording device) pointed at them. I also want to automate the disruption of recording devices so as a person who works in a public space, I don't have to constantly navigate fights between clients as to what is appropriate or not. For example, I did not bother to tell any pool attendant about what occurred because there are no signs barring the use of cell phones in the change room--and a significant minority ignore those signs anyway and complaining in the past has only gotten me a dismissive shrug. I would like the option to turn the disruptor off in the case of an emergency, such as a tornado, so people can use their Google glasses to find shelter, but sharing cake recipes on Pinterest does not qualify as an emergency.

In the meantime, until a company comes along that makes a localized or personalized device that I can use to disrupt Glass, which I think should be an option for people just as purchasing Glass is an option for other consumers, I think masks may be coming back into style, or we may all engage in everyday cosplay to vanish into people's recordings--or to take them over completely as individual landscape disruptors.

Privacy Law in 60 Seconds Promo Video from the Authors

As a promo for his new book, with co-author Paul Schwartz, Daniel Soslove has put together a 60 second debrief on the main issues around privacy law--and to encourage you to read the book to get the full story.



I really learned a lot from The Future of Reputation, so I am looking forward to this book--in a sort of, wow, homework kind of way.

Shouldn't there be a digital expiry date?

The Canadian HR Reporter-Employment Law blog had an interesting post about a UFC fighter who would like to become a police officer. The Toronto Police Service had concerns about his schedule as a professional fighter, but it was a previous persona, as "Pimp Daddy", that led to the revoking of the offer of employment.

The fighter/wannabe police officer makes a good point: he used the alias at the suggestion of a promoter over a decade ago and is not currently using the alias. I think this was kind of a silly reason to retract the job officer--are you going to revoke job offers for every hooligan that used/still uses a stupid browser email address? What if a person's military call sign or other nickname--these digital nicknames can persist for a long time and be attached to their owners in a professional sense--makes them a "bad candidate"? The question, as the blog post asks, is this:

Should a name used early in his career still be held against him? Could the Toronto Police be losing out on someone who could turn out to be a good police officer because of it?

End of checking credit history

I've never understood the purpose of checking a potential employee's credit history--do you want to know if I wear boxers or briefs, too? But Inside Tech is reporting that the days for a credit history check may be numbered, which stems from a suit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against Kaplan.

And, yes, many people do have their credit checked before they receive a job offer, usually because they will be in charge of money--a budget, a corporate credit card, supposedly be tempted to steal, or dealing with sensitive documents (which you'll notice they did away with the credit check)--so it is possible that a librarian may also be subjected to a credit check.

For more on the subject, check out the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse's Employment Background Checks: A Job Seekers Guide.

Do identity theft prevention services really work?

After reading Googlebomb and Wild West 2.0, I've been a bit more interested in this topic, including identity theft. And PC World has written an article about protecting your identity which asks if the services work.

Now there are no reviews of individual services, but the article does have links and advice on how to protect your physical records, which thieves can steal (for Canadians, there is advice on the CBC website). People worry a bit too much about high tech methods of stealing data and don't worry enough about low tech methods (stealing mail, finessing you on the phone, someone unscrupulous takes your file from a cabinet and sells the info).

And this curious mix of low and high tech thievery that was profiled on Marketplace, Who's Minding the Store?

I don't want to be a fatalist and suggest that if thieves want your data, they will get it. Though this is possible, there are steps you can take to make it harder for them to get it. Especially when you are putting your data out online in a job search.

And before you think, whoa, I'm a penniless college student/consultant/professional, what are they going to get from me? here are some examples:

• Get more credit cards
• Get a job
• Get health care services
• Get insurance
• Buy property
• Get arrested while using your identity

So, not to get all John Walsh, but do your best to protect your own identity and show others how to batten the hatches.

Democracy Now: Google Teams up with CIA to invest in start-up Recorded Future

Stalked off

Now, I know the article [Stalk your way to a new job] was tongue-in-cheek, but I don't recommend stalking individual people at an organization--you should follow news stories and items about an organization. If the people that work there happen to publish and you might end up working in their department, you should read their publicly available work. But staking out their Facebook page?

According to the article,

Within minutes, you can find out where he’s from, how to reach him, where he’s worked in the past, and – perhaps most importantly – what his favorite movie is. The more you know about him, the better your ability to sell yourself.

Not so fast. This depends on a few factors.

1. The person is online and is accessible. This mean that they keep their blog or their Facebook profile out in the public sphere on their own name. Lots of people don't.
2. Even if you think you have the right person, how do you know that you do? Plenty of celebrities have people who name-jack them (would that be Twitter jack?) but I know quite a few people who have misspelled potential colleagues names.
3. For librarians, many of us know where the privacy settings are. And we teach others where to find them.

A far more helpful post would have been how to find out information about a company and their prospects, especially for privately-owned or small firms not listed on the 500 that Fortune slavers over each year.

Kicking someone when they're down

According to this article in the Chicago Tribune, the unemployed are currently being targeted by identity thieves, either through online job postings, or using low/no tech methods at job fairs.

But job-search identity theft can also be low tech. Some companies hold job fairs where they have job seekers provide their Social Security numbers and other basic information to recruiters. Even when the company is legitimate, that can pose a security risk for job applicants...

If you are giving job seeking training, you may also want to include a heads up on the scam artist. And no, they are not limited to Craigslist ads. According to the story, scam artists are using Monster. Monster, in response, has a tips for avoiding scams.

Job scams are old and the FTC has a Caution Job Scams portal. The Better Business Bureau in both the US and Canada can be used to keep you up to date on scams of all types.

There is nothing private about going online

In September of 2008, Christine Stoddard, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada gave a speech about the use of social networking sites and their implications in regards to personal privacy and employee rights. If you work in Canada and have a social networking profile, you should read her speech.

Though I agree with many points in the speech and found some of the stories enlightening, I have long believed that if you have used a password to enter a site--as opposed to a Google search which leads you to information--you have violated a person's privacy. I also feel that people who use the sites to troll for information about people in this manner should be suspended from the site. I feel that more openness, as the commissioner describes is best:

If you do monitor the sites employees are looking at and how much time they spend there, you should tell them.

The simple work-around for my suggestion is when your friends hi-jack your personal information from the site and post it on a freely available site on the Internet. Good luck getting the ISP that hosted the site to give you the information to take the poster to court. There are protections for stealing people's personal property, or attempting to extort from people by taking their personal information, but we don't seem to have figured out yet how this will work online--possibly because we don't recognize it as personal space.

I do feel that it violates my charter rights to demand that I stop associating with certain (adult) people on a social networking site, or to track any information about my religious or political affiliations, or deny me a place online to "hang out" with friends. In case you aren't sure what those are--or you're not a Canadian--lo,

• freedom of conscience and religion;
• freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
• freedom of peaceful assembly; and
• freedom of association. 

I think we need to start thinking of the Internet in terms of a space, a forum, for assembly, as opposed to an amorphous "out there" that seems to have nothing to do with our lives or freedoms.

Oh, and don't be a jackass. At least not where people can see you.

Leaving the door unlocked

Do you check your personal or school email at work? I bet that you do. Many workplaces will certainly allow you to do so, especially if you are on your break, but if you are checking your email at work, do you remember to close it afterward?

There are several terminals in my workplace that are shared terminals, meaning that they are not open to the public, but that many workers use the same terminal. And some of these workers leave their email open, including actual messages that they were replying to, or they have chat windows open. In fact, a little feud started a few years ago amongst a person who had left their email open, and the person who sent out email, pretending to be the owner, from their opened email account. Just fun messages, nothing mean. Now, I'm not condoning the emailing masquerade, but I think that the account owner should have been more careful and guarded their privacy by shutting down the account. Not to mention the fact that the person rather callously assumed that their business was so important that it deserved to remain, as is, on the terminal, as if no one else could possibly need that computer.

It doesn't matter if you will be right back--someone is going to read what is on your screen. They are going to find about your marks, how unhappy you are with a professor or your boss, and your pet names for your hunk o'burning love.

During a job search, it is better to act with greater discretion, so either avoid emailing from shared terminals or make darn sure that you never walk away--for a coffee or to the bathroom--with your email, Facebook or LinkedIn accounts open for all and sundry. Protect your business a little better, and remember that your workplace is letting you use that terminal, it's not yours.