"CSI just called, you're in."

Hi,

  http://imgur.com/gallery/yarZ7 I had been waiting for something like
it for some time now with the proliferation of image search technology.

Here in Germany http://www.ccc.de/de/hackerethics hacker ethics include
rules to use public data and to protect private data. I wonder where
this fits in. Note that the depicted person could have modified his own
image here, and then this would be prominently linking this citizen's
private political expression to his professional life; or someone could
have simply claimed as much with similar consequences for them if he'd
deny authorship either way in fear of repercussions, of refuse to deny
or confirm because it's nobody's business (which, legally, may be the
case depending on where he lives).

As it is, society does not consider the question of private versus pub-
lic a trivial binary matter, it's common to separate the Whether and the
How in access control. We might say anyone can access some records, but
they have to access them in a certain place and they cannot make copies,
for instance. Or, more simply, you can access some files through indices
and browsing, but there is no automated full text search.

Here in Europe, some would like to have such notions on the web aswell,
under titles like the "right to be forgotten" and others. A prominent
case recently was in Spain where, as I recall it, Google was ordered to
remove pages from its indices to protect the privacy of some people.

As I wrote this, the view counter on the image increased by 60,000. As
yet, there is not a single comment finding this use of the image search
feature problematic. I wonder what the reaction would be like if the
search feature had proper facial recognition support, requiring no bit
of effort to find the original image, or, for that matter, if there was
no notion of uncovering some kind of fraud as is suggested in this case.

regards,
-- 
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjoern@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
25899 Dagebüll · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/

Received on Sunday, 16 October 2011 00:04:13 UTC