Beside team communications, this blog features posts written by community members. If you have a Lift account you can also share your thoughts and ideas by clicking here. Here is food for thought about privacy and the internet of things shared by Italian ICT and privacy law expert Nicola Fabiano.

We are living in a globalized era and the fast process of technologies evolution modify our lifestyles. In fact, with reference to the Internet of Things (IOT hereafter), there are issues related to privacy, with security and responsibility.

IOT system leads to the transfer of information over the Internet, using for instance RFID technology. Personal Information may be transmitted only when the subject where is installed the microchip is linked to a person.

Obviously, there are two possibilities regarding the connection to the person: (1) We could have a direct link when the user is aware of the possible transmission of personal data and lend consent to this. (2) Alternatively, the connection may be indirect when the object is not linked explicitly with the user but only through the use of information that belong to the person. Imagine if the person buys a object with RFID or similar technology, but it isn’t linked to the object. In the purchase process, if the person can be identified through payment with credit cards or loyalty cards that indicate the type product purchased, you could have an indirect connections.

In fact, the person may have previously provided his or her consent for the dissemination of data relating to purchases (the simplest example concerns the supermarkets or big chains) for advertising purposes. In this way, a connection could be achieved with the indirect result of the person connecting to those purchased.

In terms of privacy, may a person be protected? Who manages personal data? Where will this data be stored? Hence the responsibility to set and adopt appropriate security measures. Regarding the legal framework, IoT hence generate a privacy system sui generis, because we will have a system with a sum of single privacy right. Which is why we should talk about privacies instead of privacy.

"NKM" is France's minister in charge of Forward Planning and the Development of the Digital Economy.

Recently I interviewed Nicolas Nova, editorial manager of LIFT, at the Mobile City Conference in Rotterdam, NL. The topics covered in this interview are: The future of education and learning, blended-learning, remote-accessed field trips, communication, collaboration, the changing roles of teachers & professors, surveillance, privacy and The Lift Conference. I was very impressed with Nicolas's reflections on the topics mentioned above and I make this interview available to the lift community in order to inspire thought and discussion on the topics Nicolas addresses.

An enhanced podcast can be obtained here: http://www.mamk.net/?p=727

After listening to Alexander Finger's presentation, entitled "Civil Rights 2.0 and what European Governments do to fight them" this morning, I had the feeling that the only way to preserve my privacy would be to withdraw completely from civilization and lock myself in a cave. His perspective on the way technologies can be used to collect information on us and our daily routines should be enough to raise the hair on the head of any citizen. Instead, not only does there seem to be no public debates on many practices of data collection and retention by authorities, but a large number of people seems to feel that it a lesser evil to preserve the physical safety of honorable citizen. I was already aware of the "big brother" issue, but I must say that the examples offered by Alexander Finger make it appear in a much more concrete light.

- A few years ago, an east-german journalist decided to run an inquiry on a child pornography website that was hosted on a server located in Philipines. He thus paid with his credit card to have a full access to the website and then went to the prosecutor to ask him to launch an investigation about the owners and "customers" of this website. The problem is that he was confronted with a crime, but no physical and identifiable suspects. The judge then asked the credit institutions to turn in informations about all the German cards holders who had performed online transactions of a certain amount during a specific time span. In the process, not only did the judge asked the banks to produce suspects, when one usually looks for suspects, but made hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, potential criminals.

If something is to be remembered from the World Economic Forum 2008 edition it is probably the very candid comment made by the Wang Jianzhou, the CEO of the world’s largest mobile phone operator.

“We know who you are, but also where you are” was actually meant to convince the audience that China Mobile could use the personal data of its customers to sell advertising and services to them based on knowledge of where they were and what they were doing. Instead it turned into worries about the risk of passing over private information to Chinese authorities: with more than 370 million subscribers, China Mobile has a real-time ear and eye on 25% of the country’s citizens.

The outcry of congressman Markey (chairman of the US House of Representatives subcommittee on telecommunications) was even more surprising since most national security agencies have so-called signals intelligence collection and analysis networks (like Echelon or Onyx). That said most countries are supposed to have checks and controls in place to make sure that only court orders allow the government to check phone records.

Maybe time has come to look into more details at how the mobile phone is becoming a threat to privacy in all countries!

P.S.: It is quite revealing that the two operators invited to the World Economic Forum’s discussion on “The Future of Mobile Technology” were China Mobile and SK Telecom