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The next step in privacy violation?
Translated from Dutch. View the original post
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New York police replaces notebook with app: what could go wrong.
It's been over a century that New York police officers, the NYPD, have been walking around with a notebook. In these booklets, of which 10,000 are printed every month, the agents record their activities that day, not only helping to confirm the timetables, but also, for example, when they have to testify at a trial later.
Now: from 17 December it is done with those notepads. They are replaced by an iPhone with a special app connected to the police database. The aim is to avoid any rumbling, and also to work more efficiently, because sometimes the handwriting of these agents is really unclear. In addition, the police will have access to reports of events that would otherwise have been locked up in those booklets.
Everything will be listed in a standardized format: their timetable, which patrol car they use, their response to 911 calls, even photos. Of course, this will not prevent the introduction of false information - but that was also possible with these notebooks, by leaving pages blank and filling in later days.
Quite a step forward, it seems. But then the app has to work perfectly. Gizmodo has his doubts about this 'totally reliable app'. The news site refers to some important cyber incidents: last year the NYPD had to temporarily close its fingerprint database, after a subcontractor connected a ransomware infected PC to the system. The city of Baltimore was confronted with multiple ransomware attacks, including one attempting to bring down the entire 911 system.
But also #privacy can be a problem with the app, given the many ways citizens are currently included in (not so legal) face-recognition databases, think of the ClearViewai.
It's been over a century that New York police officers, the NYPD, have been walking around with a notebook. In these booklets, of which 10,000 are printed every month, the agents record their activities that day, not only helping to confirm the timetables, but also, for example, when they have to testify at a trial later.
Now: from 17 December it is done with those notepads. They are replaced by an iPhone with a special app connected to the police database. The aim is to avoid any rumbling, and also to work more efficiently, because sometimes the handwriting of these agents is really unclear. In addition, the police will have access to reports of events that would otherwise have been locked up in those booklets.
Everything will be listed in a standardized format: their timetable, which patrol car they use, their response to 911 calls, even photos. Of course, this will not prevent the introduction of false information - but that was also possible with these notebooks, by leaving pages blank and filling in later days.
Quite a step forward, it seems. But then the app has to work perfectly. Gizmodo has his doubts about this 'totally reliable app'. The news site refers to some important cyber incidents: last year the NYPD had to temporarily close its fingerprint database, after a subcontractor connected a ransomware infected PC to the system. The city of Baltimore was confronted with multiple ransomware attacks, including one attempting to bring down the entire 911 system.
But also #privacy can be a problem with the app, given the many ways citizens are currently included in (not so legal) face-recognition databases, think of the ClearViewai.
Or in the Netherlands Syri. In short: a lot of questions about this evolution.
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The caucus in IoWa: an app that didn't do it already
That the mistrust of the NYPD app is not entirely unfounded, can prove the fiasco at the primaries (caucus) in the U.S. state of Iowa. You have no doubt heard how an app would be used in those elections to speed up the transmission of the results.
Now you should know that with such a caucus, voting takes place in several rounds. To begin with, all the candidates are from the same party - so you have a caucus for the Democrats, and one for the Republicans. The Democratic candidate who wins this primary has a strong chance of eventually becoming the candidate to compete against President Trump in the presidential elections.
Those present have to cast their votes by - in literal - arounding around a particular candidate. The candidates with the least votes will then be eliminated, and those present will have to rally around the remaining candidates - that is, their second choice.
The app should display the results of the first, second round plus the number of votes per candidate in each round.
Alone - that did not work out. The results could not be passed to the central database. Was it a connectivity problem? The election offices were very rural, so that might have been the cause. But many rather point the app itself with the finger. It was brand new, and never tested in concrete conditions. However, several agencies had offered to test the app, precisely to prevent such a fiasco.
In addition, there was a lot of secrecy around the creator of the app, a non-profit named Shadow. The fact that behind Shadow were two people who had also worked on the Hlary Clinton campaign quickly gave oxygen to conspiracy theories that the whole purpose of the app was to sabotage the victory of Bernie Sanders, then Clinton's opponent.
Be that as it may, only the paper ballot papers could save you. And say that actually an ordinary Google spreadsheet, cleverly designed, could have processed the results just as well and quickly...
Some links to sites where the debacle was reported: https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/04/a-voting-app-by-shadow-inc-takes-center-stage-at-chaotic-iowa-caucuses/
That the mistrust of the NYPD app is not entirely unfounded, can prove the fiasco at the primaries (caucus) in the U.S. state of Iowa. You have no doubt heard how an app would be used in those elections to speed up the transmission of the results.
Now you should know that with such a caucus, voting takes place in several rounds. To begin with, all the candidates are from the same party - so you have a caucus for the Democrats, and one for the Republicans. The Democratic candidate who wins this primary has a strong chance of eventually becoming the candidate to compete against President Trump in the presidential elections.
Those present have to cast their votes by - in literal - arounding around a particular candidate. The candidates with the least votes will then be eliminated, and those present will have to rally around the remaining candidates - that is, their second choice.
The app should display the results of the first, second round plus the number of votes per candidate in each round.
Alone - that did not work out. The results could not be passed to the central database. Was it a connectivity problem? The election offices were very rural, so that might have been the cause. But many rather point the app itself with the finger. It was brand new, and never tested in concrete conditions. However, several agencies had offered to test the app, precisely to prevent such a fiasco.
In addition, there was a lot of secrecy around the creator of the app, a non-profit named Shadow. The fact that behind Shadow were two people who had also worked on the Hlary Clinton campaign quickly gave oxygen to conspiracy theories that the whole purpose of the app was to sabotage the victory of Bernie Sanders, then Clinton's opponent.
Be that as it may, only the paper ballot papers could save you. And say that actually an ordinary Google spreadsheet, cleverly designed, could have processed the results just as well and quickly...
Some links to sites where the debacle was reported: https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/04/a-voting-app-by-shadow-inc-takes-center-stage-at-chaotic-iowa-caucuses/
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