Ryan Calo

Ryan Calo is an assistant professor at the University of Washington School of Law and a former research director at CIS. A nationally recognized expert in law and emerging technology, Ryan's work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, NPR, Wired Magazine, and other news outlets. Ryan serves on several advisory committees, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and the Future of Privacy Forum. He co-chairs the American Bar Association Committee on Robotics and Artificial Intelligence and serves on the program committee of National Robotics Week.

You can read Ryan's work on SSRN and follow him on Twitter.

Coming Soon: Smell, Touch, And Dead People

By Ryan Calo • June 4, 2008 at 10:42 am

In arguing for the ongoing constitutionality of the commercial/noncommercial distinction in billboard regulation in the wake of City of Cincinnati v. Discovery Network, I wrote (in 2005) that billboards “can talk and they can listen.” (103 Mich. L. Rev. 1877, 1877). I was referring to the ability of highway billboards to interact with passing motorists by, for instance, eavesdropping on their radio station. No surprise that my three-year-old statement about billboards now seriously undersells them. According to a recent New York Times article:

"[Advertisers] are equipping billboards with tiny cameras that gather details about passers-by — their gender, approximate age and how long they looked at the billboard. These details are transmitted to a central database. . . . Read more » about Coming Soon: Smell, Touch, And Dead People

Ballad Of The TCP Reset Packet (By Nate Anderson)

By Ryan Calo • May 18, 2008 at 11:20 am

Ruiz v. Gap, Inc.

By Ryan Calo • May 11, 2008 at 4:32 pm

Was March National Privacy Month and no one told me? (October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month, so don't try to hack anything.) In addition to a March 31, 2008 decision by the D.C. Circuit holding that “actual damages” under the Privacy Act need not necessarily include pecuniary harm (blogged here by Lauren Gelman), the Northern District of California affirmed the standing of a class action plaintiff to sue for negligence over a stolen laptop containing personally identifiable information, based on the mere risk of identify theft. These are both important cases in that they may signal a trend toward greater recognition of the emotional and dignitary interests implicated by the exposure of personal data. Read more » about Ruiz v. Gap, Inc.

International Cybercrime (Of The Horse)

By Ryan Calo • May 8, 2008 at 4:46 pm

A colleague and I were just discussing a new international working group, chaired by the FBI, which has “band[ed] together to fight cyber crime in a synergistic way.” The group is called the Strategic Alliance Cyber Crime Working Group; it even has a tagline: “Cyber Solidarity: Five Nations, One Mission.” Read more » about International Cybercrime (Of The Horse)

Facebook 'Em, Dano

By Ryan Calo • April 22, 2008 at 10:06 am

EPIC fellow Guilherme Roschke writes about the sophisticated Facebook presence of Greater Manchester Police and its ramifications for citizen privacy. He notes that "[l]aw enforcement use of applications will significantly expand the reach of what law enforcement can see, and also provide a more surreptitious viewing ability."

Please find his post here. Read more » about Facebook 'Em, Dano