The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School is a leader in the study of the law and policy around the Internet and other emerging technologies.
CIS in the news.
"The initial reaction by academics, cryptographers, technologists, and human rights advocates to the latest bill was swift and harsh. Read more about New Republican bill latest in long line to force encryption backdoor
"Privacy advocates were skeptical that the federal government would be satisfied with just unlocking seized phones, though, and LAEDA’s requirement of lawful access to any encrypted data proves them right. Read more about A Republican Bill Would Weaken Encryption Just When We Need It Most
"But Elizabeth Joh, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, said the horrifying nature of his crimes should not obscure the need for more thorough regulation of the technique. “The resolution of the Golden State Killer case should be lauded for bringing closure to these investigations, but the means by which DeAngelo was identified remains troubling,” she said." Read more about Joseph DeAngelo Pleads Guilty in Golden State Killer Cases
"Danielle Citron, a professor the Boston University School of Law, has long argued that Section 230 should not be a “free pass,” but rather contingent on companies engaging in reasonable content moderation practices. She said this legislation is a step in that direction.
“The bill does not go far enough for me, but it is a good start on the road to conditioning the legal shield on reasonable content moderation practices in the face of illegality causing clear harm,” she told me." Read more about The Technology 202: Lawmakers unveil bipartisan proposal to make social media moderation more transparent
""This is the full-frontal nuclear assault on encryption we've been fearing would come, but which no lawmaker previously had dared to put forth," emailed Riana Pfefferkorn, associate director of surveillance and cybersecurity at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society." Read more about 'Lawful access' bill would allow feds to legally bust into encrypted devices
"Daphne Keller, director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center Program on Platform Regulation, agreed with the value of allowing companies to form their own unique policies for content moderation.
“On the internet writ large, different platforms [are] converging on the same policies…and I think it's a bad idea,” she said. “There are reasons that Reddit has one set of policies and Facebook has a different set of policies and that's a good thing. It gives us a diversity and plurality of discursive communities to join.”" Read more about Without Section 230, Tech Platforms Would be Afraid to Either Leave Content Up or Take it Down, Say Panelists
""Requiring the ability to intercept and get unencrypted data "on the wire" in real time does basically mean this is the outright ban on end-to-end encryption that we have been fearing would come. Even CALEA did not go that far," said Riana Pfefferkorn, associate director of surveillance and cybersecurity at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society." Read more about New Bill Takes Direct Aim at Encrypted Devices and Services
"Barbara van Schewick, Stanford law professor, argued in her filing that regulation should make clear that TMPs should be as “application agnostic” as possible, which means they should not slow down specific types of content or specific applications, when other ways to manage traffic exist. Read more about Enforcing Net Neutrality in India: what to know before TRAI's open house discussion
"“The devil will be in the details of implementation,” Jen King, the director of consumer privacy at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, told Recode. “For example, will users understand what’s being asked of them with respect to opting-in to data tracking? Will Apple educate their users about the different practices they are highlighting in the App Store feature summaries? A concern I have is that they give their users a set of new tools without sufficiently explaining what they are for and how they work.”" Read more about Apple is finally making it easy to hide from trackers
"There are skeptics of wearable devices. Ryan Calo, an associate professor of law at the University of Washington, looks at these high-tech privacy issues through a different lens.
“The devil is in the details, but I imagine privacy is the least of their worries,” he said via email. “Such technological solutions are unlikely to work for a variety of reasons, and usually amount to an excuse to subject people to risk for economic gain.”" Read more about Some NBA players skeptical of wearable devices to be used inside Disney World bubble
"“Every platform can have a right to its own editorial policy up until the point where they're the only platform, or close enough to being the only platform, and then the rules should be different,” said Keller in a phone interview. “We do have a history of saying that if you’re the private owner of the speech infrastructure that everybody depends on, and you're a monopoly or close to one, then the government can regulate you in these special ways. Read more about Americans Want Transparency In Content Moderation Decisions On Social Media
"Jonathan Mayer, a science professor at Princeton University, told TechCrunch that BlueKai is one of the leading systems for linking data.
“If you have the browser send an email address and a tracking cookie at the same time, that’s what you need to build that link,” he said." Read more about Oracle’s BlueKai tracks you across the web. That data spilled online
"Richard Salgado, Google’s director for law enforcement and information security matters, said the search engine created in 1998 recognizes that elections, the global pandemic and protests against injustice make the site more important than ever. The company created a quarterly bulletin with updates on influence campaigns, he said.
“While we saw limited misconduct linked to state sponsored activity in the 2018 midterms, we continue to keep the public informed,” he said." Read more about Facebook, Twitter, Google describe efforts to Congress to prevent foreign interference in 2020 election
"“Looking ahead to the November election, we are aware that the Covid-19 pandemic, widespread protests and other significant events can provide fodder for nation state sponsored disinformation campaigns,” Richard Salgado, the director of law enforcement and information security at Google, said during a House Intelligence Committee hearing Thursday." Read more about Facebook, Google, Twitter Pledge Vigilance on Disinformation
"My primary worry about corporate information-gathering on individuals has always been about governments' ability to access the information the companies collect. This is especially a concern with facial recognition data, given the severe privacy ramifications of putting a pervasive surveillance system in law enforcement's hands. When tech companies say they won't sell their FR tech to law enforcement, that sounds nice, but it means nothing unless there are strict controls on "downstream" access by law enforcement. Read more about What actions could companies or lawmakers take to quell fears about the use of facial recognition technology?
"The DOJ proposals "would seriously curtail platforms' ability to moderate content and respond quickly to emerging problems — like new kinds of abusive online behavior, which internet users are endlessly inventive in coming up with," said Daphne Keller, director of the program on platform regulation at Stanford's Cyber Policy Center." Read more about Washington's rush to smash tech's liability protection
""While I am sure the DoJ will be unhappy with Zoom's choice, I believe the anti-abuse controls that Zoom announced, such as verifying a phone number, will help to mitigate the abuse that Zoom was previously trying to prevent by the more extreme measure of barring free accounts from getting E2EE entirely," says Riana Pfefferkorn, the associate director of surveillance and cybersecurity at Stanford's Center for Internet and Society. Read more about Zoom Reverses Course and Promises End-to-End Encryption for All Users
""It's tricky," said Jen King, director of consumer privacy at Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society, noting how ubiquitous Big Tech's tools have become. "When you're sharing information, you have to expect that anyone else is going to be able to access it. Whether that's the police or counterprotesters, you can't just assume it will only be the people who are interested in your cause."" Read more about Relying on Silicon Valley to organize makes some protesters uneasy
This week on Galley, we're hosting a series of roundtable discussions about digital privacy, competition, algorithmic accountability and proposals for a new social contract for online platforms. These discussions were sparked in part by the publication of a new book from Dipayan Ghosh, who leads the Digital Platforms & Democracy Project at Harvard and has worked at both Facebook and the White House as a technology and public policy advisor. Read more about Terms of Disservice: A roundtable on digital privacy