PRIVACY Forum Digest Friday, 31 December 1993 Volume 02 : Issue 38 Moderated by Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com) Vortex Technology, Woodland Hills, CA, U.S.A. ===== PRIVACY FORUM ===== The PRIVACY Forum digest is supported in part by the ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy. ***************************** *** BEST WISHES FOR 1994! *** ***************************** CONTENTS Mail with SSN visible (Wm. Randolph Franklin) Re: "On the Road to Nosiness?" (Judy Sammel) Public Hearings on Privacy (Dave Banisar) *** Please include a RELEVANT "Subject:" line on all submissions! *** *** Submissions without them may be ignored! *** ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Internet PRIVACY Forum is a moderated digest for the discussion and analysis of issues relating to the general topic of privacy (both personal and collective) in the "information age" of the 1990's and beyond. The moderator will choose submissions for inclusion based on their relevance and content. Submissions will not be routinely acknowledged. ALL submissions should be addressed to "privacy@vortex.com" and must have RELEVANT "Subject:" lines; submissions without appropriate and relevant "Subject:" lines may be ignored. Excessive "signatures" on submissions are subject to editing. Subscriptions are by an automatic "listserv" system; for subscription information, please send a message consisting of the word "help" (quotes not included) in the BODY of a message to: "privacy-request@vortex.com". Mailing list problems should be reported to "list-maint@vortex.com". All submissions included in this digest represent the views of the individual authors and all submissions will be considered to be distributable without limitations. 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For information regarding the availability of this digest via FAX, please send an inquiry to privacy-fax@vortex.com, call (818) 225-2800, or FAX to (818) 225-7203. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- VOLUME 02, ISSUE 38 Quote for the day: "I'm strong to the finich, 'Cause I eat my spinich. I'm Popeye the Sailor Man! (Boop! Boop!)" -- Animated and comic strip character "Popeye"; created in the 1930's by Max Fleischer for his original animated cartoons. Two hundred more cartoons (much lower quality) featuring Popeye were made between 1961 and 1963, and were aired in various syndicated and network venues. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 18:39:52 -0500 From: Wm Randolph Franklin Subject: Mail with SSN visible Concerning: > Date: Fri, 10 Dec 93 18:33:15 GMT > From: Brinton Cooper > Subject: SSN's in Mail Addresses > Further, as the Postal Service is bound, under the Privacy Act, to > not disclose any information relating to the individual, ... ... except when they sell your change-of-address info to mass marketers, or they ignore a forwarding order and deliver your mail to the next occupant at the address, or they deliver your mail to your neighbor, or ... New York State also prints your SSN on address labels used to mail state tax booklets and forms. So does the IRS, if I remember rightly, at least for the 1040. When the Daily Racing Form printed notices of official actions concerning jockeys, they would print the jockeys' SSNs as well as their names. At least they did 20 years ago; dunno about today. On the other hand, T Rowe Price just announced that they've stopped printing your SSN on account statements. -- Wm. Randolph Franklin, wrf@ecse.rpi.edu, (518) 276-6077; Fax: -6261 ECSE Dept., 6026 JEC, Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst, Troy NY, 12180 USA ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Dec 93 22:23 EST From: Sammel@DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL Subject: Re: "On the Road to Nosiness?" Concerning the use of photos and sensors to catch traffic violations, John M. Joy (joyjohnm@cps.msu.edu) writes: : Dollars to donuts the person to whom the vehicle is registered gets the : bill (and the point assessment), not (necessarily) the driver. Are these : photos really clear enough to identify the face of a driver beyond a : reasonable doubt (particularly when members of the same family tend to : drive the same vehicles, and members of the same family tend to resemble : one another)? I was living in Germany a couple of years ago, where these setups are widely used. I got nabbed for running a red light (it was still yellow, officer, honest...) by one of them. The setup consists of two cameras, one which takes a picture just as you cross into the intersection, and another which takes one about a second later, to see whether you went completely through. (This is to avoid ticketing people who actually stop at the intersection, but a little beyond the line.) I saw the flash from the first photo, but was going too fast to stop. When I got the photos in the mail (along with a DM 120 ticket and several points on my license) not only could you *clearly* recognize my face, but you could also tell by the facial expression in the photo that I was using my favorite obscenity at the time the second picture was taken, since by then I knew I'd been caught. Sent along with this was a form you could fill out if you wanted to fight the ticket, and it was my understanding that if you could show that you were not the one driving, you *might* have a chance of winning. Judy Sammel Sammel@Dockmaster.ncsc.mil ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1993 13:00:10 EST From: Dave Banisar Subject: Public Hearings on Privacy NEWS US OFFICE OF CONSUMER AFFAIRS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: George Idelson (USOCA) December 10, 1993 (202)634-4344 Patricia Faley (USOCA) (202)634-4329 PUBLIC HEARINGS ON INFORMATION AGE PRIVACY SET FOR CALIFORNIA AND WASHINGTON, DC. Sacramento: January 10-11, 1994; Washington, DC: January 26-27, 1994. Public Invited to Participate. Representatives from the public, private and non profit sectors will present their views on personal privacy and data protection in the information age at public hearings of a U.S. Government task force in early 1994. The hearings will be open meetings of the Privacy Working Group, chaired by Patricia Faley, Acting Director of the United States Office of Consumer Affairs (USOCA). The Working Group is part of a task force set up by the Clinton Administration to consider how to spur development of an "information superhighway." officially known as the National Information Infrastructure (NII), the "data highway" will be capable of exchanging data, voice and images electronically within a vast network of individuals, businesses, government agencies and other organizations around the world. Ensuring ready access to information is the goal of the Administrative initiative, but protecting individual privacy is essential to its success. The public meetings will examine privacy issues relating to such areas as law enforcement, financial services, information technology, and direct marketing. The California meeting, January 10th and llth, will be hosted by Jim Conran, Director, California Department of Consumer Affairs in the First Floor Hearing Room at 400 R Street in Sacramento. The Washington, DC meeting, January 26th and 27th, will be held at the U.S. Department of Commerce Auditorium, 14th & Constitution Ave. NW. Registration begins at 8:30am, meetings at 9am. The public is invited to attend, question speakers and to make brief comments, but space is limited. Concise written statements for the record should be sent to "Privacy," USOCA, 1620 L Street NW, Washington DC 20036 or faxed to (202)634-4135. # # # United States Office of Comumer Affairs - 1620 L Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20036-5605 ------------------------------ End of PRIVACY Forum Digest 02.38 ************************