Your Phone Is Indeed Tracking You

If you thought your phone wasn't keeping tabs on you, along comes some info showing how your data tracking you gets used:

The Detroit Free Press: Your data says you’re home, Michigan. You get an 'A' for social distancing

Michigan, you get an ‘A’ for social distancing. You can thank data from your phone.

Data gleaned from mobile phones shows Michiganders are staying home amid concerns for the novel coronavirus pandemic, according to location data and analytics firm Unacast, based in Norway and New York.

The company announced its “Social Distancing Scoreboard” on Tuesday, assigning states and counties a letter grade for their change in average distance traveled. It was first reported by The Washington Post.

Michigan got its “A” for an about 45% decrease in distance traveled, though not all counties can tout their own success.

Interesting gthe info that can be aggregated from phone activity.

Mind you, distance traveled isn't a perfect approximation for social distancing, so I wonder if the data the companhy is gleaning can also note the distance between different phones.

Good Morning Guv'nor, Department Of Pre-Crime Calling

The city of London's pre-crime unit must be having to work overtime with the latest news on the results of the facial detection system installed for London's surveillance cameras:

The Independent: Facial recognition wrongly identifies public as potential criminals 96% of time, figures reveal

Facial recognition technology has misidentified members of the public as potential criminals in 96 per cent of scans so far in London, new figures reveal.

The Metropolitan Police said the controversial software could help it hunt down wanted offenders and reduce violence, but critics have accused it of wasting public money and violating human rights.

Is the 96% false positive rate a bug or a feature? After all, in the United Kingdom's new and improved Orwellian surveillance state, it's not that the system is misidentifying the public as criminals, it's just they haven't been caught in the act on camera yet.

Good Gun Bills Moving In Michigan

SB610, the lifting of the SBS and SBR ban, has passed out of the House Judiciary Committee and headed to the House Floor. Apparently there was an amendment to the bill so it will ave to go back to the Senate after passing the House but it is still moving.

This is a real improvement in Michigan law and lets Michiganians join about 40mother states that do not ban possession of SBRs and SBSs as long as you comply with Federal law.

In addition to the SBR/SBS legalization, there is a packet of bills to reaffirm that firearm records are confidential, not FOIAble, and only available to peace officers for proper purposes and disclosures in violation of the law would be a misdemeanor and a second violation will be a felony. Excellent.

Michigan's Supreme Court has already held that Concealed Pistol License Information is not subject to FOIA, but it is nice to see this both reinforced and expanded by statute to all firearms records along with some real teeth for violations.

Two very good proposed laws indeed, and it is worth politely contacting your Representative and asking them to support and vote for passage of both these reforms.

Michigan Governor Signs Social Media Privacy Bill

In the flurry of bills passed in the lame duck session, HB 5523 was among those that have been signed into law.

HB 5523, styled as the Internet Privacy Protection Act, prohibits employers and educational institutions from demanding access to, or firing / disciplining employees and students for refusing to provide access to their personal email accounts, social media accounts, and other personal internet accounts except for some very limited circumstances.

The bills properly exempts accounts owned by an employer or educational institution from such a ban and permits investigations when there is specific information concerning work-related employee misconduct, unauthorized transfer of the employer's information, or criminal activity.

The bill also protects employers and educational institutions by affirmatively setting out that they do not have a duty to search or monitor such personal accounts. it also states that they are not liable for failing to request or require the student or employee to allow such access to their personal accounts.

Of course, the ban doesn't prevent a school or employer from using information that is publicly available or made public by the employee or student. So don't expect to get off under this bill if you call in a sick day and then post on Facebook about your attending some event on the same day.

Overall, its a good law and one that helps to separate the work/educational institutional sphere from people's private lives (to the extent that there's much in the way of a private life left).