Inside the bitter campus privacy battle over smart building sensors:
"The initial step was to ... see how these things behave," says Herbsleb, comparing the Mites sensors to motion detectors that people might want to test out. "It's purely just, 'How well does it work as a motion detector?' And, you know, nobody's asked to consent. It's just trying out a piece of hardware."
Of course, the system's advanced capabilities meant that Mites were not just motion detectors—and other department members saw things differently. "It's a lot to ask of people to have a sensor with a microphone that is running in their office," says Jonathan Aldrich, a computer science professor, even if "I trust my coworkers as a general principle and I believe they deserve that trust." He adds, "Trusting someone to be a good colleague is not the same as giving them a key to your office or having them install something in your office that can record private things." Allowing someone else to control a microphone in your office, he says, is "very much like giving someone else a key."
As the debate built over the next year, it pitted students against their advisors and academic heroes as well—although many objected in private, fearing the consequences of speaking out against a well-funded, university-backed project.
In the video recording of the town hall obtained by MIT Technology Review, attendees asked how researchers planned to notify building occupants and visitors about data collection. Jessica Colnago, then a PhD student, was concerned about how the Mites' mere presence would affect studies she was conducting on privacy. "As a privacy researcher, I would feel morally obligated to tell my participant about the technology in the room," she said in the meeting. While "we are all colleagues here" and "trust each other," she added, "outside participants might not."
Attendees also wanted to know whether the sensors could track how often they came into their offices and at what time. "I'm in office [X]," Widder said. "The Mite knows that it's recording something from office [X], and therefore identifies me as an occupant of the office." Agarwal responded that none of the analysis on the raw data would attempt to match that data with specific people.
At one point, Agarwal also mentioned that he had gotten buy-in on the idea of using Mites sensors to monitor cleaning staff—which some people in the audience interpreted as facilitating algorithmic surveillance or, at the very least, clearly demonstrating the unequal power dynamics at play.
A sensor system that could be used to surveil workers concerned Jay Aronson, a professor of science, technology, and society in the history department and the founder of the Center for Human Rights Science, who became aware of Mites after Widder brought the project to his attention. University staff like administrative and facilities workers are more likely to be negatively impacted and less likely to reap any benefits, said Aronson. "The harms and the benefits are not equally distributed," he added.
Similarly, students and nontenured faculty seemingly had very little to directly gain from the Mites project and faced potential repercussions both from the data collection itself and, they feared, from speaking up against it. We spoke with five students in addition to Widder who felt uncomfortable both with the research project and with voicing their concerns.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Tuesday April 11, @07:30AM (2 children)
Seems to share a lot of issues with the link below previously shared and talked about. Difference appears to be that they are at least somewhat open about them or they are in plain sight instead of sneakily trying to hide them under desks and such. But the privacy violating aspects are similar. That is if you actually have any reasonable expectation of privacy at your workplace, school or whatever it should be classified as.
Looking at the images of them there seems to be easy access to them if one wants to. They are not hidden or in a box. I guess you could solder anything to them, or attach clips to various points to use them. Lets just hope someone doesn't accidentally bridge a few pins that are not supposed to be bridged ...
> "... I don’t want to live in a world where one’s employer installing networked sensors in your office without asking you first ..."
This is kind of amusing. So they teach them to build IoT devices, eventually working for a company that does it would assume. So they can install them or get people to install them in their homes to do the exact same thing. But then it will be fine? But when someone does it to them for academic reasons then it's wrong and violates them?
https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=57673 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Zinho on Tuesday April 11, @02:15PM (1 child)
This is exactly the difference between a) someone purchasing an Amazon Echo or Microsoft Kinect for their home, and b) the telescreens from 1984 that the government mandated be installed in every home. Informed consent.
Plus, hopefully the purchased products at least provide some benefit to the buyer. These "Mites" provide a benefit only to the people who placed them, not to those whose spaces they are placed in. Big difference.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12, @01:47PM
Your definition of "benefit to the buyer" has quite a low bar... These purchased products are mainly there to provide a benefit to their owner (which is explicitly not the buyer).
(Score: 5, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Tuesday April 11, @08:29AM (2 children)
Then the system at that university is utterly broken. In a non-broken system, the worst that should be possible to happen to you if you speak out is that your complaints are dismissed.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by shrewdsheep on Tuesday April 11, @03:14PM (1 child)
While I agree with your general analysis, I believe that it is not possible to establish a "non-broken" system. If the few in power to promote/tenure/sack want to achieve something, they can always bent the rules. It takes the sacrifice of a few to many to break them. Whenever such misconduct happens, new rules are usually put in place so that it will "never happen again", only to see the repeat a few years later.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday April 12, @06:14AM
Then maybe the problem lies in the concept of "the few in power."
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday April 11, @03:49PM
Just one quack question . . .
0. Will these things also be installed in offices of the most senior people in very high places?
1. Can we learn by observing what makes them high?
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday April 11, @05:12PM (2 children)
Dude... as a gen-Xer, this is painful to read. It's so awkward. Kind of like the guy is sort of kind of questioning his right not to be eavesdropped on, as if it was not normal.
And you know why? That's because it isn't anymore. This generation is so used to being surveiled 24/7 that questioning it sounds like an child meekly pushing back against his parents' authority.
People my age would never have proposed sticking microphones in other people's offices in the first place, and the proposed recipient would have never accepted it. There would have been zero debate, because this wasn't even open to debate in the past. Pulling shit like this and being found out was a surefire trip to HR and immediate dismissal when I was young.
The fact that there's even a debate about this today is a sad sign of the times.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11, @09:22PM
Too bad you can't be modded higher than 5.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12, @01:02AM
Don't read that Reuter's report [reuters.com] on Tesla image sharing, or you'll be rather disappointed.