expōnere

Can PI Ever Be Considered IP?

I have my own thoughts on whether or not personal information can be defined as intellectual property but I’d really love to hear some more opinions before espousing my own.

Please do comment especially if you have strong opine that falls one side of the fence or another.

Internet Eyes Under ICO Investigation

Well it was always going to happen but today The Register are running a story that the launch of Internet Eyes has been delayed whilst the Information Commissioner’s Office checks on the legality of the service after concerns were raised.

Assistant Information Commissioner Jonathan Bamford told The Register:   “CCTV operators should use appropriately trained staff to monitor images. If a CCTV system is established to help prevent and detect crime, it would be appropriate to disclose images to law enforcement agencies where a crime needs to be investigated.

“However, it is not appropriate to disclose images of identifiable individuals for entertainment purposes or to place them on the internet.

“If images are to be released for identification purposes, this should not generally be done by anyone other than the law enforcement agencies where necessary when investigating a crime.”

I for one am hoping that in this case the ICO really does step up and put a halt to Internet Eyes.

Internet Eyes on TV – Watch, Learn & be… Disgusted?

Internet Eyes the citizen snooping CCTV advocate, about whom I have posted before,  is to be  featured on ITV’s Tonight program on 11th February at 19.30 according to their facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Internet-Eyes/108455634071?ref=nf.

I’m personally still appalled at the idea of not only Joe Public an eye into private CCTV footage for the purpose of reporting observed miscreants but also the notion of this snooping being in some way ranked into leagure tables of spotters with prizes/rewards on offer for reporting.

Are Modern HR Practices a Zero-Sum Game?

Today’s article entitled “Half of Employers Reject Potential Worker After Look at Facebook Page” In the Telegraph reports that;

Bosses are now using the popular social networking site as a tool to double check how likely it would be that their new worker would take a sick day for being hung-over or on drugs the night before.

And job seekers were being found out for lying about their qualifications, with employers checking their Facebook pages to see if their online details matched their resume.

No great surprises there.  After all background checks, references and such have been the bread and butter of the Human Resource industry for yonks and let’s be truthful here; business and HR in particular has never been great advocates of treating people as people.  Liri Anderson highlights some of the absurd thinking in her post here.

But the article had me thinking, especially in light of Mark Zuckerberg’s recent Crunchie Awards statements on privacy and sharing.  With open sharing of very personal information rapidly becoming “normal” (at least within a certain and growing portion of society) businesses are being offered up a far greater insight into who people really are, their true identity.

I recently spent a day being psychometrically tested, a practice I have had little respect for in the past.  But this time it was different.  After an hour of online tests prior to even leaving home, I spent the best part of 9 hours being subjected to a battery of tests, exams, questionings all culminating in a fairly probing interview with an industrial psychologist.

Throughout the whole process I was very conscious of the various (seeming) inconsistencies in my responses, my body language, volume, level of language – the whole performance. The psychologist then blew me away by not only articulating back to me all of those traits but painted a picture of me that was so close to my own view that I could not fail to be impressed.

And of course the whole exercise is designed to see through performance, misdirection and untruths.

With the rapid increase in sharing of personal information HR practioners now have the ability to undertake much of the due diligence that would be accurately be shown up by the above process themselves, in-house with no context, response or even the applicants knowledge.

I’m not going to argue the rights and wrongs of this surreptitious behaviour (although I give a nod towards Deep Packet Inspection) but I do want to pose a couple of points;

1) Are we going to see third party agencies now remotely scanning peoples online behaviour in order to offer up a “professional” opinion of that candidate based on nothing more than what is actually shared as opposed to that which is not expressed?  Where will the oversight come from and can these businesses build a credible model?

2) In Zuckerberg’s ideal world we all share more and share more openly.  Given this scenario when will the tipping point come where candidates are equally exposed and deemed inappropriate; what then?  Does this point surely not create a Zero-Sum game for this practice of pseudo-psychology, one where employers realise that the process will not actually highlight potentially “bad” employees but that people are just people.

Simple honest privacy for Costa Competition

In my usual daily trawl of interesting stuff I came across a competition from Costa Coffee in the UK to win a year’s free coffee and as anyone who knows me – free coffee has got to be a good thing.

The compo, it turns out, is actually just a draw, you know the sort of thing; enter your contact details, don’t win and yet still get bombarded with masses of junk marketing from all and sundry.

Well here’s the entry page and it quite clearly says Costa aren’t going to use your details for that, and the terms and conditions are equally simple, fair and honest.  A great nod to consumer privacy and not abusing it.

Simple privacy terms from Costa Coffee

A massive WELL DONE to Costa for breaking the norm and offering to play nicely. (needless to say yes I have entered)