privacy – joeandrieu.com
type: channel
description: My personal space
date: 2026-02-26T23:47:46Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
generator agent: https://wordpress.org/
items: Dehumanizing the Disconnected
items: Rethinking Context
items: It all starts with sharing…
items: Constellations of Privacy
items: Beyond Data Ownership to Information Sharing
items: Kynetx takes on Structured Browsing
items: Majority of Americans dislike unauthorized use of behavioral data
items: BT busted for unauthorized tracking of user activity
items: NY State strikes out against unapproved privacy invasion by online advertisers
items: Europe continues to lead privacy conversation with IP ruling

Dehumanizing the Disconnected
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2026-02-13T16:29:31Z
subject: privacy
subject: Technology
subject: Uncategorized
subject: digital fiduciary
subject: freedom
subject: humanity
subject: Identity
subject: realeyes
subject: uniqueness
subject: world
subject: worldcoin
subject: worldid
description: Last week, the Credentials Community Group of the World Wide Web Consortium hosted Scott Jones, sharing his company’s work on Client-side Biometric Authentication and Identity Verification. https://www.w3.org/events/meetings/6c106024-7f5f-4297-972b-18af6432aaef/20260203T120000/ He said a lot of smart things about his company, Realeyes https://realeyes.ai/, and … Continue reading →
encoded: Last week, the Credentials Community Group of the World Wide Web Consortium hosted Scott Jones, sharing his company’s work on Client-side Biometric Authentication and Identity Verification. https://www.w3.org/events/meetings/6c106024-7f5f-4297-972b-18af6432aaef/20260203T120000/ <img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" width="382" height="132" src="https://blog.joeandrieu.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/verifeye.png" alt="VerifEye Powered by Realeyes" class="wp-image-1486" style="aspect-ratio:2.8941636083816737;width:301px;height:auto" srcset="https://blog.joeandrieu.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/verifeye.png 382w, https://blog.joeandrieu.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/verifeye-300x104.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 382px) 100vw, 382px" /> He said a lot of smart things about his company, Realeyes https://realeyes.ai/, and their VerifEye offering. They are a leader in using AI and advanced biometrics for identity verification. I appreciated his discussion of how they are using real technology to improve the quality and privacy of identity assurance. In particular, I appreciate the progress towards client-side biometric authentication, which may prove a long term best-of-class approach to securing our digital identities without creating a panopticon. However, there is a fundamental flaw in their approach that deserves attention. Surprisingly, it is one that Dr Seuss’s Yertle the Turtle might have found familiar. At the end of the day, after all the privacy-engineering on the front end, Realeyes maintains their own uniqueness database. To their credit, they are refreshingly candid about charging for access. They hope to create a global database of who is human and then charge to query that database. It’s a straightforward business model that helps us better understand how such a system might be abused or otherwise cause harm. This vendor-controlled uniqueness database is the problem. Worldcoin and World <img decoding="async" width="150" height="150" src="https://blog.jo…

Rethinking Context
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2012-05-15T18:02:01Z
subject: Information Sharing
subject: Shared Information
subject: context
subject: FTC privacy report
subject: personal levels of assurance
subject: privacy
subject: smart disclosure
subject: standard label
description: Insights from PII2012 The FTC Privacy Report makes it clear that context is the key to privacy. For example, notice and consent need not be presented and secured if the use is obvious from context: If you buy a book … Continue reading →
encoded: Insights from PII2012 The FTC Privacy Report makes it clear that context is the key to privacy. For example, notice and consent need not be presented and secured if the use is obvious from context: If you buy a book from Amazon, it’s clear they need an address to ship you the book. But sometimes the context isn’t clear to the average user, even when it is obvious to developers. My Mom believes she doesn’t share anything on Facebook because she mostly just comments on other people’s posts. Ilana Westerman’s work shows the same disconnect: many people just don’t see their privacy exposure because they have simplified models of their actions. They think what they are doing isn’t the risky stuff, but they rarely have the awareness of what they are really doing. Making that harder are monolithic Terms of Service and Privacy Policies that bury the details arbitrarily far away from the point of exposure, and in confusing legalese. The answer is some form of bite-size context management. For example, Smart Disclosure, which is the US administration’s language for greater clarity about risks of information sharing: One of the most powerful versions of smart disclosure is when data on products or services (including pricing algorithms, quality, and features) is combined with personal data (like customer usage history, credit score, health, energy and education data) into “choice engines” (like search engines, interactive maps or mobile applications) that enable consumers to make better decisions in context, at the point of a buying or contractual decision Or perhaps something along the lines of Personal Levels of Assurance, a term from AT&T describing piece-wise on-demand disclosure and consent. This is also the approach behind the Standard Information Sharing Label, which let’s you see in simple, consistent terms, exactly what happens with the data you are about to share, before you share it. That instance of sharing defines the context for which the information may be used,…

It all starts with sharing…
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2012-05-02T15:37:26Z
subject: Information Sharing
subject: ProjectVRM
subject: Shared Information
subject: User Driven
subject: Vendor Relationship Management
subject: IIW
subject: iiw14
subject: information sharing work group
subject: ISWG
subject: Kantara
subject: Kantara Initiative
subject: label
subject: legal
subject: notice
subject: open standard
subject: open standards
subject: privacy
subject: privacy policy
subject: standard information sharing label
subject: standard label
subject: terms of service
subject: terms of use
subject: TOS
subject: TOU
subject: VRM
description: From kindergarten through our professional life, sharing binds us together as friends, colleagues, and collaborators, so perhaps it should be no surprise that online sharing through services like Facebook, Twitter, and email shapes our online social life. Yet sharing online … Continue reading →
encoded: From kindergarten through our professional life, sharing binds us together as friends, colleagues, and collaborators, so perhaps it should be no surprise that online sharing through services like Facebook, Twitter, and email shapes our online social life. Yet sharing online is anything but simple. The details of what happens with the information we share is often hidden behind long, complicated legal agreements that almost no one reads. If we’re lucky, they are explained in Terms of Service and Privacy Policy documents, sometimes buried out of view, other times forced on us like ransom notes forcing us to state our compliance or leave the site. It doesn’t have to be that way. Today, at the Internet Identity Workshop, we officially launch the Standard Information Sharing Label, which makes it easy for websites to say in simple, consistent language what they do with our information, making it easier for individuals to make better decisions about the information we share online. The Information Sharing Work Group has published a draft specification defining the Standard Label as well as a Kickstarter project to finance its graphic design. The Kickstarter has a brief video explaining the effort. The official press release is here. The work is free to use and open to collaborators. In all my years contributing to the VRM conversation, few projects have made me as proud as I am of the work behind the Standard Label. Check it out. If you like it, please spread the word and consider chipping into help take this work to the next level.

Constellations of Privacy
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2011-04-10T17:45:46Z
subject: Information Sharing
subject: Shared Information
subject: User Driven Services
subject: Vendor Relationship Management
subject: context
subject: privacy
subject: public v private
description: Privacy issues dominate the global debate about protecting the rights of individuals online. Yet, the conversation almost entirely misses a vital point: public or private isn’t a black or white choice and it never has been. Sociologists have long recognized … Continue reading →
encoded: <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-960 alignright" style="margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;" title="public v private" src="https://blog.joeandrieu.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/public-v-private.dreamstime_267400.jpg" alt="Public v Private" width="216" height="288" srcset="https://blog.joeandrieu.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/public-v-private.dreamstime_267400.jpg 360w, https://blog.joeandrieu.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/public-v-private.dreamstime_267400-225x300.jpg 225w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 216px) 100vw, 216px" />Privacy issues dominate the global debate about protecting the rights of individuals online. Yet, the conversation almost entirely misses a vital point: public or private isn’t a black or white choice and it never has been. Sociologists have long recognized that there is no single “public”, no monolithic context where social norms congeal and deviant behavior is shunned. Instead, we’ve recognized that each of us engages in multiple, distinct publics, with their own boundaries and rules of etiquette. We act one way at PTA meetings, another in Las Vegas, yet again a third way at work. These are different flavors of public behavior and yet we expect most people to respect boundaries between these areas. We manage these publics as easily and naturally as we greet a newcomer to the workplace. We do it without conscious effort, but with a sensitivity to the place and moment. We also constantly manage any number of private contexts, where certain topics and behaviors are understood to be held in confidence, from family matters and Santa Claus to corporate secrets. Just as there is no monolithic “public”, there is no single “private” domain, where insiders know everything and outsiders know nothing. We share confidences with our kids, our spouses, our lawyers, our doctors, our psychiatrists, our bartenders, our business partners, all with certain, often unstated, rules about appropriate use and redistribution. Sure, these…

Beyond Data Ownership to Information Sharing
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2010-01-21T22:32:19Z
subject: Information Sharing
subject: Intention Economy
subject: Personal Data Store
subject: ProjectVRM
subject: Shared Information
subject: User Driven Services
subject: Vendor Relationship Management
subject: CRM
subject: data ownership
subject: Doc Searls
subject: privacy
subject: project VRM
subject: User Driven
subject: VRM
description: The question of who owns our data on the Internet is a challenging problem. It can also be a red herring, distracting us from building the next generation of online services. The term “ownership” simply brings too much baggage from … Continue reading →
encoded: The question of who owns our data on the Internet is a challenging problem. It can also be a red herring, distracting us from building the next generation of online services. The term “ownership” simply brings too much baggage from the physical world, suggesting a win-lose, us-verses-them mentality that retards the development of rich, powerful services based on shared information. Anyone up for sacred cow cheeseburgers? I’m a member–and a big fan–of Steve Holcombe‘s “Data Ownership in the Cloud” LinkedIn group and I love the efforts of the Dataportability guys and am a big supporter of the Privacy and Public Policy work group at Kantara. There is a lot of good work being done by folks trying to figure out how to give people greater control over the use of data about them (privacy) and gain access to data they use or created (dataportability). Unfortunately, sometimes the arguments behind these efforts are based on who owns–or who should own–the data. This is not just an intellectual debate or political rallying call, it often undermines our common efforts to build a better system. Consider this: Privacy as secrecy is dead Data sharing is data copying Transaction data has dual ownership Yours, mine, & ours: Reality is complicated Taking back ownership is confrontational Privacy as secrecy is dead First, the data is pretty much already out there. The issue isn’t “How do we keep data from bad people,” it’s “How do we keep people from doing bad things with data?” DRM and crypto and related technology as the sole means to prevent data leakage and data abuse are failures. Sooner or later, the bad guys break the system and get the data. Sure, there are smart things we can do to protect ourselves. Just like we wear seatbelts and lock our front doors, we should also use SSL and multi-factor authentication, but we can’t count on technology to keep our secrets. We need solutions that work even when the secret is out. In fact, privacy isn’t about information we keep secret. It…

Kynetx takes on Structured Browsing
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2009-02-08T07:47:48Z
subject: Identity
subject: Intention Economy
subject: Personal Data Store
subject: ProjectVRM
subject: User Driven Search
subject: Vendor Relationship Management
subject: ad blockers
subject: Adaptive Blue
subject: data rights management
subject: Doc Searls
subject: Glue
subject: information cards
subject: kynetx
subject: MyDex
subject: open source
subject: open standards
subject: OpenID
subject: Phil Windley
subject: privacy
subject: r-button
subject: rbutton
subject: relationship services
subject: search map
subject: Skype
subject: structured browsing
subject: SwitchBook
subject: User Driven Services
subject: VRM
subject: web augmentation
subject: Yahoo Toolbar
description: Doc Searls recently brought my attention to a White Paper by Phil Windley, about his company, Kynetx. It does a good job explaining the thinking behind their architecture, and raises some questions that, for me, challenge some underlying assumptions and … Continue reading →
encoded: Doc Searls recently brought my attention to a White Paper by Phil Windley, about his company, Kynetx. It does a good job explaining the thinking behind their architecture, and raises some questions that, for me, challenge some underlying assumptions and business choices. Problem Domain The distributed nature of the web is a big part of its power–nobody needs to ask permission from a central authority to use it or create with it. However, that disaggregation limits the cohesion for sophisticated uses, leaving users to hobble together ad-hoc mash-ups of value from multiple, diverse service providers. For example, the average travel planner spends 29 days from their first query to their first purchase. No tool I know of facilitates that entire process effectively. Solving this problem in a general way—while retaining the authority of the individual and the flexibility of open systems—is perhaps the greatest opportunity for VRM. The personal data store and VRM relationship services are two prongs of an architectural shift for enabling this kind of aggregation while remaining open. Once you put the user in the driver’s seat, with coherent controls over the flow and the data, the experience can integrate around the user, even as they drive anywhere on the Internet. Solution Kynetx’s solution is built on one primary capability: A rules engine (and language) for contextual customization based on strong identity-based claims, using the user-centric Identity of Information Cards. This puts Kynetx squarely in the web augmentation service business. Adaptive Blue (and their Glue product) is perhaps the most sophisticated approach to this space, but Yahoo’s Toolbar also augments web pages, as does Skype (putting its SkypOut button on any phone # it recognizes), and the granddaddies of all web-augmentation services are the ad blocker plug-ins that remove banner ads on websites. I distinguish web augmentation from web media enhancements, like PDF and Flash and Java, in that the lat…

Majority of Americans dislike unauthorized use of behavioral data
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2008-04-10T17:55:42Z
subject: Identity
subject: ProjectVRM
subject: Vendor Relationship Management
subject: privacy
subject: VRM
description: From Yahoo News: Majority Uncomfortable with Websites Customizing Content Based Visitors Personal Profiles Level of Comfort Increases When Privacy Safeguards Introduced ROCHESTER, N.Y.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–A majority of U.S. adults are skeptical about the practice of websites using information about a … Continue reading →
encoded: From Yahoo News: Majority Uncomfortable with Websites Customizing Content Based Visitors Personal Profiles Level of Comfort Increases When Privacy Safeguards Introduced ROCHESTER, N.Y.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–A majority of U.S. adults are skeptical about the practice of websites using information about a person’s online activity to customize website content. However, after being introduced to four potential recommendations for improving websites privacy and security polices, U.S. adults become somewhat more comfortable with the websites use of personal information. Good stuff, although one should read closely to understand exactly what users dislike. Customization isn’t the problem… it’s the unauthorized invasion of privacy. The questions asked by Harris were rather leading. It would be interesting to see what people say to “if asked, would you allow a Search engine to provide enhanced results based on your behavior.” My understanding is most people do opt-in to the advanced features of Google desktop, which asks essentially the same question at install time. People don’t like surreptitious activities, but if you ask up front, it’s much easier for folks to say yes.

BT busted for unauthorized tracking of user activity
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2008-04-03T00:46:03Z
subject: Identity
subject: BT
subject: privacy
description: The title says it all, as reported by the Guardian: BT admits tracking 18,000 users with Phorm systems in 2006 Bummer. I kinda like BT.
encoded: The title says it all, as reported by the Guardian: BT admits tracking 18,000 users with Phorm systems in 2006 Bummer. I kinda like BT.

NY State strikes out against unapproved privacy invasion by online advertisers
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2008-03-20T11:02:21Z
subject: Vendor Relationship Management
subject: advertising
subject: attention data
subject: clickstream
subject: disclosure
subject: Esther Dyson
subject: New York
subject: New York Legislature
subject: permission
subject: privacy
subject: Richard L. Brodsky
subject: tracking
description: Kudos to Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky in the NY State Assembly for taking on GoogleClick and the rest of the back-end invisible online tracking services. The NYT reports A Push to Limit the Tracking of Web Surfers’ Clicks: AFTER reading … Continue reading →
encoded: Kudos to Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky in the NY State Assembly for taking on GoogleClick and the rest of the back-end invisible online tracking services. The NYT reports A Push to Limit the Tracking of Web Surfers’ Clicks: AFTER reading about how Internet companies like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo collect information about people online and use it for targeted advertising, one New York assemblyman said there ought to be a law. Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, the sponsor of a New York bill to limit how companies collect data on computer users. So he drafted a bill, now gathering support in Albany, that would make it a crime — punishable by a fine to be determined — for certain Web companies to use personal information about consumers for advertising without their consent. And because it would be extraordinarily difficult for the companies that collect such data to adhere to stricter rules for people in New York alone, these companies would probably have to adjust their rules everywhere, effectively turning the New York legislation into national law. “Should these companies be able to sell or use what’s essentially private data without permission? The easy answer is absolutely not,” said the assemblyman who sponsored the bill, Richard L. Brodsky, a Democrat who has represented part of Westchester County since 1982. … “A law like this essentially takes some of the gold away from marketers,” said Joseph Turow, a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. “But it’s the right thing to do. Consumers have no idea how much information is being collected about them, and the advertising industry should have to deal with that.” This is an absolute no brainer. If you don’t have permission, don’t track users. In the physical world, we have developed fairly robust rules of social etiquette and even laws regulating this sort of behavior. Can you imagine how creepy it would be if some stranger surrept…

Europe continues to lead privacy conversation with IP ruling
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2008-01-22T16:29:11Z
subject: Identity
subject: European Union
subject: IP addresses
subject: privacy
subject: project VRM
subject: VRM
description: The EU is years ahead of the US in user rights and privacy. For a VRM example, see the UK’s Buyer-Centric Commerce Forum. Now, according to the Washington Post, an EU judge has pushed the privacy envelope even further, saying … Continue reading →
encoded: The EU is years ahead of the US in user rights and privacy. For a VRM example, see the UK’s Buyer-Centric Commerce Forum. Now, according to the Washington Post, an EU judge has pushed the privacy envelope even further, saying “IP addresses are personal data“: BRUSSELS — IP addresses, strings of numbers that identify computers on the Internet, should generally be regarded as personal information, the head of the European Union‘s group of data privacy regulators said Monday. This will be interesting to watch…