Blog of Rights
Chris
Conley

Chris Conley is the Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow at the ACLU of Northern California, where his work focuses on the intersection of privacy, free speech, and emerging technology. As a lawyer and technologist, he has worked extensively on the connection between consumer products and individual rights, particularly concerns about third party "apps" that have access to social network or mobile device data without adequate controls or transparency. He has presented on technology and civil liberties issues before the Federal Trade Commission and at various conferences including SXSW Interactive and DEF CON, and has developed his own Facebook and mobile apps giving users greater transparency into the types and amount of personal data these apps can access.

 

Prior to joining the ACLU of Northern California, Chris was a Fellow with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, where his research explored international Internet surveillance. He has previously worked as a software engineer and data architect for various corporations and non-profits. Chris holds a B.S.E. in Electrical Engineering from The University of Michigan, a S.M. in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

01/02/2009

How Private is Private Browsing?

By Chris Conley, Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow, ACLU of Northern California at 1:46pm

(This post originally appeared on the ACLU of Northern California's technology blog, Bytes and Pieces.)

'Tis the season for private browsing, or so it seems. Apple's Safari Web browser led the pack in introducing a "private browsing mode" in 2005; in recent months, the other browsers on the market have finally followed suit, with Google's recently-released Chrome and beta versions of Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer adding similar features.

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02/28/2011
Facebook

Is Simpler Better for Facebook's Privacy Policy?

By Chris Conley, Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow, ACLU of Northern California at 3:55pm

Facebook is working on a "privacy policy written for regular people." Giving users descriptions that they can actually understand is a great thing, and we're glad to see Facebook move in that direction. But, as we've pointed out with Facebook before, simpler isn't always better—and some parts of the proposed policy are pretty confusing anyhow. So we're glad that Facebook plans to make its new privacy policy simpler to read and understand—but we hope it will simply provide better controls and protection too.

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04/20/2010
ECPA

Google's New Transparency Tool: A Window Into Government Surveillance

By Chris Conley, Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow, ACLU of Northern California at 4:55pm

We've known for a long time that electronic privacy law is woefully outdated. But what we haven't known is how often the government is taking advantage of this fact to engage in a shopping spree in the treasure trove of personal information being collected by companies like Google.

So we're happy to see Google's just-released Government Requests tool, which is the company's attempt to shine some light on how often governments around the world request user information (and content removal) from Google. The ACLU has called for this type of disclosure for years and we applaud Google for taking this important first step to help Congress and the American people understand what's really going on and why it's time to demand a privacy upgrade that includes more transparency around when and how the government demands information from Google.

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02/08/2010
Facebook

Is Facebook’s Application Dashboard Missing a Privacy Gauge?

By Chris Conley, Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow, ACLU of Northern California at 10:27am

Facebook is once again rolling out changes to its user interface, including new Applications and Games Dashboards that it says will “mak[e] it easier for you to find and interact with applications.” And, once again, these changes affect your privacy: now other users can easily find out which applications you use, whether that’s a popular game, a dating app, or our Facebook quiz. Just like the changes that made Friends Lists and Fan Pages part of your “Publicly Available Information” (PAI) that could not be restricted or made private in any way (though Facebook later relented and allowed you to hide your Friends List on your profile—but only if you hide it from everyone!), this takes information that was hard to find and puts it front and center.

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11/30/2011
Facebook

The Facebook/FTC Settlement Proposal: What's New, What's Not

By Chris Conley, Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow, ACLU of Northern California at 3:14pm

Earlier this week, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced a proposed settlement with Facebook, addressing its assertion that Facebook deceived users by failing to uphold its privacy promises. As we said elsewhere, the proposed settlement has one major step forward: it prohibits the company from “begging forgiveness instead of asking permission” by changing its privacy settings to make data more public or share it with more people. But it doesn’t cure all of the outstanding issues with Facebook privacy.

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10/18/2011
Google

Google Turns on Encrypted Search by Default for Users

By Chris Conley, Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow, ACLU of Northern California at 5:57pm

This week, our federal online privacy law turns 25. The ACLU is hosting a blog series that will address some of the many reasons why the "Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986" (ECPA) is in need of an upgrade! Spread the word using #UpdateECPA, and to learn more about your dotRights, visit www.aclu.org/ecpa.

Today, Google announced that they will be making encrypted search the default for users who are logged into a Google account. This means that third parties, including both your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and the sites you ultimately visit (unless you click on an ad) will not be able to see exactly what you searched for. We're happy to see Google expanding access to secure search. We hope that it will continue to expand protections like this to all searches and hope other search engines will also do the same.

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08/11/2011
LinkedIn

LinkedIn Links You to Brands and Products Without Your Consent

By Chris Conley, Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow, ACLU of Northern California at 4:33pm

If you’re using LinkedIn, you’re probably doing so to connect with peers and colleagues, explore new business relationships, or even network for your next career move. Chances are you didn’t join LinkedIn so you could tell your boss or your colleagues which products or brands you like. But LinkedIn’s new “social advertising” feature does exactly that: it takes your name or photo and connects that to ads that your friends and colleagues see based on your groups, contacts, and personal content. Worse yet, this feature was turned on by default, requiring you to find the right settings to opt out.

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04/28/2011

Sony Learns the Hard Way that Protecting User Privacy Is Not a Game

By Chris Conley, Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow, ACLU of Northern California at 1:10pm

Less than a week after the revelation that Apple's iPhones and iPads keep location data logs, Sony announced a doozy of a privacy snafu of its own: a recent security breach on its PlayStation Network resulted in the loss of records of some 77 million Sony customers. There are still more questions than answers about the breach itself, but we can already identify two ways that Sony dropped the ball: failing to use established best practices to protect user data before the breach, and failing to respond quickly and effectively after the breach. We should expect better from companies with whom we entrust our personal information.

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08/20/2009
Facebook

Facebook Flunks Privacy 101

By Chris Conley, Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow, ACLU of Northern California at 12:00am

We recently blogged that Facebook's default privacy settings allow quizzes and other applications to peer into your profile - even if it's your friend, and not you, who takes the quiz!

But don't take our word for it. If you're a Facebook user, check out our very own quiz. It's a behind-the-scenes look at all the personal details a Facebook app can collect about you and your friends — and some steps you can take to keep your private information from landing in the wrong hands.

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08/12/2011
Cell Phones & Smartphones

Gibberbot Wins Inaugural Develop for Privacy Challenge

By Chris Conley, Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow, ACLU of Northern California at 5:00pm

The Develop for Privacy Challenge, organized by the ACLUs of Northern California and Washington, the Tor Project, and the Information & Privacy Commissioner’s Office of Ontario, was launched to highlight some of the best privacy-enhancing mobile apps out there — apps that improve, rather than erode, our ability to protect and control our own private information. After our judges evaluated many qualified applicants, we were delighted to recognize secure chat and instant messaging app Gibberbot as our inaugural challenge winner, and to provide one team member with a trip to Las Vegas to accept the award and discuss the app at the awards ceremony held during DefCon 19.

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