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.

Facebook Addresses Several Privacy Problems

By Chris Conley, Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow, ACLU of Northern California at 2:25pm

Facebook has come under withering fire recently for its recent string of privacy-unfriendly practices, from its “privacy transition” that took away privacy controls to “instant personalization” that instantly shares personal information with third party pages without the user's consent.

California Social Media Privacy Laws Give Students, Employees Online Rights

By Chris Conley, Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow, ACLU of Northern California at 11:15am

On Thursday California Governor Jerry Brown signed two bills into law that will protect the privacy of employee and college student social media accounts in the state of California. While these bills aren’t perfect, they are an important first step towards recognizing that our rights—including our fundamental right to privacy—apply just as much in the online world as in the offline.

You've Been Tagged on Facebook—But Now You’re In Control

By Chris Conley, Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow, ACLU of Northern California at 6:27pm

This morning, Facebook announced its latest set of changes to its privacy controls that will start rolling out on August 25. The upcoming changes are intended to make it easier for you to understand and choose who can see both content you post yourself and tags created by other users. Allowing you to pre-approve tags and giving you better tools to manage your own profile is a positive step, and we encourage Facebook to turn settings like these on by default and to continue to develop and improve features and tools that give you control over your own personal information.

Quiz: What Do Facebook Quizzes Know About You?

By Chris Conley, Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow, ACLU of Northern California at 4:29pm

(Originally posted on the ACLU of Northern California's Bytes & Pieces blog.)

Ever whiled away five minutes on a Facebook quiz, finding out what cartoon character is your look-alike or how your IQ stacks up? These quizzes may seem like a perfectly harmless way to spend a few spare minutes. But have you stopped to think about what these quizzes are learning about you and how that info could be used? Take our quiz and learn more!

ACLU Guide to New Facebook Privacy Controls

By Chris Conley, Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow, ACLU of Northern California at 11:30am

Today Facebook is rolling out a series of changes to its privacy controls. We reviewed the changes in detail on Tuesday; now here’s how you can take advantage of these changes:

Turn On “Profile Review”
One of the biggest changes to Facebook’s privacy controls is the option to review any content you’re tagged in (including photos, Places, and more) before that content is fed into your news feed. You can also review any tags that are added to photos or other content that you post yourself.

U.S. Continues to Blow Away the Field in Demanding Information from Google

By Chris Conley, Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow, ACLU of Northern California at 9:37pm

We know that the government takes advantage of outdated privacy law to demand our personal information from online services that collect and hold our data. But what we rarely know is exactly how often this happens: the government isn’t required to reveal how many demands for information they make or how many individuals are affected, and companies rarely volunteer this information. One of the very few exceptions is Google, whose Transparency Report shows that the government continues to increase its demands for data about users of online services.

Facebook Is Abiding By Its Own Rules, Great! Now How About Good Rules For Everybody?

By Chris Conley, Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow, ACLU of Northern California at 3:16pm

Today, Facebook agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charges that it deceived customers by failing to uphold privacy promises. The FTC announced today that the social networking site “deceived consumers by telling them they could keep their information on Facebook private, and then repeatedly allowing it to be shared and made public. The proposed settlement requires Facebook to take several steps to make sure it lives up to its promises in the future, including giving consumers clear and prominent notice and obtaining consumers' express consent before their information is shared beyond the privacy settings they have established.”

D.C. Judge: Government Doesn't Need a Warrant to Demand Cell Phone Location Information

By Chris Conley, Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow, ACLU of Northern California at 10:39am

Can the government demand location information records from your carrier without a warrant? Unfortunately, a D.C. District Court judge thinks so.

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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