The Washington Post reported last month on a conservative Catholic group that spent millions of dollars to buy location data from a private-sector data broker in order to identify gay priests and report them to their bishops. This is a story every American should be aware of — and not just because of how it affected those priests.

You don’t need to share the faith of those facing deeply personal conflicts between their faith and their sexuality to have sympathy for those men, and revulsion at the activists who took it upon themselves to pry into their personal lives out of some twisted homophobic zeal. An excellent 2019 work of reporting in the New York Times explored the anguish and struggles of many such priests.

But neither do you have to be someone facing such a conflict — or any person who needs some private space to grapple with their sexual or gender identity — to worry about the sorry state of privacy that made these vigilante investigations possible.

As a result of Congress’s failure to enact overarching privacy protections, combined with unethical practices by many companies, we’re in a world where location data is collected about a significant proportion of us without our knowledge or permission, and bought and sold by a multibillion-dollar ecosystem of companies that specialize in such data. According to the Post:

One report prepared for bishops says the group’s sources are data brokers who got the information from ad exchanges, which are sites where ads are bought and sold in real time, like a stock market. The group cross-referenced location data from the apps and other details with locations of church residences, workplaces, and seminaries to find clergy who were allegedly active on the apps…

 

Although no names were in the original data from brokers, it included enough identifying details and location pings that the group was able to analyze it for specific locations and narrow down likely people using the apps…

 

The group also focused on devices that spent multiple nights at a rectory, for example, or if a hookup app was used for a certain number of days in a row in some other church building, such as a seminary or an administrative building.

Gay priests are far from the only ones who want to keep elements of their sexual lives private. How many other people could be harmed by the use of location data by various busybodies, moral crusaders, political rivals, or other enemies? Anti-abortion activists are already trying to use private data against those seeking reproductive health care. And think of someone running for office, embroiled in a local homeowner’s association fight, or battling with a neighbor over a zoning law. Any of those people could find themselves subject to such investigations. As the historian Henry Steele Commager once observed, there’s nothing as nasty as a good, local school fight.

And even though few such antagonists are likely to pursue such a strategy, everyone has to worry that somebody will. Aside from any direct harm suffered by the victims of data vigilantes, we are all affected by the chill that comes from living in a society where insufficient legal protections make such things possible. It’s not just the intense harm to the people directly affected, it’s also the more subtle harm to all of us who then become rationally paranoid and must live with that fear.

Tesla employees passed around videos taken in car owners’ private garages and other interesting recordings captured by the cameras built in to the company’s vehicles, Reuters reported today. “We could see them doing laundry and really intimate things. We could see their kids,” according to one of nine former employees who told the news agency about the practice.

File this under “shocking but unsurprising.” Shocking because it’s a significant abuse of privacy — but unsurprising because this is a pattern that has happened repeatedly for many years. Unfortunately, today, when you accept some company’s recording devices into your life, you lose control of your privacy.

Examples abound. Video streaming from Amazon-owned Ring cameras installed by homeowners was monitored by Ring employees, who could watch video from any Ring camera in the world with little more than the click of a mouse. (We wrote about the privacy problems with Ring cameras in 2019.) Amazon employees also listened to recordings made by its voice assistant Alexa. Some told Bloomberg they believe they overheard a sexual assault. Contractors also monitored video from the company’s Cloud Cam security cameras.

Recordings made by Google’s voice assistant were listened to by company contractors. Some of the recordings were leaked to a Belgian media outlet, which was able to identify some of the people in the clips, and was able to hear recordings of people discussing medical conditions and a woman in distress. Human contractors working for Microsoft listened to personal audio conversations by users of the Skype telephone translation app. One told Vice that some of the calls included phone sex. Human contractors regularly listened to audio recordings transmitted by Apple’s Siri voice assistant. A whistleblower told the Guardian that contractors regularly heard medical conversations, drug deals, and recordings of people having sex. Facebook likewise paid contractors to listen to and transcribe audio clips from its services.

It’s unclear how much of this spying continues. In some of the above cases the companies announced they were discontinuing human review or reviewing their practices; in others, privacy policies and opt-out possibilities were clarified.

Surveillance camera manufacturers have also been found accessing the data from their devices. Hackers broke into the servers of the company Verkada in 2021 and discovered that it had a secret backdoor into roughly 150,000 cameras around the world installed by its customers, which permitted the company to view video from any of those cameras at any time. In 2017, a security researcher discovered that Hikvision, a Chinese camera manufacturer which then had 12 percent of the U.S. surveillance camera market, had a backdoor that allowed access to any of its cameras. (Hikvision was subsequently banned by the U.S. government.)

The reasons for corporate monitoring of customer devices vary. Where AI is part of a company’s product, that company will always have a strong incentive to look at customer data in order to improve the training of its algorithms. In the case of Tesla, it appears to have been employee curiosity and gawking — though as Reuters explains, the reason Tesla collects video is to allow human “data labelers” to sift through images taken by its cars for AI training. In other cases, perhaps, people at companies can’t resist engaging in surveillance even with no specific purpose other than a general will to power.

American Civil Liberties Union

The Privacy Threat From Always-On Microphones Like the Amazon Echo | ACLU

A warrant from police has sparked an overdue conversation about the privacy implications of “always-on” recording devices.

None of those incentives are going away, so people should continue to be very deliberate about buying products with Internet-connected cameras or microphones. As we have discussed, when people invite an Internet-connected camera or microphone into their lives, they (and their potentially unsuspecting friends and family) become susceptible not only to the companies who make those devices, but also to hackers and to law enforcement officials with their plentiful powers to make companies do their bidding.

Finally, the Tesla story in particular is a reminder of the specific issues raised by the driverless cars (of all makes and models) and other robots that may end up proliferating in our lives. To make navigational and other decisions, those robots are going to have to have sensors to collect data about the world — and how that data is used will not always be good.

Everyone needs to be more aware of the current risks. Companies need to be clear about what kind of data they are collecting and exactly how they’re using it. Wherever possible they need to give users control over those data flows, such as by providing hardware on/off switches. (We outlined our recommendations for devices in more detail here.) And above all, we need good privacy laws to give some teeth to the good practices that people have every right to expect.

Last year’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade proved to be a major galvanizing moment for people who support abortion rights in communities across the country as some bans already on the books began to go into effect. One of those states is Michigan, where a grassroots coalition had growing concerns about an archaic 1931 abortion ban that could go into effect if the Supreme Court overturned Roe, and had already been working to prepare. Their tireless work put abortion rights on the ballot with Proposition 3, which secures the right to reproductive freedom in Michigan, protecting abortion, prenatal care, birth control, and all reproductive health care. The ballot measure passed with overwhelming support in the 2022 midterm elections, and lawmakers quickly got to work to fully repeal the 1931 ban. This week, Governor Gretchen Whitmer made the repeal official.

This victory for abortion rights is the result of years of planning and organizing led by ACLU of Michigan, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan, and Michigan Voices. It’s an example of the power of grassroots organizing and the everyday citizens who volunteered to knock on doors, gather signatures, and show up together in coalition to fight for change. It also shows the importance of planning ahead in anticipation of decisions and policies that could impact civil rights and liberties.

Here’s how the long road to victory unfolded:

Over a year before Roe was overturned, community members at the ACLU of Michigan started building a grassroots coalition to protect abortion access in the state. The ACLU of Michigan anticipated that the fall of Roe was imminent and that an archaic state law from 1931, which makes abortion a felony, could spring into effect if that happened. They joined forces with partners at Planned Parenthood and Michigan Voices to conduct a listening tour with stakeholders and explore how best to mobilize to protect abortion rights and access in the state.

“We had a small but mighty volunteer team that was willing to do whatever it took to convince people that Michigan was in trouble if we didn’t get the signatures in time, but it was tough.” – Jessica Ayoub, Field Director, ACLU of Michigan

Credit: ACLU of Michigan

After a year-long exploration to understand the concerns and vision of Michiganders and work with key stakeholders, the grassroots coalition concluded that Michiganders wanted to protect and expand the full range of reproductive rights and health care, and that the most enduring way to do that was to amend the state’s constitution. To make that happen, the coalition formed a citizen-led ballot campaign, Reproductive Freedom for All (RFFA). Organizers and volunteers from local communities began to collect signatures to put a measure on the midterm ballot. To succeed, they needed at least 425,059 verified signatures from registered Michigan voters submitted by early July.

“Most people didn’t think Roe was going to be overturned. They didn’t see the urgency. Then the leak happened.”— Sommer Foster, Executive Director, Michigan Voices

A draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito was leaked to the public ahead of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, revealing plans to overturn Roe. Protests erupted across the country in support of abortion rights. In Michigan, the leak spurred tens of thousands to sign the ballot petition and volunteer to help collect signatures.

“30,000 people reached out to the campaign in one day. It crashed our website.” — Sommer Foster, Executive Director, Michigan Voices

In accordance with the draft leak, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in Dobbs that overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, which had ensured abortion was a protected constitutional right for nearly 50 years. The ruling sparked volunteer efforts statewide. With more than 2,000 volunteers, the reproductive freedom ballot campaign began amassing signatures with unprecedented momentum.

Credit: Gwen Schroeder

On July 11, RFFA delivered 753,759 signatures — more than any other ballot measure in state history — to the Michigan Secretary of State.

“Our partners in the reproductive justice movement were activated, and our office at the ACLU of Michigan became the petition signing and processing headquarters. Looking around, seeing women of color from all these organizations, I knew something exciting was happening.” — Bonsitu Kitaba, Deputy Legal Director, ACLU of Michigan

Credit: Gwen Schroeder

After the Michigan Board of State Canvassers — the body overseeing approval of ballot measures — rejected the Reproductive Freedom for All amendment on a party-line vote, the state supreme court overturned that decision in an emergency order and certified the measure for the November ballot.

With the ballot measure approved, the Reproductive Freedom for All campaign shifted its focus to getting out the vote as the midterm elections approached. Thousands of volunteers across the state knocked on doors, made phone calls, and talked to friends and family members to build support for Proposal 3. The ballot measure goes far beyond blocking the 1931 law, amending the state constitution to secure the right to reproductive health care, including abortion, in Michigan.

After years of strategic planning, coalition building, and harnessing the power of the people, Proposition 3 won by a wide margin. It was one of several victories for abortion rights in the midterms, which included other successful ballot measure campaigns in California, Kentucky, and Vermont. But the fight isn’t over yet.

“We were all together in a room, everyone was hugging and crying. It was the best feeling in the world.” — Bonsitu Kitaba, Deputy Legal Director, ACLU of Michigan

Forty-five days after Election Day, the constitutional amendment went into effect, rendering the 1931 statute banning abortion unenforceable.

“We won. The coalition we built showed up.” — Shanay Watson-Whittaker, Director of Strategic Partnerships, Michigan Voices

After quick advocacy efforts from new pro-reproductive freedom majorities in the state legislature, Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed a bill repealing the 1931 abortion ban, eliminating the 92-year-old threat to reproductive freedom.

Credit: AP Photo/Carlos Osorio