Posts Tagged ‘ Privacy ’

The Case of the Vibrator that Knew Too Much?

September 20th, 2016. By LucyC

Smart dildos? Be careful what you wish for.

Don’t really know where to start with this one, except to say, you just can’t make this stuff up. A federal wiretap class action lawsuit has been filed against a company that makes “sensual lifestyle products”—including vibrators. The lawsuit is brought by a woman who alleges her vibrator is recording the date and time of each use, together with her selected settings and email address. (Now that’s multi-tasking).

So, first thoughts? There must be something wrong—the product is defective. Realty check—no—the product is working just fine. In fact, just as intended. Next thought—how is this legal and who wants this information? I mean, Really??

The skinny is that the We-Vibe vibrator is made to be operated through a smartphone app. According to the lawsuit, in order to operate the We-Vibe, “users download defendant’s ‘We-Connect’ application from the Apple App Store or the Google Play store and install it on their smartphones.” Easy enough, do it on the subway on the way to work.

The concept behind this product, from the user’s perspective, is to enable the user and her partner, through a “connect lover” feature, to operate the vibrator by remote control using their smartphones, even when they are physically separated. So—down the street, another city—another continent. Maybe even from 35,000 feet up, in the friendly skies. And then there’s the whole distracted driving thing. Hah! The touch screen allows the users to control the type, frequency and intensity of vibrations through 10 modes on a promised “secure connection.”

I’m having a hard time imagining a room full of nerds working on this one. But, thinking about it, maybe not. Wonder how much research went into developing the settings? And how was the research done—or is it all just random? Is there a process for complaints—and can you send the product back if it doesn’t live up to expectations? I digress, but then again—is that even possible anymore?

Meanwhile, back in the basement, the “defendant fails to notify or warn customers that We-Connect monitors and records, in real time, how they use the device. Nor does defendant disclose that it transmits the collected private usage information to its servers in Canada,” according to the lawsuit. Why Canada? Because We Vibe is in fact made by Ontario-based Standard Innovation Corp.

Thinking of Ashley Madison now…another banner Canadian company.

But the really dark part of all this is, according to John Banzhaf, a public interest law professor at George Washington University Law School, who published an essay on this, if a hacker—whether a former lover or a total stranger—intrudes on the We-Vibe information, he or she could conceivably be charged with sexual assault or even rape. “Since the smart dildos are connected to the internet, and can be controlled by someone even on another continent, hacking is an obvious possibility and potential danger,” Banzhaf says. As one writer put it, this brings a whole new meaning to phone sex.

The complaint, filed in Illinois, claims violations of various state and federal laws, alleging violation of the U.S. Wiretap Act, the Illinois Eavesdropping Statute, and the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practice Act. It also states these violations constitute intrusion upon seclusion in Illinois, as well as unjust enrichment on their profits.

The plaintiff has an initial hearing scheduled for November 8. Be interesting to see if it makes it to that far.

Gripping stuff!!

Tags: Privacy
Posted in Complaints/Comments, Emerging Issues | 2 Comments »

Pissed off Canadian Tells Sony ‘Game On’ with PlayStation Class Action

May 5th, 2011. By Hunter West

Natasha Maksimovic is mad as hell and she deserves to be. 

Natasha is the 21-year-old resident of Mississauga, a city in the Greater Toronto corridor in Canada, serving as the lead plaintiff of a proposed class action lawsuit against Sony over the potential theft of personal information. 

There are some 77 million people worldwide who may agree with her. 

At issue is personal information belonging to gamers and users of Sony PlayStation and Oriocity systems. Such information includes, but may not be limited to names, street addresses, birthdates, passwords, security answers, logins, billing information, and so on. 

Sony has reportedly apologized for the breach and offered a 30, or 60-day free membership for users on its PlayStation network. 

Maksimovic says that’s not good enough. “If you can’t trust a huge multi-national corporation like Sony to protect your private information, who can you trust?” she asks. 

Exactly. 

It appears that Sony has done two things wrong. First, the electronics juggernaut appears to have dropped the ball in protecting its system sufficiently from hackers who constantly cruise the Internet looking for portals to plunder. Second, they appear to have taken the potential theft of 77 million sets of personal information worldwide—about a million in Canada—somewhat lightly. 

The lawsuit alleges that Sony was aware of the breach, but failed to advise clients in a Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: hackers, internet security, Natasha Maksimovic, Oriocity, Play Station, Privacy, Sony, Sony Class Action, Sony PlayStation
Posted in Class Action, Internet/E-commerce | 2 Comments »

What Happens to Your Image After the Airport Scan?

August 23rd, 2010. By Hunter West

A group known as the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), working through a Freedom of Information Act request, obtained what was described as a “representative sample” of more than 35,000 ‘whole body images’ of attendees at a US courthouse in Orlando. 

The images are captured by millimeter wave technology and are ghost-like, not showing much detail. 

However, what bothers the EPIC and privacy advocates everywhere, is that the images were even available at all. 

The Bijot Gen2 imaging system scans and captures the images of people entering the court facility, for security purposes. US marshals have the capacity to view the current image, and the previous two images, while on security detail. 

But instead of being automatically purged the images—according to an August 4^th CNN report—are automatically stored in the system’s hard drive. While the images are available for viewing after the fact, they can only be accessed with the use of a system pass code. 

Privacy advocates maintain that this type of archiving makes them nervous with regard to the use of backscatter X-ray machines at the nation’s airports. While the full-body scans Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Airline, Airport Security, Privacy
Posted in Airlines, Intellectual Property | 1 Comment »

Facebook Can Take Instant Personalization and You-Know-What It

April 29th, 2010. By AbiK

We’re fans of Facebook. Or should I say “friends”. We like Facebook. And yes, LawyersAndSettlements.com also has a page on Facebook. But you won’t find what your BFF’s on Facebook “like” streaming on our site.

So why aren’t we embracing this Spirograph-like “open graph” concept? Five Reasons. Read on.

Reason One: Because we know you have a brain of your own. If you are interested in a certain legal topic or issue, you’ll go to it. Without your friend’s having to share the link on FB to prompt you. And hey, if they were really such good friends, wouldn’t they have sent you the link already if they thought you’d be interested?

Reason Two: We also know that you already have Google and Twitter and a whole bunch of other options out there that can tell you what’s popular or high-ranking in search. Oh, but as Mashable’s Pete Cashmore so aptly noted in a recent post at cnn.com, perhaps FB is jonesing to become the site “best positioned to rank the Web”.

Reason Three: It’s a privacy thing. We’re all on Facebook in our personal lives as well. We like to keep it intimate. Cozy. If we’ve shared it on Facebook, we’ve shared it on Facebook. Not on cnn.com’s homepage in some baton hand-off, website to website.

Reason Four: There’s something out-of-body about seeing your high school buddy’s name flashing before your eyes on the right side bar of cnn.com. It’s like some weird Warholian 15-minutes-of-fame thing—but isn’t in reality as you’re the only viewer seeing it. And it somehow stabs at the integrity of what you’re looking at…cheapens it a bit. It’s as though rather than having CNN on a wide-screen tv behind the bar you’re at, suddenly, cnn has pulled up a bar stool next to you. A little too…chummy. (Note, of the “50,000”+ sites who’ve adopted the new FB app, apparently news stalwarts NYT and WSJ have not…)

Reason Five: We’re finding—for ourselves—that most of the “friends” whose opinions we’d actually give a rat’s -ss about have opted out of Facebook’s new attempt at web domination. The mere fact that they had to dive into the depths of the veritable snake pit that the Facebook Privacy Settings are shows the lengths they went to—a sure sign that they did not “like” sharing their “likes”. Food for thought.

By the way, if you’re thinking that “opting out” of FB’s instant personalization option is a no-brainer, guess again. Intuitive it is not. Here’s how you do it. Go to your FB profile. Click on Account in the upper right. In the drop-down, go to Privacy Settings. From there, click on Applications and Websites. From there, uncheck the “Allow” box next to where it says, “Instant Personalization Pilot Program” (which FB had so graciously checked for you to begin with). Voila!

Oh, and hey—don’t forget to “like” us on Facebook!

Tags: Facebook, Internet Privacy, Privacy
Posted in Emerging Issues, Internet/E-commerce | No Comments »