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A Voice of VR, Episode #951

Several weeks ago, I was invited to join Kent Bye’s podcast to discuss the state of U.S. privacy law. Kent’s Voices of VR Podcast is mandatory listening if one is interested in virtual reality and immersive technologies, and I’m a huge fan. Getting to geek out with Kent for a few hours was a personal treat.

We cover a lot of ground from the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, the history of U.S. privacy law, and the ongoing state and federal debate about comprehensive privacy laws. I occasionally try to inject my own asides about the importance of biometrics laws and my concerns about invoking surveillance capitalism. The full episode is available here — and a citation-filled transcript is also available to download here.

Federalist Society Podcast: California Consumer Privacy Act

In this episode of the Federalist Society’s Tech Roundup, I join the Mercatus Center’s Adam Thierer and TechFreedom’s Ian Adams to bring a privacy advocate’s perspective to the looming California Consumer Privacy Act. It’s a good discussion of the relative merits of privacy laws at the state or federal level, and I only interrupt Ian a couple times:

This podcast features a fascinating back-and-forth on the implications of new amendments to California’s privacy law, CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act). Is California setting the law of the land? How will the FTC respond? What will this mean for interstate online commerce? These and other questions are explored in the episode.

Privacy Advisor Podcast: Reviewing Congress’ latest privacy hearings

My third guest spot on the Privacy Advisor Podcast was a quick turn around, as a sick version of myself joined Angelique Carson to discuss our impressions of back-to-back congressional hearings on federal privacy legislation:

On Capitol Hill this week, Congress held back-to-back hearings on a potential U.S. federal privacy bill. The aim was to gain insights from expert witnesses on what such a bill should contain. At the first hearing, at the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, industry and advocates debated how prescriptive a federal law should be. At Wednesday’s Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, lawmakers asked witnesses whether a U.S. law should model itself on the EU General Data Protection Regulation or perhaps the California Consumer Privacy Act. While industry didn’t like that idea, witnesses did agree that the CCPA should be the floor upon which a federal law is built. In this episode of The Privacy Advisor Podcast, the Center for Democracy and Technology’s Joe Jerome, CIPP/US, and host Angelique Carson, CIPP/US, recap the highlights from the hearings.

// Listen to the podcast here. 

Privacy Advisor Podcast: What’s up with federal privacy legislation?

In my return to Angelique Carson’s Privacy Advisor Podcast, we further discuss my love of watermelons and where the federal privacy debate stands:

It’s clear at this point that the momentum has shifted in favor of a federal privacy bill in the U.S. The questions are: What will that bill look like, who will sponsor something both the tech community and advocates can live with, and will it actually happen this year? Joseph Jerome, CIPP/US, policy counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington, has been dead center on the federal privacy bill debate for some time now and took a leading role at the CDT in drafting their own bill. In this episode of The Privacy Advisor Podcast, Jerome discusses the difficulties inherent in trying to pass a bill that pleases everybody — or at least one that the disparate and myriad stakeholders can live with.

// Listen to the podcast here. 

Talking Robots and Autonomy on the IAPP Privacy Advisor Podcast

I joined my friend Angelique Carson, host of the IAPP’s Privacy Advisor Podcast, to discuss my privacy passions:

In this episode of The Privacy Advisor Podcast, Joe Jerome, CIPP/US, talks about how growing up in the cornfields of Iowa helped shape his passion for privacy — specifically, his sense of autonomy. Privacy is a tool to push back at the world and its encroachment on our lives, Jerome says. His role as policy counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology allows him to do the kind of work he feels is meaningful for the protection of our “digital selves” and for understanding how technology is impacting our values. Jerome also discusses the fact that it’s possible he’s a vampire, why robots might take over, and how the future of data transfers may, in fact, be via carrier pigeon unless the EU and U.S. can make nice.

// Listen to the podcast here. 

Ephemeral Communication and the Frankly App Podcast

My former coworker was utterly enamored with Snapchat, on the grounds that she liked being able to express herself in ways that were not permanent.  In terms of our interpersonal relationships, it used to be that only diamonds were forever — now most of our text messages are, too.

Should a simple text last forever?  Last week, I reached out to Frankly, a new text-messaging app that provides for self-destructing texts, to talk about the development of the app and the future of ephemeral communication.

Click on the media player above to listen, or download the complete podcast MP3 here.

An Imbecilic Constitution Podcast

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September 17th is Constitution Day, a day of government-mandated celebration that some have argued is blatantly unconstitutional. Professor Nelson Lund has suggested that Constitution Day could be used as a day to critically examine our founding document, and inspired by his suggestion, I sought out to interview Sanford Levinson, who’s been a longtime critic of our Constitution.

In the first of what I’m going to call the “What Does Joe Know Show,” I speak to Professor Levinson about the current (or should I say ongoing?) crisis of governance in Washington, how the Constitution is to blame, and what comes next.

Want to download the MP3? Click here.

Digital Market Manipulation Podcast

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The other week, Rebecca Rosen wrote up a fantastic overview of Professor Ryan Calo’s new paper on “Digital Market Manipulation” in The Atlantic.  “What Does It Really Matter If Companies Are Tracking Us Online?” she provocatively asked in her headline.

Conveniently, I was scheduled to speak with Professor Calo about his essay Consumer Subject Review Boards — A Thought Experiment, which looks at how institutional review boards (IRBs) were put in place to ensure ethical human testing standards and suggests a similar framework could be brought to bear on consumer data projects.

I was able to ask him about the concept of digital market manipulation, which seems to move beyond mere “privacy” concerns into questions of fundamental fairness and equality.

From Cyberspace to Big Data Podcast

In the run-up to the Future of Privacy Forum’s “Big Data and Privacy” workshop with the Stanford Center for Internet & Society, I’ve taken to podcasting again, speaking with scholars who couldn’t attend the conference.  First up was Professor Bill McGeveran, who prepared an essay looking over lessons from the 2000 Stanford symposium on “Cyberspace and Privacy: A New Legal Paradigm?”

Of course, now the buzzword has moved from cyberspace to big data.  McGeveran suggests big data is really seeing a replay of the same debates cyberspace saw a decade ago.  Among the parallels he highlights are (1) the propertization of data, (2) technological solutions like P3P, (4) First Amendment questions, and (4) the challenges posed by the privacy myopia.

ACS Law Talk Episode 11: The Future of LGBT Equality

After many months, my former employer has posted an interview I conducted with Nan Hunter, an associate dean and constitutional law scholar at Georgetown Law Center, and Nancy Polikoff, a professor of law and an expert on sexuality and the law.  To mark the Supreme Court’s hearing of two cases impacting same-sex marriage, I spoke to the pair by phone to preview the arguments and what legal question comes next for the LGBT community.

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