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Seattle City Council votes to ban surveillance pricing in sale of groceries

395 points · 229 comments · ortusdux

  1. jsrozner · · focus · HN ↗
    The best solution is a constitutional amendment that actually enshrines a right to privacy. Among other things, the retention, aggregation, correlation of any personal data should be illegal (including for commercial purposes). (Storage on behalf of users in encrypted form could be made OK. Could also be refined to support retention of data of the medical, legal, etc kind with the attendant non-admissibility protections.)

    This would fix this issue, it would destroy the surveillance models of Google/Facebook, and it would fix the Flock issue, etc. It would also fix the Roe v Wade issue: women would be able to get abortions in the first couple months of pregnancy without the possibility of harassment, since law enforcement would have no capacity to detect pregnancy until then.

    Also, tech won&#x27;t save us had a podcast on the dynamic pricing topic: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;podcasts.apple.com&#x2F;us&#x2F;podcast&#x2F;how-data-is-changing-air-travel-w-amanda-mull&#x2F;id1507621076?i=1000680112948" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;podcasts.apple.com&#x2F;us&#x2F;podcast&#x2F;how-data-is-changing-a...

    1. augment_me · · focus · HN ↗
      This is impossible is you consider the financial sector - any kind of unsecured private lending like mortgages become dead in the water, fraud detection goes out the window, money laundering, etc.
      1. jsrozner · · focus · HN ↗
        Good points, but there should be partial solutions. For example, you can present data about the consumer in order to decide on the mortgage, but once the transaction is complete, the data should disappear. You need something akin to &quot;the data can be used only for the particular purpose of the transaction at hand, and the data must be wholly necessary for the transaction at hand.&quot;

        We also know that mortgage lenders use irrelevant---well, scratch that---protected data to make decisions (i.e. discriminatory). Race for example is not supposed to be used in lending decisions.

        Fraud detection can probably be solved by other reasonable means. And in any case, if you take the fraud argument to the limit, then you&#x27;d end up advocating for constant surveillance to prevent fraud. Equifax, Experian, and Transunion are all horrible companies who do their ostensible job minimally well, while maximizing the exploitation of the data of the people.

        1. consensus1 · · focus · HN ↗
          This hurts me. I want lenders to have good access to the data that shows I am a high quality borrower. Less access adds risk to the lender which they will respond to by taxing me with a higher interest rate and it benefits scammers and people who don&#x27;t pay their bills.
          1. Leynos · · focus · HN ↗
            You can consent to your data being shared with other lenders when you apply for credit under such regimes.
            1. augment_me · · focus · HN ↗
              And then the lenders say that you are required to supply your data for a discount and we are back to where we are today.
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