Tag: USA

Cato Institute policy analysis of USA National ID Systems

The New National ID Systems

New Jersey’s record on privacy and ID rights is mixed, at best. For a long time, the Garden State was noncompliant with REAL ID, but that noncompliance was something of a fluke: the state was moving ahead with compliance until a court order suspended the effort. Since then, it has become clear that state officials will bring the state into line with the federal ID standards.169 Efforts to implement mandatory E-Verify in New Jersey for all employers have failed in successive sessions of the legislature, with the same bill being introduced in 2010 and in 2014.170

 

The state has, however, implemented facial recognition software for licensing and for law enforcement. A vast review of every New Jersey facial image (creatively titled Operation Facial Scrub) was conducted between 2011 and 2013, with more than 19 million photos in the state Motor Vehicle Commission’s database scanned to look for duplicates.171 All new pictures in the database will be “scrubbed” against existing photos as they are added. As Massachusetts’s problems with false matches have shown, innocent New Jerseyans will risk falling afoul of these automated scrubs.

 

Finally, New Jersey — famous (or infamous) for its Parkway and Turnpike — is no stranger to the use of license plate readers by state police and municipal police forces. The state’s regulations relating to the use of the readers are extremely loose. A 2010 directive issued by the state attorney general limits scans to license plates on vehicles that are in public view, which is defined as “vehicles on a public road or street, or that are on private property but whose license plate(s) are visible from a public road, street, or a place to which members of the public have access, such as the parking lot of a shopping mall or other business establishment.”172 In short, any car in New Jersey that is not parked in a closed private garage is fair game for a roving license plate reader.

This paper summarizes the stances of each of the 50 states on various ID systems, including REAL ID, E-Verify, facial recognition, and license-plate scanning. I am concerned by New Jersey's use of facial recognition software and license plate scanning.

Does GDPR apply to EU citizens in the United States?

Does GDPR apply to EU citizens in the United States by GDPR News

If they deal with a business or organization in one of the non-EU countries they may be in, any personal data they provide is not covered by the GDPR rules, as they are not located within the EU at the time. It is not the citizenship of the person that is important, but where they are situated.

Looking at another example helps to further illustrate who the GDPR applies to. A US citizen is temporarily residing or travelling in France, which is an EU country. They make a purchase from a local store and provide personal information during the transaction. This personal information is covered by GDPR as the person is located within the EU as the purchase takes place.

From these examples you can see that the personal data of an EU citizen residing in the US, for example, would be dealt with according to individual data protection laws within the US and would not be subject to GDPR compliance, whereas the personal data of a US citizen residing in the EU would be subject to GDPR regulations.

Short answer. It depends but ordinarily ... NO!

IANAL but the information in this Compliance Junction article seems legit. Two staff members from Pivoti covered PCI DSS and GDPR at last nights ( and at times contentious) GDPR and Privacy Event of the New Jersey Chapter of the ISC2.

So ... hey Europeans. If you come to the USA and shop at the small local shops in my town, don't expect you're EU legal rights to be respected. The local coffee shop which has no presence in the EU and has no website that sells/service EU citizens is not subject to GDPR. If you are a local business, the local business association or chamber of commerce in your town may be the best place to get help. EU laws do NOT apply to natural persons or US only businesses doing business in the USA.

The primary determining factor is the location of the individual when considering whether GDPR rules apply. Any business or organization that processes the data of people living within the EU, no matter where the group is located, should comply with the GDPR stipulations or face being fined for non-compliance.

Chris Aldrich and David Shanske, I think that you will be happy to know that Webmentions should meet the intentions of the GDPR if:

  • they have a privacy policy in place that lists articulates the information their website collects,
  • if they disable any sort of analytics,
  • and have a way to remove/anonymise IP addresses in their database and logs,
  • provide a way for users to remove ordinary comments (or move those to Disqus) since Webmentions already support deletion.

I am leaning toward using the open-source Isso on this website.

Average Salary for US Workers

How Much Is the Average Salary for US Workers? by Alison Doyle (The Balance)

The BLS reports that for the fourth quarter of 2017, men earned a median average of $49,192 while women earned only $39,988 or 81.3 percent of what males earned.

Race and ethnicity also plays a role in salaries for men and women. For example, white women earned 80.5 percent as much as their white male counterparts, while black women earned 96 percent of their black male counterparts.

However, black men earned a median salary of $35,412, which is only 69.3% of what white men earned on average ($51,064). The difference for women was a bit less: black women’s median earnings were, on average, 82.7% ($34,008) of white women’s median earnings ($41,132). The BLS provides information on Hispanic and Asian wage earners (who earned a median salary of $34,164 and $55,172, respectively) as well.

I was surprised by what seems like a pecking order for salary. White men are paid more than white women. White women are paid more than black men. Black men are paid slightly more than black women.