—blue_beetle, Metafilter discussion.
In yesterday's post, EPIC Fail, I took the privacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) to task for taking out it's frustrations with Google & Facebook, which are organizations, by lobbying for a ban on a technology: facial recognition.
If you share EPIC's frustrations but would like to channel them in a more productive way, Wired offers some helpful hints in a "How-To Wiki": Hide from Google
Instead of using what influence they have on trying to ban technology, groups like EPIC should be doing a better job of educating the public about the privacy implications of their everyday activities, very few of which have anything even remotely to do with facial recognition.
Helping people to understand technology so as to make informed decisions about what to share and what to keep private is a noble endeavor (see Wired article above). Going over their heads to limit their choices is not.
Often, however, EPIC is quite good at educational efforts. This is demonstrated by their role in the organization of, and participation in, the Twitter privacy chat, #PrivChat (which begins in 8 min. and features Microsoft Chief Privacy Officer, Brendon Lynch).
This is when they're at their best.
