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Science Friday

Data about your body is up for sale. Who's buying it?

5/7/202612 min

Cameras and sensors are just about everywhere, recording your face, how you walk, where you go, your heart rate. And AI is making it easy to amass and analyze that data about all of us. 

Privacy attorney Anne Toomey McKenna joins Host Flora Lichtman to talk about the ubiquity of biometric surveillance and how data brokers are gathering and selling our information, including to law enforcement. 

Guest: 

Anne Toomey McKenna is an attorney specializing in privacy and biometric surveillance. She’s on the Advisory Board for AI Policy at the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers - USA. 

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Clips

Consent To Constant Surveillance
Your Data Is For Sale
Anonymity Is Over
Face Banks And Protests
Nothing To Hide? Think Again
Surveillance Capitalism, Explained
Close The Loopholes Now

Transcript preview

First 90 seconds

  1. Anne Toomey McKenna· Guest0:00

    There's an easy way to get train tickets. Book from anywhere, like- Here. Here.

  2. Flora Lichtman· Host0:06

    We don't recommend here.

  3. Anne Toomey McKenna· Guest0:10

    All right, one more time.

  4. Flora Lichtman· Host0:11

    Lots of people do it here.

  5. Anne Toomey McKenna· Guest0:13

    Let's go. We've heard some people even buy from here.

  6. Flora Lichtman· Host0:17

    Mission Control, we have booked the tickets.

  7. Speaker 20:20

    Buy train tickets online or on our app with no booking fees. Greater Anglia, it's great out there.

  8. Flora Lichtman· Host0:28

    [upbeat music] Hey, it's Flora, and you are listening to Science Friday. If you're one of the millions of Americans who leave the house, prepare for your close-up because cameras are everywhere. Your neighbor's Ring camera catching you as you walk by, the grocery store security camera looking at you as you shop, the plate reader capturing you in the car. These images are a type of biometric data and more and more biometric data is being collected. So what happens to it? And if you have nothing to hide, should you care? Here to talk about that is Anne Toomey McKenna. She's an attorney specializing in privacy and biometric surveillance, and she's on the AI Advisory Council for the IEEE, the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Hey, Anne. Welcome to Science Friday.

  9. Anne Toomey McKenna· Guest1:20

    Hey, thanks for having me. Happy to be here.

  10. Flora Lichtman· Host1:23

    Thank you for being here. Yeah. You know, we hear this word biometrics a lot. How should we define it?

  11. Anne Toomey McKenna· Guest1:28

    Biometrics

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