LinkNYC has been replacing all of New York’s public payphones with advertising emblazoned wifi kiosks. Residents and visitors curious about what those kiosks will do with data their routers, cameras and Bluetooth beacons collect about them might look on its website for some kind of privacy policy. There is one there, but it’s not that one. Columbia professor Benjamin Read got a big laugh at this weekend’s HOPE XI conference in Manhattan when he pointed out that the privacy policy on LinkNYC’s website only applies to the website itself, not to the actual network of kiosks.
It’s not quite as bad as it sounds. In LinkNYC’s defense, the page in question points out the difference between the two policies up top, but given the cursory way most people read online, it wouldn’t be surprising if many users initially missed it (I did). Meanwhile, it’s encouraging that Read and his co-panelist, New York Civil Liberties Union attorney Mariko Hirose, actually did read those two privacy policies and that a room full of people showed up to hear what they found.