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Marked for life (Updated) - May 29, 2008

At the Digital Hollywood Spring conference in Los Angeles earlier this month, executives from Hollywood and the recording industry, as well as digital watermark developers, offered a novel approach to combating rampant online piracy: shame. As Media Wonk wrote at the time, "the emerging gestalt seemed to be that shame and the loss anonymity could do more to deter rampant copyright infringement online than all the encryption systems yet devised."

Under the plan discussed at Digital Hollywood that loss of anonymity is to be achieved largely through the insertion of hidden watermarks into digital content. From my previous post:

"I think if people knew that this wasn't quite as anonymous as it used to be that would have a significant deterrent effect on bad behavior," said Rajan Samitani of Digimarc, whose company develops forensic watermarks. "It would take a coordinated consumer education effort, so that they understood that each piece of content they acquire can be traced to them if it's discovered where it shouldn't be, and you'd probably even need to sue a few, so they understood there are consequences for bad behavior."

Not so fast, says the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington-based think tank. Concerned precisely about the ability of watermarks to compromise privacy by conveying personally identifying information about individual Internet users and their habits, the CDT wants to set some ground rules for their use.

In a white paper released today, the group spells out a set of "privacy principles" for the use of watermarks:

1. Privacy by design – address privacy considerations in the early design and planning phases of digital watermarking applications, not late in the process as an afterthought;

2. Avoid embedding independently useful identifying information directly in watermark – so that even if unauthorized third parties learn how to read the watermarks, no meaningful information will be exposed;

3. Provide notice to end users – disclose the existence and other key information about individualized watermarks, with a prominence appropriate to the extent and likelihood of any possible privacy impact;

4. Control access to reading capability – so that members of the public who happen to obtain a watermarked file will not have easy access to the devices or software needed to read the watermarks;

5. Respond appropriately when algorithms are compromised – reconsider how much reliance to place on watermarking systems whose workings have been exposed, particularly if there is a risk that watermarks could be altered or forged;

6. Provide security and access controls for back-end databases – adopt rules and security safeguards to protect databases containing information about individuals from unauthorized access;

7. Limit uses for secondary purposes – design watermarking applications to avoid “mission creep,” by collecting, retaining, and disclosing individualized information only as necessary for the application’s intended purpose; and,

8. Provide reasonable access and correction procedures for personally identifiable information – so that individuals have reasonable opportunity to correct inaccuracies in the data stored about them.

“Watermarking has a lot of possible uses, so the details will vary from application to application,” CDT senior counsel David Sohn said. “But adhering to these general principles should go a long way towards addressing potential concerns about, for example, whether watermarks could expose personal information to third parties or be used to monitor an individual’s media usage."

Monitoring individual's media usage, of course, is precisely what the media companies want to see happen.

UPDATE: The Digital Watermarking Alliance, which represents most of the leading vendors of watermarking and digital fingerprinting technology today endorsed the CDT's privacy principles. From DWA's press release:

Even though billions of digitally watermarked objects have been successfully deployed without any known privacy issues, and only a very small subset of watermarking applications have any potential bearing on privacy, the DWA believes that by proactively embracing best practices as recommended by the CDT, potential privacy issues can be effectively addressed prior to new solutions being implemented. This will ease the way for broad industry-wide adoption, enable new media distribution models, and enhance access to valuable content for consumers.

The DWA also announced it will undertake outreach efforts to ensure digital watermarking applications across all forms of media content are designed with privacy principles in mind, and will continue to advocate for awareness within the industry of the need for strong privacy stewardship in the distribution of digital content.

“Digital watermarking has enjoyed broad adoption across many segments of industry and government, and in areas where interoperability is necessary and privacy needs to be safeguarded, we believe watermarking is an ideal solution,” said Reed Stager, chairman of the Digital Watermarking Alliance. “The combination of digitally watermarked content and respect for consumer privacy will further broaden adoption and unleash new distribution models. We applaud the Center for Democracy & Technology’s focus on digital watermarking and its efforts to gather input from a broad array of stakeholders in developing its recommended best practices.”

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