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• Your introduction to personally identifiable information : What is PII ?

  15 janvier 2020, par Joselyn Khor — Analytics Tips, Privacy, Security
  When it comes to personally identifiable information (PII), people are becoming more concerned with data privacy. Identifiable information can be used for illegal purposes like identity theft and fraud. 

  So how can you protect yourself as an innocent web browser ?

  If you’re a website owner – how do you protect users and your company from falling prey to privacy breaches ?

  As one of the most trusted analytics companies, we feel our readers would benefit from being as informed as possible about data privacy issues and PII. Learn how you can keep yours or others’ information safe.

  

  Table of Contents

  What does PII stand for ?

  PII acronym

  PII is an acronym for personally identifiable information.

  PII definition

  Personally identifiable information (PII) is a term mainly used in the United States.

  The appendix of OMB M-10-23 (Guidance for Agency Use of Third-Party Website and Applications) gives this definition for PII :

  “The term ‘personally identifiable information’ refers to information which can be used to distinguish or trace an individual’s identity, such as their name, social security number, biometric records, etc. alone, or when combined with other personal or identifying information which is linked or linkable to a specific individual, such as date and place of birth, mother’s maiden name, etc.”

  What can be considered personally identifiable information (PII) ? Some PII examples :

  • Full name/usernames
  • Home address/mailing address
  • Email address
  • Credit card numbers
  • Date of birth
  • Phone numbers
  • Login details

  • Precise locations
  • Account numbers
  • Passwords
  • Security codes (including biometric records)
  • Personal identification numbers
  • Driver license number
  • Get a more comprehensive list here

  What’s non-PII ?

  Anonymous information, or information that can’t be traced back to an individual, can be considered non-PII. 

  Who is affected by the exploitation of PII ?

  Anyone can be affected by the misuse of personal data. Websites can compromise your privacy by mishandling or illegally selling/sharing your data. That may lead identity theft, account fraud and account takeovers. The fear is falling victim to such fraudulent activity. 

  PII can also be an issue when employees have access to the database and the data is not encrypted. For example, anyone working in a bank can access your accounts ; and anyone working at Facebook can read your messages. This shows how privacy breaches can easily happen when employees have access to PII.

  Website owner’s responsibility for data privacy (PII and analytics)

  If you’re using a web analytics tool like Google Analytics or Matomo, best practise is to not collect PII if possible. This is to better respect your website visitor’s privacy. 

  If you work in an industry which needs people to share personal information (e.g. healthcare, security industries, public sector), then you must collect and handle this data securely. 

  

  The US National Institute of Standards and Technology states : “The likelihood of harm caused by a breach involving PII is greatly reduced if an organisation minimises the amount of PII it uses, collects, and stores. For example, an organisation should only request PII in a new form if the PII is absolutely necessary.” 

  How you’re held accountable remains up to the privacy laws of the country you’re doing business in. Make sure you are fully aware of the privacy and data protection laws that relate specifically to you. 

  To reduce the risk of privacy breaches, try collecting as little PII as you can ; purging it as soon as you can ; and making sure your IT security is updated and protected against security threats. 

  With data collection tools like web analytics, data may be tracked through features like User ID, custom variables, and custom dimensions. Sometimes they are also harder to identify when they are present, for example, in page URLs, page titles, or referrers URLs. So make sure you’re optimising your web analytics tools’ settings to ensure you’re asking your users for consent and respecting users’ privacy.

  If you’re using a GDPR compliant tool like Matomo, learn how you can stop processing such personal data

  PII, GDPR and businesses in the US/EU

  You may get confused when considering PII and GDPR (which applies in the EU). The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) gives people in the EU more rights over “personal data” – which covers more identifiers than PII (more on PII vs personal data below). GDPR restricts the collection and processing of personal data so businesses need to handle this personal data carefully. 

  According to the GDPR, you can be fined up to 4% of their yearly revenue for data/privacy breaches or non-compliance. 

  

  In the US, there isn’t one overarching data protection law, but there are hundreds of laws on both the federal and state levels to protect PII of US residents. US Congress has enacted industry-specific statutes related to data privacy like HIPAA. Recently state of California also passed the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). 

  To be on the safe side, if you’re using analytics, follow matters relating to “personal data” in the GDPR. It covers more when it comes to protecting user privacy. GDPR rules still apply whenever an EU citizen visits any non EU site (that processes personal data).

  Personally identifiable information (PII) vs personal data

  PII and “personal data” aren’t used interchangeably. All personal data can be PII, but not all PII can be defined as personal data.

  The definition of “personal data” according to the GDPR :

  

  This means “personal data” covers more identifiers, including online identifiers. Examples include : IP addresses and URL names. As well as seemingly “innocent” data like height, job position, company etc. 

  What’s seen as personal data depends on the context. If a piece of information can be combined with others to establish someone’s identity then that can be considered personal data. 

  Under GDPR, when processing personal data, you need explicit consent. So best to be compliant according to GDPR definitions of “personal data” not just what’s considered “PII”.

  How do you keep PII safe ?

  • Try not to give your data away so easily. Read through terms and conditions.
  • Don’t just click ‘agree’ when faced with consent screens, as consent screens are majorly flawed. 
  • Disable third party cookies by default. 
  • Use strong passwords.
  • Be wary of public wifi – hackers can easily access your PII or sensitive data. Use a VPN (virtual private network)
  • Read more on how to keep PII safe. For businesses here’s a checklist on PII compliance.

  How Matomo deals with PII and personal data

  Although Matomo Analytics is a web analytics tool that tracks user activity on your website, we take privacy and PII very seriously – on both our Cloud and On-Premise offerings. 

  If you’re using Matomo and would like to know how you can be fully GDPR compliant and protect user privacy, read more :
  

  • Learn how to not process any personally identifiable information – Anonymise IP addresses, user IDs, and order IDs
  • Matomo protects user privacy by talking the talk and walking the walk
  • Stay ahead of the GDPR with a privacy-respecting analytics platform
  • 11 ways Matomo helps you protect your visitor’s privacy

  Disclaimer

  We are not lawyers and don’t claim to be. The information provided here is to help give an introduction to issues you may encounter when dealing with PII. We encourage every business and website to take data privacy seriously and discuss these issues with your lawyer if you have any concerns. 

  Additional resources :

  • https://www.consumeraffairs.com/finance/identity-theft-statistics.html#identity-theft-trends-in-2019
  • https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection_en
  • https://iclg.com/practice-areas/data-protection-laws-and-regulations/usa
  • https://www.csoonline.com/article/3215864/how-to-protect-personally-identifiable-information-pii-under-gdpr.html
  • https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/key-definitions/what-is-personal-data/

• Elacarte Presto Tablets

  14 mars 2013, par Multimedia Mike — General

  I visited an Applebee’s restaurant this past weekend. The first thing I spied was a family at a table with what looked like a 7-inch tablet. It’s not an uncommon sight. However, as I moved through the restaurant, I noticed that every single table was equipped with such a tablet. It looked like this :

  
  
  

  For a computer nerd like me, you could probably guess that I was be far more interested in this gadget than the cuisine. The thing said “Presto” on the front and “Elacarte” on the back. Putting this together, we get the website of Elacarte, the purveyors of this restaurant tablet technology. Months after the iPad was released on 2010, I remember stories about high-end restaurants showing their wine list via iPads. This tablet goes well beyond that.

  How was it ? Well, confusing, mostly. The hostess told us we could order through the tablet or through her. Since we already knew what we wanted, she just manually took our order and presumably entered it into the system. So, right away, the question is : Do we order through a human or through a computer ? Or a combination ? Do we have to use the tablet if we don’t want to ?

  Hardware
  When picking up the tablet, it’s hard not to notice that it is very heavy. At first, I suspected that it was deliberately weighted down as some minor attempt at an anti-theft measure. But then I remembered what I know about power budgets of phones and tablets– powering the screen accounts for much of the battery usage. I realized that this device needs to drive the screen for about 14 continuous hours each day. I.e., the weight must come from a massive battery.

  The screen is good. It’s a capacitive touchscreen, so nice and responsive. When I first spied the device, I felt certain it would be a resistive touchscreen (which is more accurately called a touch-and-press-down screen). There is an AC adapter on the side of the tablet. This is the only interface to the device :

  
  
  

  That looks to me like an internal SATA connector (different from an eSATA connector). Foolishly, I didn’t have a SATA cable on me so I couldn’t verify.

  User Interface
  The interface options are : Order, Games, Neighborhood, and Pay. One big benefit of accessing the menu through the Order option is that each menu item can have a picture. For people who order more by picture than text description, this is useful. Rather, it would be, if more items had pictures. I’m not sure there were more pictures than seen in the print menu.
  
  For Games, there were a variety of party games. The interface clearly stated that we got to play 2 free games. This implied to me that further games cost money. We tried one game briefly and the food came.

  2 more options : Neighborhood– I know I dug into this option, but I forget what it was. Maybe it discussed local attractions. Finally, Pay. This thing has an integrated credit card reader. There is no integrated printer, though, so if you want one, you will have to request one from a human.

  Experience
  So we ordered through a human since we didn’t feel like being thrust into this new paradigm when we just wanted lunch. The staff was obviously amenable to that. However, I got a chance to ask them a lot of questions about the particulars. Apparently, they have had this system for about 5 months. It was confirmed that the tablets do, in fact, have gargantuan batteries that have to last through the restaurant’s entire business hours. Do they need to be charged every night ? Yes, they do. But how ? The staff described this several large charging blocks with many cables sprouting out. Reportedly, some units still don’t make it through the entire day.

  When it was time to pay, I pressed the Pay button on the interface. The bill I saw had nothing in common with what we ordered (actually, it was cheaper, so perhaps I should have just accepted it). But I pointed it out to a human and they said that this happens sometimes. So they manually printed my bill. There was a dollar charge for the game that was supposed to be free. I pointed this out and they removed it. It’s minor, I know, but it’s still worth trying to work out these bugs.

  One of the staff also described how a restaurant doesn’t need to employ as many people thanks to the tablet. She gave a nervous, awkward, self-conscious laugh when she said this. All I could think of was this Dilbert comic strip in which the boss realizes that his smartphone could perform certain key functions previously handled by his assistant.

  Not A New Idea
  Some people might think this is a totally new concept. It’s not. I was immediately reminded of my university days in Boulder, Colorado, USA, circa 1997. The local Taco Bell and Arby’s restaurants both had touchscreen ordering kiosks. Step up, interact with the (probably resistive) touchscreen, get a number, and step to the counter to change money, get your food, and probably clarify your order because there is only so much that can be handled through a touchscreen.

  What I also remember is when they tore out those ordering kiosks, also circa 1997. I don’t know the exact reason. Maybe people didn’t like them. Maybe there were maintenance costs that made them not worth the hassle.

  Then there are the widespread self-checkout lanes in grocery stores. Personally, I like those, though I know many don’t. However, this restaurant tablet thing hasn’t won me over yet. What’s the difference ? Perhaps that automated lanes at grocery stores require zero external assistance– at least, if you do everything correctly. Personally, I work well with these lanes because I can pretty much guess the constraints of the system and I am careful not to confuse the computer in any way. Until they deploy serving droids, or at least food conveyors, there still needs to be some human interaction and I think the division between the human and computer roles is unintuitive in the restaurant case.

  I don’t really care to return to the same restaurant. I’ll likely avoid any other restaurant that has these tablets. For some reason, I think I’m probably supposed to be the ideal consumer of this concept. But the idea will probably perform all right anyway. Elacarte’s website has plenty of graphs demonstrating that deploying these tablets is extremely profitable.

• ffmpeg API : handle frame loss in hevc encoding

  8 janvier 2024, par Mario

  Everything works fine until the introduction of frame->pts increment due to frame loss.

  


  Below is the regular progression without frame->pts increments :

  


  


  frame->pts=8 pkt->pts=512 pkt->dts=-512 pkt->flags=1
  
frame->pts=9 pkt->pts=2560 pkt->dts=0 pkt->flags=0
  
frame->pts=10 pkt->pts=1536 pkt->dts=512 pkt->flags=0
  
frame->pts=11 pkt->pts=1024 pkt->dts=1024 pkt->flags=0
  
frame->pts=12 pkt->pts=2048 pkt->dts=1536 pkt->flags=0
  
frame->pts=13 pkt->pts=4608 pkt->dts=2048 pkt->flags=0
  
frame->pts=14 pkt->pts=3584 pkt->dts=2560 pkt->flags=0
  
frame->pts=15 pkt->pts=3072 pkt->dts=3072 pkt->flags=0
  
frame->pts=16 pkt->pts=4096 pkt->dts=3584 pkt->flags=0
  
frame->pts=17 pkt->pts=6656 pkt->dts=4096 pkt->flags=0
  
frame->pts=18 pkt->pts=5632 pkt->dts=4608 pkt->flags=0

  


  


  When I introduce the frame->pts increment it happens :

  


  


  frame->pts=15 pkt->pts=512 pkt->dts=-512 pkt->flags=1
  
frame->pts=17 pkt->pts=4608 pkt->dts=2048 pkt->flags=0
  
frame->pts=19 pkt->pts=2560 pkt->dts=1536 pkt->flags=0
  
[mp4 @ 0x7eff842222c0] Application provided invalid, non monotonically increasing dts to muxer in stream 0 : 2048 >= 1536

  


  


  So I wrote the following code as a "quick" solution (between av_packet_rescale_ts() and av_interleaved_write_frame()) :

  


     av_packet_rescale_ts(pkt, c->time_base, st->time_base);  
   ...
   if (pkt->dts<=previous_dts)  
     {  
      if (pkt->pts<=previous_pts)  
        {  
         pkt->pts=previous_dts+1+pkt->pts-pkt->dts;  
        }  
       pkt->dts=previous_dts+1;  
     }  
   previous_dts=pkt->dts;  
   previous_pts=pkt->pts;  
   ...
   ret = av_interleaved_write_frame(fmt_ctx, pkt);  


  


  Now I no longer have the error, but the values are :

  


  


  frame->pts=15 pkt->pts=512 pkt->dts=-512 pkt->flags=1
  
changed frame->pts=15 pkt->pts=512 pkt->dts=1 pkt->flags=1
  
frame->pts=17 pkt->pts=4608 pkt->dts=2048 pkt->flags=0
  
frame->pts=19 pkt->pts=2560 pkt->dts=1536 pkt->flags=0
  
changed frame->pts=19 pkt->pts=3073 pkt->dts=2049 pkt->flags=0
  
frame->pts=21 pkt->pts=1536 pkt->dts=1536 pkt->flags=0
  
changed frame->pts=21 pkt->pts=2050 pkt->dts=2050 pkt->flags=0
  
frame->pts=23 pkt->pts=4096 pkt->dts=3584 pkt->flags=0
  
frame->pts=25 pkt->pts=8704 pkt->dts=6144 pkt->flags=0
  
frame->pts=27 pkt->pts=6656 pkt->dts=5632 pkt->flags=0
  
changed frame->pts=27 pkt->pts=7169 pkt->dts=6145 pkt->flags=0
  
frame->pts=29 pkt->pts=5632 pkt->dts=5632 pkt->flags=0
  
changed frame->pts=29 pkt->pts=6146 pkt->dts=6146 pkt->flags=0
  
frame->pts=31 pkt->pts=7680 pkt->dts=7168 pkt->flags=0
  
frame->pts=33 pkt->pts=12800 pkt->dts=10240 pkt->flags=0
  
frame->pts=35 pkt->pts=10752 pkt->dts=9728 pkt->flags=0
  
changed frame->pts=35 pkt->pts=11265 pkt->dts=10241 pkt->flags=0
  
frame->pts=37 pkt->pts=9728 pkt->dts=9728 pkt->flags=0
  
changed frame->pts=37 pkt->pts=10242 pkt->dts=10242 pkt->flags=0

  


  


  What is the correct way to handle frame loss scenario ?
Is there a way to inform the encoder about frame loss ?

  


  The encoder is "hevc_qsv" and the output format is mov (.mp4).