She presented a TED Talk on privacy and mobile devices.[1][2] Hill appeared as herself in the 2017 documentary The New Radical, and in the TV series American Masters, Real Future, and America Declassified.[citation needed] Hill's reporting on matters of data privacy have been cited by lawmakers[3] and credited with influencing public policy.[4]
Writing
In January 2020, Hill wrote an article for the New York Times[5] about facial recognition company Clearview AI, exposing the company's technology as flawed, describing its aggregation of facial imagery as privacy-eroding, and reporting on false arrests made based on the application's erroneous results. The article and additional reporting by The Times prompted Senator Ed Markey to press Clearview CEO Hoan Ton-That for assurances[6] that the technology would not harm children's privacy or be made available to authoritarian governments.
Encouraged by response to the article, and with more stories of privacy abuses and misidentifications, in September 2023 Hill authored the book Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It,[7] published by Random House (ISBN978-1-3985-0918-4). The book tells the story of how Clearview AI's facial recognition technology has been used (and misused) by law enforcement and private industry, threatening individuals' safety and privacy. Your Face Belongs to Us was named among the Best Books of 2023: Technology[8] by the Financial Times and featured extensively by such outlets as C-SPAN,[9]PBS,[10]The New Yorker,[11]ABC News,[12]MSNBC,[13]Reason Magazine,[14] and more.
In a January 6, 2024 Times article, Hill described her personal struggles with smartphone addiction, and positive experience switching to an older flip phone. Then, on February 1, 2024, in an article entitled "A Practical Guide to Quitting Your Smartphone",[16] she inspired the global "Flip Phone February Challenge"[17] to help people suffering from smartphone addiction anxiety.
On March 11, 2024, the New York Times published a story[18] authored by Hill in which she detailed how automakers like General Motors, Honda, Kia, and Hyundai were sharing driver data with data brokers like LexisNexis in violation of privacy policy. On March 22, 2024, as a result of the story and several lawsuits resulting from the disclosures, GM announced it was ending the practice.[19] And according to a follow-up article published on April 30, 2024, senators Ron Wyden and Ed Markey have since urged the Federal Trade Commission to investigate data sharing practices, while the Government Accountability Office had gone "car shopping undercover to see whether salespeople were overselling autonomous driving abilities."[20]
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