We began our meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance led by Jay Miller, followed by an invocation from Suzanne Juptner, who showed us how creative Claude AI can be. Suzanne used Claude to generate a poem, “The Light We Share,” which contained inspiring words about service and being our best.
Jennifer Pence announced a variety of activities:
(1) She is seeking volunteers to conduct interviews for BHS AVID students on April 23 and 30.
(2) Burlingame is conducting a time capsule sealing event at the Burlingame Community Center lobby tomorrow at 4 pm. Our club’s membership brochure is included in the time capsule, which will be opened in 50 years. We were all invited to attend the sealing event.
Marilyn Orr requested additional writers for High Gear and noted that the meetings are summarized by AI, which makes the writing task easier.
Jerry Winges had the following announcements:
(1) Burlingame will hold a public fair at the new Town Square on April 25 from 11 am to 2 pm. Our club will have a table to encourage new membership. Jerry hopes many of our members will staff the table.
(2) Our club’s biggest fundraiser this year is Burlingame’s Got Talent, which will take place on April 19. There will be a number of talented performers, and great restaurants will be providing food. Everyone is encouraged to attend or, at a minimum, buy a ticket to support student scholarships and the community.
Jennifer Pence gave a preview of coming attractions: Next week’s speaker will be the new Burlingame police chief. On April 22, we will get an inside look at San Carlos Airport from its former president, Carol Ford. On April 29, we will hear from a Blue Zones consultant in conjunction with a wellness assessment that the Peninsula Health Care District is doing in our area.
Fritz Brauner gave a charming presentation about pennies and challenged us to come up with as many penny-related expressions as possible. Ideas were plentiful, and because Fritz had festooned our tables with pennies (from heaven?), we all ended up with a “penny for our thoughts.”
Program
Our speaker was Tom Kemp, Managing Director of the California Privacy Protection Agency, also known as CalPrivacy. His presentation concerned California's privacy rights laws and what California consumers can do to protect their personal information. He told us that our personal information is data that is unique to us, which he called a “digital dossier,” and it can be monetized by third parties who sell it to other businesses or share it so that we can be targeted for advertising. According to Kemp, there are no free services, and information we might provide online when we sign up for a free service then goes to data brokers who sell that information. That information can be used to target ads but also can affect pricing we receive for goods and services purchased online. Our digital dossiers can also be used to impersonate us.
The California Consumer Privacy Act was passed in 2018, giving California residents the right to know what information has been collected about them, to correct that information, and to delete that information. To protect consumers, Kemp helped develop the Delete Act, which is implemented by CalPrivacy. It requires third-party data brokers to register with the State of California so that consumers in California can ask that their personal information be deleted via an online system called "DROP" (Delete Request and Opt-out Platform) at privacy.Ca.gov/DROP. Consumers enter their personal information into an encrypted system, and starting August 1, third-party data brokers will have to delete the personal information that matches what the consumer entered into the system. Kemp said this is a free, powerful tool that requires third-party data brokers to delete consumers’ personal information, resulting in consumers receiving fewer text, phone, and email scams.
Kemp also provided additional tips for privacy protection, including blocking and deleting browsing data and third-party cookies so your information cannot be sold to third parties, using opt-out extensions, and resetting your tracking and advertising ID information on your phone. If a business fails to comply with your privacy-related requests, you can file a complaint with privacy.ca.gov. If you would like more information about his program, Kemp’s presentation is available on the Zoom recording of the meeting.
Chief Vaswani will share a bit about his background, what brought him to Burlingame, and his vision for public safety for residents, businesses, and visitors.
