EU court moves to protect passengers' data privacy

Yesterday we saw how The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) gives his initial reactions to today's judgment of the Court of Justice in the two PNR-cases concerning the transfer of flight passenger's personal data to the US.

Here the Court of Justice of the European Communities' Press Release.

Here the full text of the judgment

In the news:

EU privacy ruling threatens chaos on flights to US Telegraph.co.uk
NO TO US PRIVACY INVASION OF FLIGHT PASSENGERS Mirror.co.uk
EU court moves to protect passengers' data privacy ABC Online
EU court bars giving passenger data to U.S. International Herald Tribune Europe

European Data Protection Supervisor's Press Release

The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) gives his initial reactions to today's judgment of the Court of Justice in the two PNR-cases concerning the transfer of flight passenger's personal data to the US. The EDPS has used, for the first time in these cases, his powers to intervene before the Court in support of the Parliament.


Opinion of the European Data Protection Supervisor on the Proposal for a Council Framework Decision on the organisation and content of the exchange of information extracted from criminal records between Member States (COM (2005)690 final).


LINKS:

EU Data protection: exchange of information from criminal records, an article by Eva Balla at BusinessUpdated.com

Daniel Weitzner

Daniel Weitzner is one of the instructors of MIT 6.805/6.806/STS085: Ethics and Law on the Electronic Frontier Privacy and Transparency, (co-taught with Hal Abelson and Mike Fischer).

Daniel Weitzner is Director of the World Wide Web Consortium's Technology and Society activities.

Before joining the W3C, Mr. Weitzner was co-founder and Deputy Director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a leading Internet civil liberties organization in Washington, DC. He was also Deputy Policy Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He serves on the Boards of Directors of the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Software Freedom Law Center, and the Internet Education Foundation.

Weitzner has recently published this paper about Accountable Data Mining and Privacy Protection: Weitzner, Abelson, Berners-Lee, Hanson, Hendler, Kagal, McGuinness, Sussman, Waterman, Transparent Accountable Data Mining: New Strategies for Privacy Protection,; MIT CSAIL Technical Report

Smart Card in Australia

Photo by UnaPersona

The Australian Federal Government is considering the move to avoid being swamped by millions of applicants when the new card comes on line in early 2008.

LINKS:

Australia's Privacy Commissioner's Website

The Australian Privacy Foundation


IN THE NEWS:

Fels appointed to oversee smart card privacy ZDNet.com.au

Australians to sign up early for smart card Townsville Bulletin

Watchdog for smartcard privacyAustralian

Privacy worries over web's future

Today BBC News publishes this article Privacy worries over web's future by Jonathan Fildes.

Hugh Glaser of the University of Southampton made the comments at the WWW2006 Conference in Edinburgh about how the next phase of the web could face "big privacy" issues.

Privacy problems could occur, he said, because the semantic web
deliberately combines multiple sources of information about people and places.

OPW: Ethics and the Law on the Electronic Frontier, Fall 2005

6.805 / 6.806 / STS.085 Ethics and the Law on the Electronic Frontier, Fall 2005

It is a new course available at MIT OCW.

What is MIT OCW?

MIT OCW is a large-scale, Web-based electronic publishing initiative funded jointly by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and MIT.

MIT OCW's goals are to:

Provide free, searchable, access to MIT's course materials for educators, students, and self-learners around the world.

Extend the reach and impact of MIT OCW and the "opencourseware" concept.

Identity Mashup

Identity Mashup Conference June 19-21, 2006

Harvard Law School Cambridge MA

- - - - - - - - - -

hosted by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society

speaker list and schedule

Stapleton-Gray & Associates

Stapleton-Gray & Associates is a consulting firm who provides information technology and policy consulting services on security, privacy, surveillance technologies and systems, and unique identifiers, including radio-frequency identification (RFID).

They have their own blog Surpriv blog, on RFID, surveillance and privacy.

Face Recognition Software

Everyday webcams and IP cam are more and more cheaper, and there has been a surge in the number of surveillance cameras in every city of the world.

The next step it face recognition software, and after September 11th, security and intelligence services are increasingly turning toward video surveillance technology as the answer to terrorist threats, face recognition sotfware, in fact some airports are considering installing face recognition cameras as a security measure (EPIC).

This week, Tecnnology Rewiev analyze how RIYA provides image-processing software for sorting through online photo albums.

Links:

Pittsburgh Pattern Recognition
MyHeritage.com
Data Privacy Lab Carnegie Mellon

RFID Consultation Website

RFID Consultation Website: Towards an RFID Policy for Europe, it is the European Commission website for the RFID public consultation.

Since march 2006, European Commission are developing five workshops:


RFID Security, Data Protection & Privacy, Health and Safety Issues (May 16 and 17)

Webstreaming

Marketing Improvement

Marketing improvement (MI) helps companies generate more and better value sales and closer relationships with their customers and prospects.

While CRM may be dead we believe that Permission Based Marketing is not only alive and well, but increasingly the only way to profitably engage with customers and prospects.

MI produces reports, seminar proceedings, and guides, that you can download in .pdf format.

Last April MI organanized a conference on New Permission-Based Strategies for Marketing Success.

NSA: Collecting call record information

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

Links:

"NSA secret database report triggers fierce debate in Washington" USA TODAY
EPIC
"US privacy 'not under threat' " NEWS24

UnBlinking

UnBlinking: New perspectives on Visual Privacy in the 21st Century

UnBlinkig is a Cross-Disciplinary Symposium will held at UC Berkeley, 2-4 November 2006.

"Worldwide demand for security cameras has expanded greatly since 9/11/2001 and the London transport bombings. Over the same period, consumer demand for high resolution digital and cell-phone cameras has increased markedly"

UnBlinking is generously supported by:

The National Science Foundation (grant #0424422)
Samuelson Law, Technology, & Public Policy Clinic ~ UC Berkeley (Boalt Hall School of Law)Berkeley Center for Law & Technology ~ UC Berkeley (Boalt Hall School of Law)
Center for Information Technology in the Interest of Society (CITRIS)~ UC Berkeley
Center for New Media (CNM) ~ UC Berkeley
College of Engineering ~ UC Berkeley

Cities in Real-Time

Carlo Ratti is an architect who runs the SENSEable City Laboratory in MIT's department of urban studies and planning.

Ratti’s focus research is how people move through space (tracking cellphones, Wi-Fi) and using this information to improve urbanism.

This week Technology Review publishes an interview by Katherine Bourzac to Ratti: "Real-Time Maps May Create Better Cities"

Links:

Digital Mile Project: Mit, Zaragoza
Pervasive Computing: Embedding the Public Sphere (Kang & Cuff)

Protecting your medical privacy

Photo by XACOTC2

Protecting Your Medical Privacy

is an article published by Karen Pallarito for HealthDay News.

Secret Surveillance

Electronic Privacy Information Center publishs this week that two annual reports recently released by federal agencies show that surveillance activity conducted by the United States government has continued to rise dramatically since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, with use of investigative powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act again at an all-time high.

Read more at EPIC.


Links:


2005 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Annual Report

2005 Wiretap Report

EPIC's FISA Page

EPIC's Wiretap Page

Euro - RFID

Photo Source: Propaganda Matrix

This is an article by Steve Watson at Propaganda Matrix published in 2004, when they told us how they found RFID in Euro notes.

+ + Resources:

European Central Bank (Website)

Euro bank notes to embed RFID chips by 2005 (EETIMES)
Euro notes may be radio tagged (ZDNET)
Euro notes to get RFID tags from Hitachi? (SILICOM.COM)
Renewed Speculations about RFID in Euro Notes (DIGITAL CIVIL RIGHTS IN EUROPE)
SS Richard Montgomery Matter

IBM: Introducing the "clipped tag"

Article published by Dylan McGrath at EE Times

IBM 'clipped tag' technology speaks to RFID privacy

SAN FRANCISCO — Responding to RFID privacy concerns, IBM has developed a "clipped tag" technology, offering consumers the ability to tear or scratch off RFID antennae, eliminating the threat of an un-authorized reading of the tag.

Full article at EETIMES

Hitachi's Contactless Finger Vein Authentication System

Image source HITACHI

" In the information age, protection of personal information and corporate assets is key to building a safe and secure society. Among prevailing security methods, biometrics promises to be the most effective solution of the future. At Hitachi, we have successfully developed a high-precision, user-friendly biometrics technology that uses the vein patterns of a finger to authenticate an individual's identity. Our cutting-edge finger vein authentication solution is designed for a wide range of applications, including access control for ATMs, PCs, airports, automobiles, and home or office buildings. In the various aspects scenes of your daily life, your finger will be the key to your peace of mind. "

HITACHI Press Release

RFID continuing the debate

Information Week publishs an article about RFID Privacy Guidelines to protect consummers issued, Protecer & Gamble and other big names in consumer products, say that businesses must inform consumers when they embed RFID tags.

Read more at: Information Week
Best practices by CDT Working group on RFID

And another 5 workshops on RFID will held in Brussels