October 31, 2006

dontdatehimgirl.com ¡ ¡ ¡


Don't Quote Me: Online Anonymity Fosters Prejudice

by Kim Ficera, October 5, 2006


“Anna's biggest concern was that these kids, in a couple years, will be adults, and they will have been taught that they can humiliate someone like this and get away with it.”
— Murphy Klasing, lawyer for Anna Draker, a high school administrator who has filed suit against two students that created a MySpace.com profile in her name and posted false information indicating she was a lesbian.

“I don't understand how people can be so cruel … I don't believe the website offers useful information to anyone — male or female — on dating. And I don't believe anyone should be able to post something anonymously.”
— Todd Hollis, a Pittsburgh lawyer who is suing the operator of DontDateHimGirl.com for posting what he says is erroneous and defamatory information about his health and sexuality.


This morning I did something I've never done before and I hope to never do again. I spent nearly five hours randomly browsing pages on MySpace.com, videos on YouTube.com and posts on DontDateHimGirl.com. I discovered a few things, one of which is that if President Bush is looking for a new form of torture, he need look no further than these websites... (full article a afterellen.com)

October 30, 2006

Feds Leapfrog RFID Privacy Study


(RFID tag photp) source wikipedia

Extract of Wired article Feds Leapfrog RFID Privacy Study By Ryan Singel

The story seems simple enough. An outside privacy and security advisory committee to the Department of Homeland Security penned a tough report concluding the government should not use chips that can be read remotely in identification documents. But the report remains stuck in draft mode, even as new identification cards with the chips are being announced.

Jim Harper, a Cato Institute fellow who serves on the committee and who recently published a book on identification called Identity Crisis, thinks he knows why the Department of Homeland Security Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee report on the use of Radio Frequency Identification devices for human identification (.pdf) never made it out of the draft stage.

Read full article at Wired

October 27, 2006

Privacy Lost by David H. Holtzman

Privacy Lost: How Technology Is Endangering Your Privacy
David H. Holtzman
ISBN: 0-7879-8511-2
Hardcover352 pages
October 2006


Holtzman vividly reveals actual invasions and the dangers associated with the loss of privacy, and he takes a realistic look at the trade offs between privacy and such vital issues as security, rights, and economic development.

Praise for Privacy Lost

"Whether we know it or not, we have all become citizens of the Digital Age. As such we need to take responsibility for our conduct, our safety, and our privacy. David Holtzman is deeply knowledgeable about the industry and passionate about the issues. Regardless of your political views, you will come away from this book better equipped to meet the challenges before us all."
Geoffrey A. Moore, author, Dealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of Their Evolution

"Holtzman has drafted a blueprint all citizens of this great land ought to read if they desire to understand what privacy truly means, why it is important to both their everyday life as well as to their understanding of what it really means to be free, and what they can do to salvage what little privacy is left them. Privacy Lost needs to be readily available on the desks of all concerned citizens—heavily dog-eared and underlined."
Bob Barr, practicing attorney and former Member of theUnited States House of Representatives

October 26, 2006

Data Protection Practical Compliance - 1st Annual Conference

The 1st Annual Data Protection Practical Compliance Conference will be held in Dublin, Ireland on 10th November 2006

This annual Conference brings together the leading authorities in the field of data protection, as well as the related areas of records management, privacy and computer technology.

Billy Hawkes, the Data Protection Commissioner, is the keynote speaker. Other expert speakers are from law firms, leading corporations and government.

This one-day Conference is specifically designed to give you the key resources and information for your organisation to manoeuvre within Ireland's rapidly expanding fields of data protection, privacy, and records management.

October 25, 2006

The Australian Privacy Foundation urges patients to opt out of database



Text source ABC Newsonline

The Australian Privacy Foundation (APF) says patients should ask their doctor not to put their records on a new electronic database, because the system is a breach of privacy.

The New South Wales Government says it will roll out the system, which will allow a patient's health records to be accessed from anywhere within the public health system at any time.

The chairwoman of the APF, Anna Johnston, says patients' records will be put on the database unless they opt out.

Ms Johnston says a trial of the system has failed to get the support of doctors.

Links:

Privacy issues and risks with electronic health records (APF website)

October 24, 2006

RFID Technology Bad News for Privacy and Security, Says Smart Card Alliance


Text Source: Smarting Card Alliance Press Release

Using the long read range radio frequency identification (RFID) technology the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and State Department are proposing for passport cards will do little to increase the security of the nation's borders, and opens up possibilities that U.S. citizens could be tracked, the Smart Card Alliance said today. The Alliance contends that a more privacy sensitive and secure passport card solution using the same contactless smart card technology found in the new electronic passports (ePassports) can improve border security without causing delays at crossings.

“Using long range RFID technology is a major step backwards for government-issued identity credentials,” said Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance. “These RFID tags simply don’t have the security features necessary to protect the border and also maintain citizen privacy.

October 23, 2006

Homeland Security ID Card Filled with Security, Privacy Risks


Text Source EPIC website


The State Department recently published a proposed rule in the Federal Register for the creation of the People Access Security Service (PASS) card, which would be used for "international travel by U.S. citizens through land or sea ports of entry between the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Bermuda." If adopted as proposed, the PASS Card would include a long-range wireless technology that would create an increased security risk. This is a significant change from the previous system, where U.S. citizens would show a driver's license, birth certificate or nothing at all to cross the border.


State Department's Federal Register PASS Card Proposal:
http://www.epic.org/privacy/surveillance/spotlight/0806/pass_fr.html

EPIC's Spotlight on Surveillance: "Homeland Security PASS Card: Leave Home Without It":
http://www.epic.org/privacy/surveillance/spotlight/0806

October 20, 2006

Privacy Research in Canada



Text by Michael Geist of the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa.

In recent years several Canadian experts have carried out innovative research to identify some solutions.

Ian Kerr of the University of Ottawa has studied the trust relationship between consumers and their ISPs, interview to Ian Kerr

Steve Penney of the University of New Brunswick has focused on cybercrime,

Kerry Rittich of the University of Toronto has examined workplace concerns in the new economy,

Darin Barney of McGill University has written on the impact of digital networks on privacy rights, and

Teresa Scassa of Dalhousie University has tackled federal privacy legislation. Law & Technology Institute


And others:


Centre de recherche en droit public
http://www.crdp.umontreal.ca/fr/index.html


Chaire L. R. Wilson sur le droit des technologies de l'information et du commerce électronique

(podcast available, Conférences en ligne)

October 19, 2006

Korean Government to Mandate SSL Certificates


Text Source: Compliance & Privacy

Starting January 1, 2007, any businesses in Korea collecting personal information on-line or conducting e-commerce transactions will be mandated to run SSL certificates in the server side. While the client certificates mainly for personal Internet banking and on-line purchases by individuals have been widely and almost ubiquitously used as already mandated by the government, there have been very little adoptions of server certificates meaning this new legislation will be a major shift in the government policy in Korea to drive major adoptions of server certificates. With this legislation, the Korean Government expects on-line businesses in Korea to have 10K new certificates installed by the end of this year and additional 40K within Year 2007.

October 18, 2006

Microsoft Customer Privacy Guidelines


Source Text: Microsoft Website

In response to requests from customers, partners, ISVs, educators, advocates, and regulators, we created a public set of privacy guidelines for developing software products and services.

These guidelines are based on our internal guidelines and our experience incorporating privacy into the development process. By documenting our principles, we hope to help anyone building products and services to meet customer expectations and deliver a more trustworthy experience.


Basic Concepts and Definitions

Guidelines:

Scenario 1: Transferring PII to and from the Customer’s System

Scenario 2: Storing PII on the Customer’s System

Scenario 3: Transferring Anonymous Data from the Customer’s System

Scenario 4: Installing Software on a Customer’s System

Scenario 5: Deploying a Website

Scenario 6: Storing and Processing User Data at the Company

Scenario 7: Transferring User Data Outside the Company

Scenario 8: Interacting with Children

Scenario 9: Server Deployment

October 17, 2006

EU Calls for Stronger RFID Privacy


European Commission Press Releases

Brussels, 16 October 2006

The European Commission today reports on the initial findings from its wide public debate on Radio Frequency Identification. At the ‘RFID – Heading for the Future’ conference in Brussels today, possible future policy options will be discussed with stakeholders from all over Europe and beyond.

Why is the Commission involved in RFID? Why not leave it completely to the private sector?

The private sector is crucial for developing the technological and economic conditions for successfully introducing RFID technologies. But as the private sector cannot clear all the roadblocks, this could slow RFID introduction.

Examples include the need for a common European technical standard to ensure that RFID systems work together and the lack of a radio frequency allocation common to all EU Member States. Suitable standards for RFID are crucial to its successful introduction. The Commission relies on standards proposed by the existing standardisation bodies in Europe, such as CEPT and ETSI for frequency spectrum allocation, and CEN and ISO for interoperability. It counts on self-regulation and industry-wide agreements to remove the remaining obstacles.

RFID also raises a number of public interest issues, including data protection and security. Here, there is a clear need to identify joint European responses to legitimate societal concerns. On privacy, RFID is generating a number of important questions such as: how do we credibly ensure that RFID tags are not abused to invade the privacy of consumers? Do we need to destroy an RFID tag when it could be useful for self-configuring products (built from autonomous components and assemblies), automating warranty checks etc.? The Commission’s role here is to help build a cross-society consensus on technical, legal and ethical issues associated with RFID and to intervene, where required, with regulatory instruments.

In addition to privacy, the interoperability debate and the availability of radio frequency spectrum are also important. We very much need a common approach throughout Europe, so as to ensure that individual EU Member States do not opt for incompatible solutions which ultimately would be detrimental to everyone. For example, because Europe lacks a common frequency range for ultra-high frequency (UHF) tags, electronic invoicing is possible within each country, but e-invoicing systems will not work across borders. Also a sector-specific approach, such as common EU guidelines that set out minimal requirements for RFID applications in different sectors (such as healthcare or government), might be helpful for industry and citizens in Europe.

More information on the public debate on RFID can be found at: www.rfidconsultation.eu

In the news:

EU mulls RFID privacy laws Register, UK

EU Fears Radio Tags Will Invade Privacy All Headline News

EU Calls for Stronger RFID Privacy ENT News

Privacy concerns surrounding RFID must be addressed Computeractive

October 16, 2006

me & internet

Consumers have few options to control data on Internet services such as search

By Associated Press


If you do not like what your favorite Internet search engine or e-commerce site does with information it collects about you, your options are limited to living with it or logging off.

October 13, 2006

The Media-Sharing Mirage


Technology Review publishs today this article The Media-Sharing Mirage by Wade Roush about how new collected information tools fuse all the information into online journals, diaries.


Many tools now exist for capturing and sharing data collected on mobile devices. Will they turn us into globe-trotting personal publishers--or glorified file clerks?

Wireless laptops, home broadband connections, and camera phones are nearly ubiquitous, at least in urban parts of the industrialized world. And several Web-based media-sharing services--including eSnips, Nokia's Lifeblog, Motorola's Avvenu, and Six Apart's Vox--can fuse all the information those devices collect into online journals.

The vision is clear: multimedia diaries should document all our experiences and gather our favorite files so we can share them as widely as we wish.

The implementation, however, is flawed.

Read complete article at Technology Review

October 11, 2006

Video Searching by Sight and Script

Video Searching by Sight and Script an article published at Technology Review by Brendan Borrel

Researchers have designed an automated system to identify characters in television shows, paving the way for better video search.

Now researchers have developed a system that uses a combination of face recognition, close-captioning information, and original television scripts to automatically name the faces on that appear on screen, making episodes of the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer searchable.

"We basically see this work as one of the first steps in getting automated descriptions of what's happening in a video," says Mark Everingham, a computer scientist now at the University of Leeds (formerly of the University of Oxford), who presented his research at the British Machine Vision Conference in September.

Full article at Technology Review


LINKS:

Computer Vision Group at University of California, Berkeley

Visual Geometry Group at Oxford University

October 10, 2006

ICANN & Privacy



Internet privacy 'sacrificed' by Icann, article published at BBCNEWS

Internet law professor Michael Geist argues that the internet oversight body has sacrificed the issue of privacy for a shot at independence.

For the past five years, privacy has lingered as one of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers' (Icann) most contentious policy issues.

Information on tens of millions of domain name registrants is contained in the "WHOIS database", which is readily available to anyone with internet access.

Pre-dating Icann, the database identifies the name, address and other personal information of domain name registrants.

Full article at BBCNEWS

October 09, 2006

Australia: Law Reform Commission to review the Privacy Act



The Federal Government is concerned that developments in information technology have outpaced our privacy laws, and it's asked the Australian Law Reform Commission to review the situation.

Now the Commission has released an issues paper and is calling for public submissions, as Chris Uhlmann reports.

Do Australians feel that their privacy is adequately protected? Is it possible for privacy laws to keep up with technology such as data matching, facial recognition and even body odour measurement? Do younger people care as much about privacy as their elders?

Australians want their personal, financial and employment details better protected from telemarketing firms, but their health information more freely available to hospitals, a new privacy report reveals.

Privacy: Review of the Privacy Act 1988

Issues Paper 31 Review of Privacy(IP 31, October 2006)

Computers, biometrics and Gen Y: Is privacy passé?

October 06, 2006

EU and US push for air data deal

Text Source BBCNEWS

European and American negotiators are making a new effort to resolve a dispute over the tansfer of data about transatlantic airline passengers.

The US demands up to 34 pieces of information about each traveller, but a deal authorising European airlines to hand it over lapsed on 30 September.

Read full article at BBCNEWS

More info:

Justice and Home Affairs Council in Luxembourg on 5 and 6 October
Council Conclusions on Justice and home affairs council meeting, 5-6 October 2006

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

01.10.2006 - Airline passenger data - European Commission statement on negotiations with the United States, European Commission DG Justice and Home Affairs

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Passenger information row settledGuardian Unlimited, UK

Draft deal reached on EU-US air dataReuters.uk, UK

October 05, 2006

EFF Sues for Information on Electronic Surveillance Systems

TEXT SOURCE: October 03, 2006, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Press Release

FBI Withholds Records on Tools to Intercept Personal Communications Washington, D.C. - The FLAG Project at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed its first lawsuit against the Department of Justice Tuesday after the FBI failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records concerning DCS-3000 and Red Hook -- tools the FBI has spent millions of dollars developing for electronic surveillance.

DCS-3000 is an interception system that apparently evolved out of "Carnivore," a controversial surveillance system the FBI used several years ago to monitor online traffic through Internet service providers. One Department of Justice report said DCS-3000 was developed to "intercept personal communication services delivered via emerging digital technologies" and that it was used "as carriers continue to introduce new features and services." According to the same report, Red Hook is a system to "collect voice and data calls and then process and display the intercepted information."

The FLAG Project first filed its FOIA request for information about the surveillance systems on August 11, 2006. The FBI acknowledged receipt of the request, but the agency has not responded within the time limit required by law.

"Recent allegations of domestic spying by the U.S. government already have both lawmakers and the general public up in arms. Americans have a right to know whether the FBI is using new technology to further violate their privacy," said EFF Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann. "The Department of Justice needs to abide by the law and publicly release information about these surveillance tools."

EFF's FLAG Project, launched last month, uses FOIA requests and litigation to expose the government's expanding use of technologies that invade privacy.

"Transparency is critical to the functioning of our democracy, especially when the government seeks to hide activities that affect the rights of citizens," EFF Senior Counsel David Sobel, who directs the FLAG Project. "We have recently seen numerous instances where federal agencies have sought to conceal surveillance activities that raise serious legal issues."

For the full FOIA suit filed against the Department of Justice:
http://www.eff.org/flag/dcs/dcs_complaint.pdf

For more on the FLAG Project:
http://www.eff.org/flag/

October 04, 2006

Swift Case


Text source, CSOonline.com, Oct 04, 2006, by Paul Meller, IDG News Service (Brussels Bureau)

Swift CFO Questioned by Euro Parliament About Data Privacy

Executives from financial data transfer company Swift and the president of the European Central Bank (ECB) faced tough questions in a European Parliament committee meeting Wednesday, about the illegal sharing of private data with U.S. authorities.

ECB chief Jean-Claude Trichet denied that the bank should have stepped in to prevent the breach of European data-protection laws, saying that the bank could only advise the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift). "We have no judicial competence in the field of data protection," he said.

Full article at CSOonline.com


L I N K S

SWIFT supports calls for EU-US talks on security and data privacy Swift website

04/10/2006 - Speech: Jean-Claude Trichet: Statement by the President of the ECB at the public hearing at the European Parliament on the interception of bank transfer data from the SWIFT system by the US secret services. European Parliament website

04/10/2006 SWIFT: EDPS preliminary findings on the role of the ECB (press release). EDPS, European Data Protection Supervisor

October 03, 2006

RFID Guardian Project

The RFID Guardian Project is a collaborative project (Vrije Universiteit, Technical University of Delft) focused upon providing security and privacy in Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems. The goals of this project are to:

- Investigate the security and privacy threats faced by RFID systems
- Design and implement real solutions against these threats
- Investigate the associated technological and legal issues


The namesake of thjs project is the RFID Guardian: a mobile battery-powered device that offers personal RFID security and privacy management. One the focuses of this project is to build an RFID Guardian prototype.

October 02, 2006

Home Health Project

Photo by Xacobe de Toro



Home Health Horoscopes Project is a project by Cornell University (Phoebe Sengers) in collaboration with Royal College of Art and Intel, a privacy-preserving 'smart home' that provides open-ended opportunities for reflection on the emotional climate in the home.

The Home Health system, a collaboration with Bill Gaver and Michael Golembewski at the Royal College of Art, London, will be a ubiquitous computing system that monitors a home's emotional climate and provides open-ended feedback about it to users. Everyday household objects are wired with sensors. The resulting sensor data is used to develop a model of the current emotional climate of the people living in the home. Once a day, the user receives a list of suggestions from the system of emotional issues that s/he might wish to consider.

Privacy saved my life

Blog Archive

Labels

Contact Me

Creative Commons License
Esta obra está bajo una licencia de Creative Commons.