Archive for the ‘book’ Category

Update: Wall Street vs. Employees’ Social-Networking Privacy

Friday, April 26th, 2013

To recap: In the last year, there has been increasing focus on the practice by some employers of requiring job applicants to hand over their passwords or allow access to their private accounts on social-networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace or Google+ in order to gather personal data when the social-networking profiles are closed to ...

NPR: Google Execs Talk Privacy, Security In ‘The New Digital Age’

Wednesday, April 24th, 2013

NPR looks at a new book from Google executive Eric Schmidt, which includes a discussion of privacy and technology, and interviews him and his co-author about the issues: Imagine a world with machines that wash, press and dress you on the way to work and vacations via hologram visits to ...

Op-Ed at New York Times: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the Sequel

Friday, March 29th, 2013

A couple of years ago, when Rebecca Skloot published a book about the fascinating story of Henrietta Lacks, her cervical cancer and what researchers did with it, news articles raised questions about the privacy of a person’s medical data and what rights a person has to their own tissue. Now, ...

Events of Interest: Cato Forum on Traveler Privacy and Surveillance (April 2)

Thursday, March 21st, 2013

The Cato Institute is hosting a policy forum, “Travel Surveillance, Traveler Intrusion,” which also will be live-streamed. Here’s more info from Cato: Featuring Edward Hasbrouck, Journalist, Consumer Advocate, Travel Expert, and Consultant, The Identity Project (PapersPlease.org), Author of the book and blog, The Practical Nomad; and Ginger McCall Director, Open ...

Carnegie Mellon Report: The Evolution of Privacy and Disclosure on Facebook

Monday, March 11th, 2013

Carnegie Mellon has a new study, “Silent Listeners: The Evolution of Privacy and Disclosure on Facebook” (CMU pdf; archive pdf), about social-media networking site Facebook’s users and their ideas of privacy, focusing on how these ideas and behaviors have changed between 2005 and 2011. Here’s the abstract: Over the past decade, ...

Red Tape Chronicles: Facebook to team up with real-world data brokers to pick ads for you

Wednesday, February 27th, 2013

Red Tape Chronicles reports on a new way that online and offline data about individuals will be combined by marketers to create online targeted behavioral advertising — this time, social-networking site Facebook will reportedly be involved. The story notes that people can opt out of one data-marketing company’s online digital advertising ...

Guardian (UK): Software that tracks people on social media created by defence firm

Wednesday, February 13th, 2013

The Guardian reports on software created by Raytheon that mines data from social-networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter in order to track individuals: A multinational security firm has secretly developed software capable of tracking people’s movements and predicting future behaviour by mining data from social networking websites. A video obtained by the Guardian reveals how ...

Update: U.S. House Members Reintroduce Social Networking Online Protection Act (SNOPA)

Friday, February 8th, 2013

To recap: In the last year, there has been increasing focus on the practice by some employers of requiring job applicants to hand over their passwords or allow access to their private accounts on social-networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace or Google+ in order to gather personal data when the social-networking profiles are closed ...

Update: Path Settles with FTC on Mobile Privacy Charges as New Privacy Questions Arise

Monday, February 4th, 2013

To recap: In February 2012, it was revealed that photo-sharing mobile application Path uploaded users’ entire address books without permission, and there was substantial public criticism of the company’s actions. After initially dismissing the criticisms, Path CEO Dave Morin apologized in a blog post and announced that the company had deleted the contact information uploaded to its ...

Law article: Open Book: The Failed Promise of Information Privacy in America

Friday, January 18th, 2013

In “Open Book: The Failed Promise of Information Privacy in America,” University of Indiana law professor James P. Nehf discusses the weakness of privacy laws in the United States at the federal and state level. Here’s the abstract: With financial and other personal information about us in countless databases, and with ...

Update on Laws to Protect Social-Networking Passwords

Wednesday, January 9th, 2013

To recap: In the last year, there has been increasing focus on the practice by some employers of requiring job applicants to hand over their passwords or allow access to their private accounts on social-networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace or Google+ in order to gather personal data when the social-networking profiles are closed ...

House Passes Changes to Video Privacy Protection Act Without Crucial Provisions Approved by Senate

Tuesday, December 18th, 2012

Problematic Change Weakens VPPA Absent Changes to Other Electronic Privacy Laws FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE