Archive for the ‘international’ Category

Toronto Sun (Canada): Patients sue Ottawa hospital for $40M for lost information

Wednesday, May 15th, 2013

The Toronto Sun reports on a medical data privacy issue in Ottawa: OTTAWA — A group of patients whose personal information was lost is suing Montfort Hospital in Ottawa for $40 million. The suit stems from a lost USB memory stick that contained information on 25,000 patients. The stick was ...

NIST Issues Major Revision of Core Computer Security Guide: SP 800-53

Thursday, May 9th, 2013

The National Institute of Standards and Technology announced a revision of the federal government’s computer security guide, “Security and Privacy Controls for Federal information Systems and Organizations (SP 800-53)” (pdf). The update includes “eight new families of privacy controls that are based on the internationally accepted Fair Information Practice Principles,” ...

Fordham and Wilson Report: Privacy and Missing Persons after Natural Disasters

Tuesday, April 30th, 2013

The Fordham Center on Law and Information Policy (CLIP) at Fordham Law School and the Commons Lab of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars has issued a report, “Privacy and Missing Persons after Natural Disasters,” prepared as part of a joint project. Here’s the abstract: When a natural disaster occurs, ...

Postmedia (Canada): Government data breached thousands of times in last decade, documents say

Monday, April 29th, 2013

Postmedia reports that the Canadian government has had privacy and security breaches of its data thousands of times in the past 10 years: OTTAWA — The federal government has seen more than 3,000 data and privacy breaches over the past 10 years, breaches that have affected more than 725,350 Canadians, ...

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 ...

Update: Hamburg, Germany, Privacy Official Fines Google Over Street View Data Collection

Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013

To recap: In 2009, Google came under fire for its Street View product, where the online services giant photographed homes and other buildings in numerous countries as part of its online mapping service, as individuals said the photos invaded their privacy. Then, in 2010, Google announced that, for more than three years — in more than 30 ...

IDG News: Study: Mobile phone apps view private data more than necessary

Wednesday, April 17th, 2013

IDG News reports on a new study from the French National Commission on Computing and Liberty (CNIL) and the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA) concerning privacy protections in apps for mobile devices, such as smartphones or tablets. (Recently, the Article 29 Working Party released a joint “Opinion 02/2013 ...

Deutsche Welle: Privacy a central issue in new Schengen database

Tuesday, April 16th, 2013

Deutsche Welle reports that there are privacy questions surrounding the European Information System called SIS II, which is set to launch: A space of free movement without controls on the internal borders – that was the goal of the Schengen Agreement, which has been in effect since 1995. All EU ...

Op-Ed at Financial Times: Google revolution isn’t worth our privacy

Wednesday, April 10th, 2013

In an opinion column for the Financial Times, Evgeny Morozov discusses privacy and Internet services giant Google and its latest product, Google Now, in which users would input their calendar and other information. Morozov writes: Let’s give credit where it is due: Google is not hiding its revolutionary ambitions. As ...

Update: Five European Nations Join CNIL in Investigating Google’s Privacy Policies

Thursday, April 4th, 2013

To recap: In January 2012, Google announced changes in its privacy policies that would affect users of its services, such as search, Gmail, Google+ and YouTube. Advocates and legislators questioned the changes, saying that there were privacy issues, and criticized (pdf) the Internet services giant for not including an opt-out provision. The critics included 36 U.S. state attorneys ...

Globe and Mail (Canada): Top court ruling upholds privacy of e-mail, texts

Monday, April 1st, 2013

The Globe and Mail reports on a ruling by Canada’s Supreme Court that affects the privacy of e-mails and texts: The Supreme Court of Canada has moved decisively to prevent police from snooping into e-mail, text messages and future forms of communication as yet undreamed of. Citing the rapid development ...

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, ...