A Company Computer and Questions About E-Mail Privacy: When he was fired, Scott Sidell was angry enough. Then he found out that his former employer was reading his personal Yahoo e-mail messages, after he had left the company. [NYT]
One in three IT staff snoops on colleagues: One in three information technology professionals abuses administrative passwords to access confidential data such as colleagues’ salary details, personal e-mails or board-meeting minutes, according to a survey. [msnbc]
Congress’s Fingerprint Fine Print: Yet this week a measure creating a federal fingerprint registry totally unrelated to national security or violent crime may clear the Senate with little debate. The legislation would require thousands of individuals not suspected of any wrongdoing to send their prints to the feds. [WSJ]
June 27th, 2008 at 10:26 am
This article is filed under Blog, Privacy.
‘Big Brother’ snooping law stirs outrage in Sweden: Sweeping new powers under which the Swedish security services can monitor private phone calls, e-mails and text messages are expected to come into force this week under legislation that has prompted outrage in the country. [Times]
Pay no mind to the Mossad agent on the line: Comverse Infosys provides wiretapping equipment to law enforcement throughout the United States and also has large contracts with the Israeli government, which reimburses up to 50 percent of the company’s research and development costs. Because equipment used to tap phones for law enforcement is integrated into the networks that phone companies operate, it cannot be detected. Phone calls are intercepted, recorded, stored, and transmitted to investigators by Comverse, which claims that it has to be “hands on” with its equipment to maintain the system. Many experts believe that it is relatively easy to create a so-called “back door” that permits the recording to be sent to a second party, unknown to the authorized law-enforcement recipient. And Comverse equipment has never been inspected by FBI or NSA experts to determine whether the information it collects can be leaked, reportedly because senior government managers block such inquiries. [American Conservative]
June 17th, 2008 at 10:56 am
This article is filed under Blog, Privacy.
Mind reading by MRI scan raises ‘mental privacy’ issue: Employers, the military and intelligence services may soon be using computerised mind-reading techniques and there is a need for a public debate about “mental privacy,” a leading neuroscientist said yesterday. [Telegraph]
A computer hacker in Chile has published confidential records of six million people: The information was obtained by hacking into government and military servers, and was posted on a technology blog, reports the El Mercurio newspaper. The personal data inlcuded names, street and email addresses, telephone numbers and social and educational background. [Telegraph]
Google founders defend website after Big Brother claims: Google has tried to dismiss fears it is becoming the “Big Brother of the internet” by storing details of people’s personal searches. [Telegraph]
June 9th, 2008 at 10:20 am
This article is filed under Blog, Privacy.
What’s a Roman earn? Find out on the Internet: Italians were surprised, and in some cases outraged, on Wednesday to discover that their income levels were available for public viewing on an Internet site. As part of a crack-down on tax evasion, the outgoing center-left government made public every citizen’s declared taxable income on the state’s tax Web site, a decision attacked by consumer groups and some politicians. [msnbc]
WAS YOUR LENDINGTREE FILE HACKED?: LendingTree has told its customers that former employees helped unauthorized mortgage lenders hack into its systems and steal customer information from 2006 to 2008. The incident reveals just how aggressive the mortgage loan business was during the height of the housing boom, and also raises fears for consumers who share their information with companies that help them shop around for the best deal. And it highlights what experts say is an often overlooked source of data theft — the inside job. [msnbc]
May 1st, 2008 at 9:55 am
This article is filed under Blog, Privacy.
Privacy becoming more elusive for Americans: Individuals might treasure their personal data like Social Security and credit-card numbers, but identity thieves can buy them cheap and in bulk online. Credit-card numbers can now go for as little as 40 cents each. A matching name, Social Security number, address, and date of birth cost just $2.00, according to security experts. Even as the incidences of identity theft reach record highs, the government and private institutions continue to collect record amounts of personal, private data. [CSM]
U.S. Plans to Collect DNA on Any Federal Arrest: The government plans to begin collecting DNA samples from anyone arrested by a federal law enforcement agency, a move intended to prevent violent crime but which is also raising concerns about the privacy of innocent people. Using authority granted by Congress, the government also plans to collect DNA samples from foreigners who are detained. [NYT]
April 18th, 2008 at 9:57 am
This article is filed under Blog, Privacy.
The Already Big Thing on the Internet: Spying on Users: In 1993, the dawn of the Internet age, the liberating anonymity of the online world was captured in a well-known New Yorker cartoon. One dog, sitting at a computer, tells another: “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” Fifteen years later, that anonymity is gone. It’s not paranoia: they really are spying on you. [NYT]
Centers Tap Into Personal Databases: Intelligence centers run by states across the country have access to personal information about millions of Americans, including unlisted cellphone numbers, insurance claims, driver’s license photographs and credit reports, according to a document obtained by The Washington Post. [Washington Post]
April 14th, 2008 at 10:09 am
This article is filed under Blog, Privacy.
Digital spying: The ways of tracking our behaviour online are becoming more sophisticated. [New Statesman]
Lidl, the Big Brother supermarket, is watching you: The Stasi secret police may have died with communism but its surveillance methods are still alive at Lidl, the German supermarket chain. George Orwell’s Big Brother, it seems, stalks the aisles between the cornflakes and the canned dogfood. Detectives hired by Lidl - which has more than 7,000 stores worldwide, including 450 in Britain - have been monitoring romance at the cash till, visits to the lavatory and the money problems of shelf-stackers. [Times]
Growing Database of Tourist Fingerprints Raising Privacy Concerns: Four years ago, the U.S. began collecting digital fingerprints from non-citizens. Its database now contains 90 million fingerprints, and counting. [AlterNet]
March 28th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
This article is filed under Blog, Privacy.
After that divorce, what now for privacy?: Heather Mills and Paul McCartney’s very public spat throws up some intriguing questions about privacy, public space and liberty today. [Spiked]
What’s in a Passport File?: All the information your bank tells you to keep secret, and more. [Slate]
Wiretapping’s true danger: But focusing on the privacy of the average Joe in this way obscures the deeper threat that warrantless wiretaps poses to a democratic society. Without meaningful oversight, presidents and intelligence agencies can — and repeatedly have — abused their surveillance authority to spy on political enemies and dissenters. [LA Times]
March 25th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
This article is filed under Blog, Privacy.
NSA’s Domestic Spying Grows As Agency Sweeps Up Data: Five years ago, Congress killed an experimental Pentagon antiterrorism program meant to vacuum up electronic data about people in the U.S. to search for suspicious patterns. Opponents called it too broad an intrusion on Americans’ privacy, even after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But the data-sifting effort didn’t disappear. The National Security Agency, once confined to foreign surveillance, has been building essentially the same system. [WSJ]
‘The Hallmarks of a Totalitarian State’: Germany’s high court has declared laws enabling British-style total surveillance of drivers illegal. Privacy advocates and commentators applaud the ruling, but they ask if the court is trying to stop the laws from snowballing into a police state — or just water them down. [Spiegel]
The Invasion of Spitzer’s (Financial) Privacy: It’s insane. That a man’s withdrawal of hunks of cash to pay a prostitute should attract the attention of law enforcement is brave-new-world. [Mondoweiss]
March 13th, 2008 at 9:05 am
This article is filed under Blog, Privacy.
Two of Britain’s most notorious murderers were jailed last week because their DNA samples were in the UK database. As calls were made for a mandatory register for all British citizens it sparked a fierce debate about civil liberties and security. [Guardian]
Silently tapping into a private cellphone conversation is no longer a high-tech trick reserved for spies and the FBI. Thanks to the work of two young cyber-security researchers, cellular snooping may soon be affordable enough for your next-door neighbor. [Forbes]
March 5th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
This article is filed under Blog, Privacy.
