Peter A Clarke

There are no mandatory data breach notification laws in any jurisdiction in Australia. In that regard Australia lags the USA where 47 o f the 50 states have such laws.  A voluntary system of notification results in patchy notification, often after or in anticipation of negative publicity. The Age in Government agency leaks customer details without telling reports on the reluctance on a yet unknown government agency to notify the less than 50 customers whose personal information, which included their full names, addresses and sums on their bills, was leaked through a Bpay View system.  The agency Read the rest of this entry »

The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) has announced a settlement against Yelp and Tinyco for improperly collecting childrens’ information in breach of Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.  Yelp will pay $450,000 civil penalty while TinyCo will pay $300,000 civil penalty. Each of the breaches were quite serious but all too typical.  Failing to obtain consent or inadequate disclosure is a chronic Read the rest of this entry »

US Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor has highlighted the importance or privacy, most notably in United States v Jones.  Her concurring opinion went further than the majority in highlighting impact on privacy of technology.  Her opinion clearly highlights a willingness to develop privacy law to deal with these developments.  In that context her reported comments about the privacy implications of drones in Read the rest of this entry »

On Wednesday 10 September the The Privacy Commissioner issued a press release Mobile apps must put user privacy first as part of a world wide review by regulators of mobile apps in May.  The nub of the findings is that mobile apps fall far short in providing necessary information to users of what will be done with personal information.  Nothing much new here.  Mobile apps are woefully inadequate in both Read the rest of this entry »

The Information Commissioner’s Office in Global survey finds 85% of mobile apps fail to provide basic privacy information again highlights the generally lamentable approach most mobile apps towards the use of private information.  This is but the latest in a long line of reports about the weaknesses of mobile apps in both privacy protection and informing users what will be done with their personal information.  Given many mobile apps Read the rest of this entry »

The Privacy Commissioner has issued a guide on Mobile Apps (found here) and a checklist (found here).   It is good, as Read the rest of this entry »