Peter A Clarke

In the United States the Federal Trade Commission has been vigorous in taking action against organisations who mislead and deceive in relation to their privacy policies. In Australia the Privacy Commissioner has issued guidelines regarding privacy policy including What to look for in a privacy policy, Guide to developing an APP privacy policy and  Guide to developing an APP privacy policy — summary. He has not as yet taken enforcement action.

The UK Information Commissioner’s Office has recently taken very strong action against Google over its privacy policy with Google entering into an Undertaking under the Data Protection Act.

The media release setting out the facts and Read the rest of this entry »

On 5 December 2014 I posted on the settlement of charges by hte in a complaint against PaymentsMD and its former CEO, Michael Hughes.  On 6 February 2015 the Federal Trade Commission (The “FTC”) approved final orders in the PaymentsMD Privacy case.  The FTC is turning into as good a regulator on privacy related issues as the legislation permits.  Far more effective than Australian and New Zealand regulators.  In Australia Read the rest of this entry »

Anthem, one of the United States largest health insurers has been subject to a sophisticated cyber attack.  Records of in excess of 80 million have been compromised. This makes it a huge data breach. It is reported in Millions of Anthem Customers Targeted in Cyberattack and Massive Anthem health insurance hack exposes millions of customers’ details which Read the rest of this entry »

Data breaches can attract litigation, both in the form of class actions but also individual claims arising out the unauthorised disclosure of health records.  It can compound heavy reputational loss. The article LinkedIn’s Data Breach Settlement Moves Forward reports on the resolution of a lawsuit arising out of the 2012 breach of Linked In’s network.  The tentative agreement of Read the rest of this entry »

There have been no shortage of  lessons to be learnt from the the Sony Hack.  Poor cyber  security and systems layed the foundations for the hack attack.  It was less to do with evil geniuses breaching an impenetriable defence and more to do with inadequate and compromised privacy infrastructure.  There is more to be learnt from the hack, starting with who was responsible.  The suspected origin of the attack has varied from, initially, North Korea to a disgruntled insider to, most recently, Russian as reported in Report Claims Russians Hacked Sony.

The other aspect of the Sony Hack has been the ever widening consequences of the breach.  It acted as a Read the rest of this entry »

Today the Pew Research Centre published a very interesting report, titled Investigative Journalists and Digital Security: Perceptions of Vulnerability and Changes in Behavior (found here). The findings are based on  a survey of 671 investigative journalists and their experience with digital security.

Clearly there is a continuing concern about Read the rest of this entry »

In Everyday ways your personal privacy is under threat Zdnet highlights the privacy invasive potential associated with Read the rest of this entry »

A small drone landed on the grounds of the US White House last week.  It caused a minor splash in the media with all sorts of concerns, mostly overhyped, about security raised.  The coverage did Read the rest of this entry »