Peter A Clarke

The Age has run a piece on privacy litigation in the United States in Is this Silicon Valley’s most hated man? It is as much a bio on the firm Edelson PC and its principal, Jay Edelson as an expose on privacy litigation but it does provide some insight on how class actions in the privacy sphere operate in the United States in this space.  Both regulation and enforcement by authorities and the ability of classes or individuals to bring a cause of action relating to interferences with privacy are important means of ensuring there is some integrity in the handling of data by organisations and data. Poor regulation and/or overly restrictive rights of action will not deter poor and negligent behaviour, giving rise to a poor privacy culture and lax data handling practices.  Heavy handed regulation and Read the rest of this entry »

The Daily Mail in Your pension secrets sold to conmen for five pence: On eve of pensions revolution, an exposé that will horrify every family in the land reports on a likely illegal sale of pension information without the owner’s knowledge.  It is the type of action which data laws are designed to prevent.  Not surprisingly the Information Commissioner’s Office Read the rest of this entry »

As if it were necessary to say that data security was a matter of proper corporate governance the Australian Security and Investment Commission (“ASIC”) has made that abundantly clear with its Report 429 Cyber Resilience: Health Check.  As far as ASIC is concerned it has a role to ensure that companies maintain proper cyber security standards. This is a very important development because Read the rest of this entry »

The Privacy Commissioner has announced the amendment of the Australian Privacy Principles (the “APPs”).  They are Read the rest of this entry »

The UK Information Commissioner’s Monetary Penalty Notice against the Serious Fraud Office highlights both the need to have secure means of handling personal information and the consequences of releasing very sensitive information to the wrong party. The notice also Read the rest of this entry »

On Friday 27 March 2015 the Privacy Commissioner announced that he has accepted an enforceable undertaking from Optus arising from 3 privacy breaches.

This is the first reported use of the powers given the Privacy Commissioner under amemdments to the Privacy Act 1988 which took effect on 12 March 2014. The undertakings provision is Read the rest of this entry »

The article  Some 5,600 privacy breaches in federal government in 2014: documents provides a salutory lesson on Read the rest of this entry »

The Federal Trade Commission (the “FTC”) has established the Bureau of Consumer Protection Office of Technology Research and Investigation to focus on Read the rest of this entry »

Wired in The Privacy Revolt: The Growing Demand For Privacy-as-a-Service provides an interesting analysis of and argument for businesses providing privacy as part of a businesses services.  The message is not new, nor are the solutions. The article highlights how it is becoming necessary to implement proper privacy strategies.  In the Australian context Read the rest of this entry »

When the Mike Bezos first raised the possibility of drones being used by Amazon to deliver goods, Jeff Bezos Says Amazon Is Seriously Serious About Drone Deliveriesthe response was decidely sceptical and a more than a little hostile, see We can do without Jeff Bezos’s delivery drones.   That was 2014.

Late last week the Federal Aviation Authority gave Amazon an experimental airworthiness certificate, stating in its release: Read the rest of this entry »