In Tomorrow’s Privacy Struggles, On Display Today in the New York Times.  It provides:

The thorny privacy issues of tomorrow were on display Thursday morning, when AT&T showed off a batch of technologies under development at AT&T Labs, the company’s research arm.

Researchers showed off Read the rest of this entry »

Health Records are particularly sensitive documents.  They store highly sensitive information which are regarded as deeply private even to those who have a robust approach to privacy protections.  The other characteristic of health records are that they are accessible to a whole range of individuals, particularly hospital records.  Doctors, nurses and  administrators all have some need to view a patient’s record, or at least part of it.  Then therre are orderlies, students, security staff and cleaners who could get access to records in hard copy form without too much difficulty. There is potentially a larger group again who can get to them electronically.  This makes for a heightened need for data security.  In Victoria this has been recognised with the enactment of the Health Records Act.

Law firms see big money in healthcare breach cases is an interesting article highlighting the exposure of US health care providers to data breaches.  It provides:

In California, where a unique state law provides for damages of $1,000 per person per violation of the Confidentiality of Medical Information Act of 1981 (CMIA), plaintiff law firms are lining up to file privacy data breach class-action lawsuits against hospitals, medical service providers and health insurers that, if successful, could easily yield payouts in the multiple millions.

The San Francisco-based legal publication The Recorder reported April 6 that at least a half-dozen plaintiff firms had filed complaints for privacy breaches so far, seeing it as a lucrative new source of income.

Brian Kabateck of the Los Angeles plaintiffs firm Kabateck Brown Kellner told The Recorder, “There’s an awful lot at stake here.”

Indeed, a suit pending Read the rest of this entry »

In a report by iHealthbeat the Memorial Health Care system was compromised by two employees improperly accessing patient data with the intention of filing false tax returns.

The report provides:

Florida-based Memorial Healthcare System is Read the rest of this entry »

The Economist has a published a fantastic article titled I spy, with my big eye on CCTV and facial recognition technology and the ever present associated privacy issues.

It provides:

WELCOME to China, the land of video surveillance. Guangdong province boasts over 1m cameras. In 2010 the city of Chongqing, governed by the now-disgraced Bo Xilai, ordered 500,000. Other provinces have hundreds of thousands, according to Human Rights in China, an NGO. Video surveillance constitutes over half the country’s huge security industry, and is expected to reach 500 billion yuan ($79 billion) in 2015. China will soon overtake Britain, with around 3m cameras, as the capital of video surveillance.

Yet China is far from alone. In many democracies surveillance cameras are multiplying, too. And face-recognition technology is proving a wonder tool for both governments and marketers.

A jail in Alabama uses it to Read the rest of this entry »

A recent story in the Sydney Morning Herald, Sex, lies and a phone video, reported a story about an egregious breach of  privacy.

The story provides:

The ABC reports at Brown slams surveillance of green activists that the Federal Government has pushed for surveillance of environmental activists.

The report provides:

Greens leader Bob Brown has accused Federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson of turning Australia into a police state, after reports he pushed for increased surveillance of environmental activists.

A report in Fairfax newspapers details documents, obtained under Freedom of Information laws, that show Mr Ferguson requested additional monitoring of anti-coal mining groups and other environmental groups.

Senator Brown claims Read the rest of this entry »

In‘D’ and Wentworthville Leagues Club the Privacy Commissioner made a determination that there was a breach of the complainant’s privacy under section 52 of the Privacy Act 1988 (the “Act”).

FACTS

In October 2008, the complainant lodged a complaint with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner against the Club under s 36 of the Act alleging that:

• having been a member of the Club since 1997, on 28 September 2007, the Club disclosed the complainant’s full membership details, and player activity statements about their use of the Club’s gaming machines, for the periods July–August 2002 and January–June 2003. This information was provided to the complainant’s ex-partner
• the complainant learned of the disclosure in late July 2008
• the Club gave the personal information to the complainant’s ex-partner in breach of the Act.

The complainant sought, [4], a declaration in the sum of $19,483.90 in compensation for Read the rest of this entry »

Today the Victorian Privacy Commissioner has released the latest update of the Guidelines to the Information Privacy Principles in the Information Privacy Act 2000.  The guidelines are found here.

The media release provides:

The Victorian Privacy Commissioner, Helen Versey, today released the third edition of the Guidelines to the Information Privacy Principles in the Victorian Information Privacy Act 2000.

Writing in the introduction, Ms Versey says “Five years has passed since the second edition of the Guidelines was published. Technology has continued to Read the rest of this entry »

The lads at Facebook have not been all that caught up with privacy issues of its users. They seem to take the view that being being wildly popular is the ultimate answer to any concern, trivial or major. A modern day “vox populi vox dei”. Consequently Facebook finds itself on the wrong side of privacy issues on a fairly regular basis.
In the Australian today there is another report of a continued cavalier approach to privacy.

Here is the report in toto:

FACEBOOK is facing its most serious privacy issue to date, with claims that it is collecting user’s information after they have logged out.

The issue, raised by Australian born blogger Nik Cubrilovic, has sparked a major privacy debate on the internet overnight, and follows Cubrilovic’s demonstration on his blog of Facebook keeping its browser cookies active after a user has logged out of the social network.

“Logging out of Facebook Read the rest of this entry »

The Australian has been the most active media outlet on the question of a statutory right to privacy.  It’s coverage has been generally hostile and some of its writers has been vociferously critical and sometimes to the point of being addled.

First out of the blocks is Proposed law to award privacy invasions up to $150,000 damages which provides:

CITIZENS claiming their privacy had been invaded would be in line for damages of up to $150,000 without having to prove economic loss under a proposed blueprint for new privacy laws.

But the Gillard government has committed to protecting freedom of expression and public interest reporting if it creates a legal right to sue for serious privacy invasions.

A discussion paper released today examines Read the rest of this entry »