Privacy protection and regulation in the United States is regarded as being uniformly weak.  That is not correct.  A better description is that it is sectoral, strong in some areas, such as health, and extremely weak in others, such as with customer lists.  In the regulatory zone it is similarly a mixed report.  The Federal Trade Commission (the “FTC”) has been very active in taking action for privacy breaches, involving a claim of misleading and deceptive conduct.  Most recently the Federal Communications Commission is going to issue stringent, for the US at least, privacy protections which require strong privacy regulations on internet.  Read the rest of this entry »

Hulk Hogan has won his privacy suit against Gawker for publishing a video tape of him having sex with a friend’s wife.  It has been Read the rest of this entry »

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (“OAIC”) has announced the creation of a Consumer Privacy Network.  It is a forum of Read the rest of this entry »

Stay in one spot long enough and you will see Richard Ackland reheat an older article, add a paragraph here, lose one there and spruce it up with new photographs and hey presto another deadline met.  His latest Read the rest of this entry »

Data breaches by media and telecommunications companies are nothing new.  Particularly telcos.  In Australia, Optus and Telstra both have a dreadful record in protecting personal information.  Less often Read the rest of this entry »

The Standing Committee on Law and Justice has issued its final report relating to the serious invasion of Privacy in New South Wales.  The report is Read the rest of this entry »

The encryption debate did not begin or end with the FBI bringing action against Apple to compel it to crack open its operating system.  And it is not confined to that issue.  There have been Read the rest of this entry »

The Nasdaq reports, in Bosses Harness Big Data to Predict Which Workers Might Get Sick  that insurers and “Employee Wellness” firms are mining company employees’ data to predict whether and when they might be sick. That data includes the prescription drugs being used, where employees Read the rest of this entry »

Another example of the internet of thing being prone to privacy breaches is the story titled Hard-coded password exposes up to 46,000 video surveillance DVRs to hacking of up to 46,000 internet accessible digital video recorders which can be taken over and controlled by hackers.  As the story Read the rest of this entry »

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Jane Doe 464533 v ND (2016 ONSC 541) has expanded the tort of privacy to incorporate the publication of embarrassing facts.  It is a very significant decision and an advance in the development of the law of privacy, in Canada at least.  It is also a key case considering the egregious practice of revenge porn.  The commentary will be quite useful in the development of the tort in relation to this type of fact situation.

FACTS

The parties met while at high school and started dating while they were both in Grade 12.  They stopped dating but continued to see each other romantically throughout Read the rest of this entry »