Peter A Clarke

Google and privacy.  Rarely a good fit, whether as a noun or adjective.  In Glass, Hats and Persistent Privacy Violations Wired reports on the privacy invasive actuality (not potential) of google caps/hats/glasses.  This technology, like drones, highlight the lacuna in the law.  Inadequate common law protections, a Privacy Act which would not be applicable for vast majority of users and no statutory right of privacy.

The article provides:

HAMBURG – In a perfect future, Stephen Balaban wants plenty of people to be wearing his Lambda Hat, a soon-to-be-released baseball-hat version of Google Glass. But even he has mixed feelings about the results.

Speaking here at the 30th annual Chaos Communication Congress, a conference that puts the highest premium possible on privacy, Balaban offered an uncomfortable reminder of the tradeoffs associated with the rise of ubiquitous computing, including his own use of his own product’s prototype.

“The sheer amount of data Read the rest of this entry »

Mobile Apps are privacy invasive time bombs.  That unfortunately go off way too often.  This issue is now on the radar of information commissioner’s around the world.  And not before time.

The Privacy Commissioner has issued a guide on Mobile apps (found here)  and a check list (found here). The Warsaw declaration at the 35th international conference of data protection and privacy commissioners on the appification of society stated:

The Age in Facebook sued over alleged scanning of users’ private messages reports on yet another allegation of Facebook interfering with its users privacy.  Here scanning messages of its users.  The allegations are just that but Facebook has been so contemptuous of privacy in the past Read the rest of this entry »

In The biggest threats to our privacy the Demoines Register looks at the real and more mundane threats to privacy Read the rest of this entry »

Australia has no mandatory data breach notification regime.  The previous Parliament almost passed the Privacy Alert Bill 2013 earlier this year. The Bill passed the House of Representative and was awaiting the debate after the Second Reading speech in 2013.  That Australia does not have some form of mandatory Read the rest of this entry »

Privacy and apps are becoming strangers.  It has been an issue that has been growing for some time.  Privacy regulators around the world have started taking notice and issued the Warsaw declaration on the “appification” of society (found here). The Atlantic in highlights the issue in Study: Consumers Will Pay $5 for an App That Respects Their Privacy. The reality is that consumers want apps to protect their privacy.

The article provides:

Ever since the iPhone came out in 2007, the going rate for many of the most popular apps has been exactly $0.00. Consumers pay nothing.

But of course, nothing is free. Instead, consumers pay with their data, that’s sold to marketers, or with screenspace, which is forked over to make room for ads. It’s a trade consumers are happy to make.

But are they?

A new study from economists at the University of Colorado finds otherwise. It shows Read the rest of this entry »

The use of identity scanners by pubs and nightclubs has long been considered significantly privacy invasive technology which has few practical benefits.  The Read the rest of this entry »

Use of mobiles in the workplace to store personal information is a big source of data breaches. I have posted regularly on the employees using their phones to store personal data, doctors taking photos of their patients in public hospitals during and after operation.  And then using that information elsewhere, including showing it to others.  On top of  this misuse of personal information is the security of the mobile phone itself.  Zdnet covers the issue of security in A single buzz term prediction for 2014: mobile device security.

It provides:

The Guardian reports in Internet privacy as important as human rights, says UN’s Navi Pillay that the UN Rights head Navi Pillay regards the backlash to revelations to mass surveillance as inimical to human rights as the collective response bringing down apartheid regime.

It provides:

It’s that time of the year.  And with it is my tradition of posting one of the most wonderful editorial’s written to a child about Christmas.  Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus. It always inspires me to write better.  It is beautifully written prose.  What more can you ask of a writer.

The editorial provides:

We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:

Dear Editor—

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O’Hanlon

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

The fascinating history of how this wonderful event happened is described below:

Francis P. Church’s editorial, “Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus” was an immediate sensation, and went on to became one of the most famous editorials ever written. It first appeared in the The New York Sun in 1897 and was reprinted annually until 1949 when the paper went out of business.

Thirty-six years after her letter was printed, Virginia O’Hanlon recalled the events that prompted her letter:

“Quite naturally I believed in Santa Claus, for he had never disappointed me. But when less fortunate little boys and girls said there wasn’t any Santa Claus, I was filled with doubts. I asked my father, and he was a little evasive on the subject.

“It was a habit in our family that whenever any doubts came up as to how to pronounce a word or some question of historical fact was in doubt, we wrote to the Question and Answer column in The Sun. Father would always say, ‘If you see it in the The Sun, it’s so,’ and that settled the matter.

“ ‘Well, I’m just going to write The Sun and find out the real truth,’ I said to father.

“He said, ‘Go ahead, Virginia. I’m sure The Sun will give you the right answer, as it always does.’ ”

And so Virginia sat down and wrote her parents’ favorite newspaper.

Her letter found its way into the hands of a veteran editor, Francis P. Church. Son of a Baptist minister, Church had covered the Civil War for The New York Times and had worked on the The New York Sun for 20 years, more recently as an anonymous editorial writer. Church, a sardonic man, had for his personal motto, “Endeavour to clear your mind of cant.” When controversial subjects had to be tackled on the editorial page, especially those dealing with theology, the assignments were usually given to Church.

Now, he had in his hands a little girl’s letter on a most controversial matter, and he was burdened with the responsibility of answering it.

“Is there a Santa Claus?” the childish scrawl in the letter asked. At once, Church knew that there was no avoiding the question. He must answer, and he must answer truthfully. And so he turned to his desk, and he began his reply which was to become one of the most memorable editorials in newspaper history.

Church married shortly after the editorial appeared. He died in April, 1906, leaving no children.

Virginia O’Hanlon went on to graduate from Hunter College with a Bachelor of Arts degree at age 21. The following year she received her Master’s from Columbia, and in 1912 she began teaching in the New York City school system, later becoming a principal. After 47 years, she retired as an educator. Throughout her life she received a steady stream of mail about her Santa Claus letter, and to each reply she attached an attractive printed copy of the Church editorial. Virginia O’Hanlon Douglas died on May 13, 1971, at the age of 81, in a nursing home in Valatie, N.Y.

For all those who read my posts over the year I wish you all the best for the Festive Season and see you in 2014.  For any passing reader, welcome and all the best.