ThePrivacyMovement

On November 18 President Bush signed Executive Order 13478; see how/if it impacts your organization and how you use social security numbers (SSNs), and how it will impact how you require SSNs. And now you personall should NOT need to provide SSNs as often…

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/RebeccaHeroldOnCompliancePrivacyAndInformationSecurity/~3/470491454/federal_agency_ssn_use_mandate.htm

The Wall Street Journal’s career adviser has an interesting discussion on how to safeguard your privacy while searching for a new job.
You are correct to be concerned that a job search might no longer be a private affair, especially when executed on the Internet. In the early days of digital job hunting, many job seekers’ [...]

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Wall Street Journal: Protecting Your Privacy When Job Hunting

http://www.privacylives.com/wall-street-journal-protecting-your-privacy-when-job-hunting/2008/11/26/

I speak with many folks about the importance of published website privacy policies, along with the issues of obtaining consent…not implied but explicit/express…to change the terms of privacy policies.

I also participate in LinkedIn, and I have found it to be a great and valuable tool to network and communicate with other information security and privacy practicitioners.

So, today when I logged in I was quite interested to see the following banner posted on the home page…

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/RebeccaHeroldOnCompliancePrivacyAndInformationSecurity/~3/465139667/continued_use_of_site_means_co.htm

From the press release:
On Wednesday, December 3rd, the Majority Staff of the House Committee on Homeland Security will host a series of roundtable discussions on the future of privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties at the Department of Homeland Security.  The event, entitled “A Path Forward: Constitutional Protections in Homeland Security”, is sponsored by Rep. [...]

http://www.privacylives.com/events-of-interest-house-committee-on-homeland-security-roundtable-on-privacy-dec-3/2008/11/25/

While doing some research on cloud computing and considering the privacy and information security implications, I ran across a recent (11/18/2008) report from the Constitution Project, “Liberty and Security: Recommendations for the Next Administration and Congress“.

The following is an excerpt from page 184…

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/RebeccaHeroldOnCompliancePrivacyAndInformationSecurity/~3/464435506/cloud_computing_privacy.htm

From the Federal Register Notice:
SUMMARY: The Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee will meet on December 3, 2008, in Arlington, VA. This meeting will be open to the public.
DATES: The Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee will meet on Wednesday, December 3, 2008 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. [...]

http://www.privacylives.com/events-of-interest-dhs-data-privacy-committee-meeting-dec-3/2008/11/24/

The New York Times has an interesting story on privacy hurdles that Google is facing as it attempts to expand its business.
But almost five years into its expansion into Europe — where it has a headquarters in Dublin, large offices in Zurich and London, and smaller centers in countries like Denmark, Russia and Poland — [...]

http://www.privacylives.com/new-york-times-privacy-laws-trip-up-google%E2%80%99s-expansion-in-parts-of-europe/2008/11/24/

There have been a number of privacy and data security breaches connected with this year’s presidential election. The latest is news that Verizon has admitted President-Elect Barack Obama’s personal cell phone records were wrongly accessed by the telecom company’s employees. Verizon said:
This week we learned that a number of Verizon Wireless employees have, without authorization, [...]

http://www.privacylives.com/privacy-breaches-connected-with-election-2008/2008/11/21/

While doing some research on data protection laws in France, I found it interesting to learn that this past September the French data protection authority (CNIL) stared auditing businesses to check for unlawful spam operations.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/RebeccaHeroldOnCompliancePrivacyAndInformationSecurity/~3/460249239/france_performing_audits_to_ch.htm

For most of the decade, Silicon Valley technology startups have assumed that Google would pay their legal bills. Not literally, mind you, but rather by taking on the big, high-profile cases about fair use, interoperability, and other digital intellectual property issues that would set precedents that all disruptive innovators could rely on.

Well, Google just put the Valley on notice that the free ride is over, which means more legal burdens for smaller technology companies that previously depended on Google clearing a path for them.

Late last month, Google announced a settlement in its lawsuit with book publishers and authors over its Google Book Search offering. At the heart of the dispute is the question of whether scanning copyrighted books in order to index them violates copyright law, as the publishers argued, or is permissible as a fair use, as Google argued. If approved by the court, the 5 million settlement would buy Google — and only Google — permission not just to scan books for indexing purposes, but also to expand Book Search to provide more access to the scanned books.

The Book Search case is just one of a series of high-stakes lawsuits that Google has taken up in the name of the disruptive innovation that fuels the Internet economy. Others include the billion-dollar suit brought by Viacom over copyrighted video clips appearing on YouTube, as well as cases brought by trademark owners attacking Google’s right to sell trademarks as keyword triggers for those “sponsored links” that appear when you use Google’s search engine. Google has also fought copyright owners to defend its search engine, news aggregation, image search and Web caching activities.(…)

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/11/further-thoughts-google-book-search-settlement