A judge refused to grant an injunction against The Chronicle Herald on Monday, clearing the way for the newspaper to publish a story on the contents of a digital recorder that a former federal political aide left in an Ottawa washroom this winter.

Jasmine MacDonnell, who resigned last week as communications director for Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt over a different gaffe involving sensitive documents, sought the injunction in Nova Scotia Supreme Court in Halifax.

Source - The Chronicle Herald

Reddit It | Digg This | Add to del.icio.us

The risk management technology company Intersections Inc. and the Identity Theft Assistance Center were expected to unveil Breachcenter.com today, a Web site where companies that have suffered a data breach can share their experiences.

Since data breaches often catch companies unprepared, the flow of information about the incidents tends to be slow, which can aggravate the harm, John Scanlon, Intersections' chief operating officer, said in an interview last week.

Source - Securities Industry News

Comment.: Read their Privacy Policy if you are thinking of registering with the site.

Reddit It | Digg This | Add to del.icio.us

The Information Commissioner's Office is urging organisations to consider the impact on privacy before developing new IT or changing methods of handling personal data.

The call came as the ICO published the latest version of its privacy impact assessment handbook. The handbook aims to help organisations address the risks to personal privacy before implementing new initiatives and technologies.

Source - The Register

Thanks to Brian Honan for this link.

Reddit It | Digg This | Add to del.icio.us

According to a survey of over 500 small and medium businesses conducted by BSI, almost one in five businesses has unwittingly breached the Data Protection Act (DPA) at least once. Of these, nearly half said they had breached the Act on several occasions and an additional 18% said they were not sure whether they had or not. A ‘breach’ could refer to the illegal transfer of information to a third party, failure to hold information securely or neglect of other legal obligations.

Source - Security Park

Thanks to Brian Honan for this link.

Reddit It | Digg This | Add to del.icio.us

Prisoners have the same right to privacy in medical correspondence as they do in relation to communication with their MPs, the European Court of Human Rights has said. The Court has overturned a ruling of the UK's Court of Appeal.

Source - Out-Law.com

Reddit It | Digg This | Add to del.icio.us

A Swedish party that wants to legalise Internet filesharing and beef up web privacy scored a big victory Sunday by winning a European parliament seat, results showed.

The Pirate Party won 7.1 percent of votes, taking one of Sweden's 18 seats in the European parliament, with ballots in 5,659 constituencies out of 5,664 counted.

"Privacy issues and civil liberties are important to people and they demonstrated that clearly when they voted today," one of the party's candidates, Anna Troberg, told Swedish television on Sunday.

Source - Breitbart.com

Reddit It | Digg This | Add to del.icio.us

Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff is calling on the government to create an independent oversight body to monitor New Zealand’s DNA Databank following Computerworld’s revelations of a security breach last week.

“The Government is currently proposing expansion of the criminal DNA database. I have recommended an independent oversight body be set up to ensure that the interests of individuals in such a state-run scheme are balanced and protected,” Shroff said in a statement following our report.

According to the Police, an as yet unnamed woman was due to appear in the Auckland District Court last Friday charged with unlawfully disclosing information from a DNA database.

(Update: Alexandra Monique Cranstoun, 27, entered no plea to the charge in the Auckland District Court. She is bailed until August 28 under a diversion scheme.)

Source - Computerworld NZ

Reddit It | Digg This | Add to del.icio.us

A decision by Falls Police to use a Taser to obtain a DNA sample from a suspect in an armed robbery, shooting and kidnapping is not unconstitutional. Niagara County Court Judge Sara Sheldon Sperrazza reached that conclusion in a 16 page decision handed down Wednesday that refused to dismiss an indictment against Ryan Smith and denied his request to have DNA evidence that links him to two separate criminal cases thrown out.

Source - Niagara Gazette

Reddit It | Digg This | Add to del.icio.us

The DVLA is selling drivers’ names and addresses to clamping companies that break industry rules by charging drivers more than £500 for minor parking breaches, an investigation by The Times has established.

The agency made more than £4 million last year by selling the details of 1.6 million drivers. It sold 900 names and addresses to Newline Securities and Parking Control Management, both of which have repeatedly double-charged drivers for parking breaches and inflated bills by adding spurious charges.

Source - The Times Online

Reddit It | Digg This | Add to del.icio.us

Rakuten Inc., operator of the online retail site Rakuten-ichiba, has been selling customers' credit card numbers and e-mail addresses--at a charge of 10 yen per name--to retailers selling items to those people, it was learned Friday.

Companies that bought the numbers include Joshin Denki Co., an electrical appliance store based in Naniwa Ward, Osaka, that is listed on the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Rakuten said it had not acted improperly because it makes clear in its privacy policy that the personal data of customers who make purchases may be provided to retailers that appear on the site.

But Rakuten announced in 2005 that the company would stop providing customers' credit card numbers and e-mail addresses to companies after an incident came to light in which the firm was linked to the leak of a large amount of customer information.

Source - Daily Yomiuri Online

Reddit It | Digg This | Add to del.icio.us

A lawsuit alleges state Department of Transportation officials illegally sold personal information of tens of thousands of licensed drivers.

Source - The Northwestern

Reddit It | Digg This | Add to del.icio.us

The Obama administration has delivered a mixed verdict to the U.S. Supreme Court on California's financial privacy law, which lets consumers keep banks from sharing information with affiliated companies about their savings accounts or buying habits.

The 2004 law conflicts with federal regulation and should have been overturned by a lower court, Justice Department lawyers told the justices in a written filing. That largely agrees with banks and with the position the government took under President George W. Bush.

But the Obama administration agreed with the state and consumer groups that the California law is not imposing hardships on banks and that the high court should stay out of the case and leave the law in place.

.... The case is American Bankers Association vs. Brown, 08-730.

Source - San Francisco Chronicle

Reddit It | Digg This | Add to del.icio.us

Is there a constitutional right to informational privacy?

That is a question that Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is asking the U.S. Supreme Court, saying that the justices hinted at such a right 32 years ago and "never said another word about it."

Kozinski urged the high court Thursday to clarify what, if any, right a citizen has to shield medical and mental health records from an employer's inspection. The issue arises from the successful challenge by workers at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech and other federal aerospace contractors to the Bush administration's demand for probing security reviews after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Source - Los Angeles Times

Reddit It | Digg This | Add to del.icio.us

.... a great many of us are very interested in how Merrick Bank's lawsuit against Savvis, a security auditor that gave CardSystems Solutions an inappropriately clean bill of health back in 2004 right before the company was breached to the tune of 263,000 stolen credit-card numbers and an eight-figure liability payout.

Source - BetaNews

Reddit It | Digg This | Add to del.icio.us

Suspecting someone was viewing pornographic Web sites on a company computer after hours, the executive director of a Los Angeles-area center for abused children set up a secret video system in 2002 to catch the culprit.

No one was apprehended, but the two women who shared the locked office that was placed under surveillance sued for invasion of privacy -- even though the only images ever captured were shots of an empty desk and their boss setting up the camera.

Source - Law.com

Reddit It | Digg This | Add to del.icio.us