Jacqui Cheng reports: Built-in webcams are becoming more and more common in computers these days, and in turn, they are becoming more and more of a liability. A Wyoming couple is now accusing national rent-to-own chain Aaron’s Inc. of spying on them at home using their rented computer’s webcam without their knowledge. Aaron’s also allegedly…
Category: Business
Industry-created “privacy enhancing” abandonware
Chris Soghoian writes: Industry loves self regulation and why shouldn’t it? Given the choice between strong enforcement by a federal agency, and scout’s honor promises, industry would be foolish to support a strong FTC. Unfortunately, the self-regulatory groups and organizations that are created in response to the threat of regulation are often extremely short lived….
Authorities in Austria and Switzerland Rule on Google Street View
On April 21, 2011, the Austrian Data Protection Commission (“Austrian DPA”) published its decision allowing Google to register its Google Street View application on the Austrian DPA’s data processing register. As part of the registration procedure, Google agreed to blur images of faces and license plates prior to publishing them on the Internet, and to…
TomTom vows to stop police using driver data
TomTom, Europe’s largest satellite navigation systems maker, has vowed to stop its customer data being used by the police to set speed traps. The pledge was made by Harold Goddijn, the firm’s chief executive officer, after a Dutch newspaper revealed that TomTom had sold its anonymised customer data to the Dutch government. This data was…