Louise Matsakis reports a follow-up to a snooping case previously noted on this site. In 2013, Amy Krekelberg received an unsettling notice from Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources: An employee had abused his access to a government driver’s license database and snooped on thousands of people in the state, mostly women. Krekelberg learned that she…
Category: Govt
FBI And DHS Blunders Reveal Names Of Child Abuse Victims Via Facebook IDs
Thomas Brewster reports: Investigators at the FBI and the DHS have failed to conceal minor victims’ identities in court documents where they disclosed a combination of teenagers’ initials and their Facebook identifying numbers—a unique code linked to Facebook accounts. Forbes discovered it was possible to quickly find their real names and other personal information by…
Critics Lament as 126 House Democrats Join Forces With GOP to Hand Trump ‘Terrifying’ Mass Domestic Spying Powers
John Queally reports: Privacy advocates and civil liberties defenders are expressing outrage after the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday night voted down a bipartisan amendment designed to end, as one group put it, the U.S. government’s “most egregious mass surveillance practices” first revealed by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden. In a final…
FTC Takes Action against Companies Falsely Claiming Compliance with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, Other International Privacy Agreements
The Federal Trade Commission reached a settlement with a background screening company over allegations it falsely claimed to be a participant in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield program. In separate actions, the FTC also sent warning letters to more than a dozen companies for falsely claiming participation in other international privacy agreements. In its complaint, the…