Highlights from a new GAO report: What GAO Found Facial recognition technology can be used in numerous consumer and business applications, but the extent of its current use in commercial settings is not fully known. The technology is commonly used in software that manages personal photographs and in social networking applications to identify friends. In…
Category: Govt
Congress’ fix for high-profile hacks is yet another way to grab your private data
Senator Ron Wyden writes: The government can’t keep its own data safe, but Congress wants companies to give it even more of your private information In the wake of a series of widely-publicized hacks, including the recent compromise of government personnel records, the US Senate rushed to take up a bill that supporters say will…
HK: Personal data checks fail to register in public lists
Harry Ng reports: Just one in 10 commonly used government public registers have safeguards against the misuse of private data, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data has found. The 10 registers that it examined covered bankruptcies, births, business, companies, land, marriages, notice of intended marriages, licensed persons, vehicles and voters. Read more…
Sen. Wyden objects to anti-terrorism rules for online sites, insists on debate
Anne Flaherty of AP reports: Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and skeptic of broad government surveillance, objected Tuesday to a bill that would have required social media and online sites like Google, Yahoo, Twitter and Facebook to alert federal authorities of any terrorist activity. The proposal, by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., had been tucked…