Katie Haas writes: Aiming to determine the impact of border searches on Americans’ civil liberties, the Department of Homeland Security has produced a report on its policy of combing through and sometimes confiscating travelers’ laptops, cell phones, and other electronic devices—even when there is no suspicion of wrongdoing. The report was completed sometime between October…
Category: Govt
Path Social Networking App Settles FTC Charges it Deceived Consumers and Improperly Collected Personal Information from Users’ Mobile Address Books
From the FTC: The operator of the Path social networking app has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it deceived users by collecting personal information from their mobile device address books without their knowledge and consent. The settlement requires Path, Inc. to establish a comprehensive privacy program and to obtain independent privacy assessments every other…
FTC issues recommendations on mobile privacy disclosures
The FTC has released a new report: Mobile Privacy Disclosures: Building Trust Through Transparency. From the Executive Summary: Based on the Commission’s prior work in this area, the panel discussions, and the written submissions, this report offers several suggestions for the major participants in the mobile ecosystem as they work to improve mobile privacy disclosures….
Appeals court to activists: Nope, you can’t see what else the Feds have on you
Cyrus Farivar reports: On Friday, a federal appeals court in Virginia ruled (PDF) that three activists involved in a WikiLeaks investigation have no right to find out what companies the government sought information from other than Twitter. In November 2011, a district court judge found that prosecutors could compel Twitter to give up specific information on the three accounts,…