The following editorial urging Congress to pass a national data protection law is from today’s New York Times: In 2006, a Veterans Affairs Department analyst lost a laptop and external drive with Social Security numbers and other personal data from more than 26 million veterans and active duty troops. There was a national call for…
Category: Laws
McDowell ‘Very Troubled’ By Social Security Number Collection
John Eggerton reports: FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell says that when he voted to approve collecting more data on the race and gender of broadcast station owners he was not endorsing collecting Social Security numbers as part of that increased data drop. That came in response to the commission’s notice late Monday that it was delaying…
JP: Overhaul the privacy law (Editorial)
This editorial appeared in the Japan Times: The intentions behind the Personal Information Protection Law, which went into effect in April 2005, are good, but it has contributed to a tendency for organizations to withhold benign information that has significantly useful social value. Ms. Mizuho Fukushima, state minister in charge of consumer affairs, who has…
Congress Unlikely to Reform Privacy Act
Eric Chabrow reports: If Dan Chenok were a bookmaker, he’d make enactment of Privacy Act reform a long shot, at least for the foreseeable future. “The odds privacy legislation would be enacted next session are not high,” says Chenok, who backs Privacy Act reform as chairman of the government’s Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board,…