On September 7, 2011, the United Kingdom Information Tribunal published a decision that appears to resolve the long-running uncertainty regarding the extent to which anonymized personal information may be disclosed under the UK’s Freedom of Information legislation. The UK’s FOIA was introduced and applicable to most of the UK in 2000, with equivalent law following for Scotland…
Category: Laws
Many Failures: A Brief History of Privacy Self-Regulation in the United States
Bob Gellman and Pam Dixon have written a report for the World Privacy Forum: “Many Failures: A Brief History of Privacy Self-Regulation in the United States.” Here’s the summary of their report: Major efforts to create self-regulatory, or voluntary, guidelines in the area of privacy began in 1997. Industry promoted privacy self-regulation at the time…
Facebook: Releasing your personal data reveals our trade secrets
Emil Protalinski writes: An Austrian group called Europe versus Facebook has so far made 22 complaints regarding the social network’s practices. In the process, the organization has stumbled upon an important tidbit: Facebook says it is not required to give you a copy of some of your personal data if it deems doing so would…
Colombian Data Protection Law Approved by Constitutional Court
On October 7, 2011, the Constitutional Court of Colombia approved a landmark omnibus data protection law. … Some highlights include: With certain exceptions, the law prohibits the processing of personal data without the data subject’s prior consent. When the personal data are sensitive data (e.g., health data), the consent must take the form of an…