The Associated Press reports: Government agencies would have to get a warrant or court order to obtain customers’ reading records from bookstores and online booksellers, under a bill approved by the California Senate. The legislation by Sen. Leland Yee is patterned after similar privacy protections that currently are in place for library records. The bill,…
Category: Laws
Sen. Franken holding Washington hearings on smart phone privacy issues
Brett Neely of Minnesota Public Radio reports: On Tuesday, Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., holds a hearing in Washington about privacy issues surrounding smart phones. Apple and Google will be in the spotlight. Both firms are under scrutiny for how they collect and share information about consumers. These are the first hearings for Franken’s newly-formed subcommittee…
Privacy groups applaud Senator Rockefeller’s “Do Not Track” bill
Jacqui Cheng reports: Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) has introduced a new “Do Not Track” bill to Congress that aims to hold companies accountable for collecting information on consumers after they’ve expressed a desire to opt out. Called the Do-Not-Track Online Act of 2011 (PDF), the bill would create a “universal legal obligation” for companies to honor…
NZ: Row brewing over privacy ‘crime’
Claire Rogers reports: A row is brewing over whether businesses should face criminal sanctions and fines if they fail to notify people of data breaches. The privacy commissioner is calling for notification of data breaches to be mandatory and for concealment to be made a crime. But Business New Zealand says criminal penalties would be…