Jim Dempsey of CDT writes: Let’s get this over right away: The Obama Administration is not planning to create a government ID for the Internet. In fact, the Administration is proposing just the opposite: to rely on the private sector to develop identities (note the plural) for online commerce, in system that allows individuals to…
Category: Laws
Bhutan: Cops raid homes to stub out smoking
A Reuters report indicates that your home is not exactly your castle in Bhutan: Bhutan police can raid homes of smokers in a search for contraband tobacco and are training a special tobacco sniffer dog in a crackdown to honour a promise to become the world’s first smoke-free nation. Buddhist Bhutan, where smoking is considered…
NL: Speeding car information to be stored in new data bank
Dutch News reports: The number plates of cars captured on film by automatic speed controls will remain on file for four weeks, if draft legislation from justice minister Ivo Opstelten makes the statute books. The draft bill is due to be published today, according to the Telegraaf. It says the minister believes keeping a description…
1986 Privacy Law Is Outrun by the Web
Miguel Helft and Claire Cain Miller report on how ECPA needs updating to bring the same legal and privacy protections to electronic communications as postal mail enjoys: Concerned by the wave of requests for customer data from law enforcement agencies, Google last year set up an online tool showing the frequency of these requests in…