A teenager has been jailed for 16 weeks after he refused to give police the password to his computer. Oliver Drage, 19, of Liverpool, was arrested in May 2009 by police tackling child sexual exploitation. Police seized his computer but could not access material on it as it had a 50-character encryption password. Drage was…
Category: Non-U.S.
Canadian Privacy Commissioner troubled by poor computer disposal practices and lack of controls for wireless devices in government
The federal government’s use of handheld communications devices and its practices for disposing of unneeded paper documents and surplus computers could expose the personal information of Canadians to unauthorized disclosure, Privacy Commissioner of Canada Jennifer Stoddart has warned. The findings, stemming from two separate privacy audits conducted by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of…
UK: High court grants BT customer data delay
Josh Halliday reports: BT has today been granted a stay of execution in its bid to challenge attempts of rights holders to obtain personal details about customers without convincing evidence of illicit file sharing. Chief master Winegarten granted BT an adjournment to a court order brought by solicitors’ firm Gallant Macmillan, acting on behalf of…
French National DNA Database Found Constitutional, with Reservations
Mathias Vermeulen writes: The French Constitutional Council recently reviewed the constitutionality of several articles of the Code of Criminal Procedure relating to the National DNA Database. This database was initially created in 1998 and was designed to include only the genetic data of convicted sexual offenders. Its content was further extended to cover other serious offenses…