Robert Verkaik reports: Britain has established a privacy law by stealth which has made inroads into all parts of society, a leading human rights law review shows today. The use of legal arguments based on the claimant’s right to a private life were once almost exclusively restricted to cases brought by celebrities against newspaper groups,…
Category: Non-U.S.
Fresh hope for computer hacker Gary McKinnon as his U.S. extradition is delayed
James Slack and Michael Seamark report: The Home Secretary has halted Gary McKinnon’s extradition to consider new medical evidence about the computer hacker’s mental state. The Asperger’s victim had been told he could be sent to the U.S. – where he faces 60 years in jail for hacking into military computers – by the end…
Met under fire over picture database
Michael Peel, James Boxell and Marc Vallée report: Scotland Yard has been accused of “tarring the innocent” with Big Brother-style surveillance after it emerged that it holds at least 1,500 photographs of protesters on a computer database, many of whom have not been convicted of a crime. Lawyers and privacy experts questioned whether the image…
Behavioural advertising and customised pricing face OFT scrutiny
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) will investigate whether behavioural advertising and individually-targeted prices on the internet violate the rights of UK consumers’. The Government body announced two investigations today which will probe whether online retailers’ use of tracking and targeting technology and advertising are unfair on consumers. “[An investigation] into online targeting of advertising…