Brian Krebs reports: The next time you’re thinking of throwing away a used boarding pass with a barcode on it, consider tossing the boarding pass into a document shredder instead. Two-dimensional barcodes and QR codes can hold a great deal of information, and the codes printed on airline boarding passes may allow someone to discover…
Category: Misc
Solove & Schwartz: Chapter 2 of Privacy Law Fundamentals: An Overview of Privacy Law
Chapter 2 of Privacy Law Fundamentals by Daniel Solove and Paul Schwartz, published by IAPP, 2015 is now available as a free resource online. Abstract: Chapter 2 of PRIVACY LAW FUNDAMENTALS provides a brief overview of information privacy law – the scope and types of law. The chapter contains an historical timeline of major developments in the…
Your personal cloud of microbes could one day be used to profile you
John Zorabedian writes: There’s a revolution happening right now in biometrics. But the technology for identifying people based on biology is outpacing our ability to understand the consequences for privacy. Passwords – which have proven time and again to be inadequate for security purposes – are steadily being replaced by fingerprints, irises, voices and faces. The patterns of our veins, heartbeats, and even our thoughts and the way we smell, have…
Are datasets truly anonymized? Two well-suited researchers are going to find out
Erika Morphy reports: With little fanfare or formality, Adam Smith, associate professor of computer science and engineering in Penn State’s School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Vitaly Shmatikov, a professor at Cornell University, are going to try to tackle a looming issue that will, if it is not addressed, have consequences for just about anyone who has every used…