California Attorney General Kamala Harris has issued privacy guidelines for mobile apps. In a statement introducing the guidelines, Ms. Harris writes: The mobile app industry is growing fast, but it is still in the early stages of development, with practitioners who are not all alert to privacy implications and how to address them. To help educate…
Category: Misc
IRS Proposes Truncated Taxpayer Identification Numbers to Curb Identity Theft
Michael Cohn reports: The Internal Revenue Service has issued proposed regulations to create a new taxpayer identifying number known as the IRS Truncated Taxpayer Identification Number, or TTIN, that can be used instead of a Social Security number in response to the growing problem of identity theft-related tax fraud. Read more on AccountingToday.
Privacy by the Numbers: A New Approach to Safeguarding Data
The story of how Massachusett Governor William Weld’s de-identified medical records were quickly re-identified in 1997 by then-graduate student Latanya Sweeney is now legendary in discussions of the risks of sharing “anonymized” or “de-identified” health records that might foster research. In an article on Scientific American, Erica Klarreich describes a mathematical technique called “differential privacy” that could give…
2012 Privacy Review: A View from the U.K.
I’ve posted a few look-backs at privacy in 2012, including my own review of the year in U.S. privacy. From across the pond, James Baker, Lib Dem Councillor for Warley ward in Calderdale and No2ID campaigner, provides his own look back at privacy issues in the U.K. in 2012. It’s somewhat comforting to know that…