Tomorrow marks the third annual Data Privacy Day, kicking off a week-long set of international events designed to raise awareness about how much information people share online, how that information might be used, and how to protect against its misuse. Resolutions of support for Data Privacy Day 2010 (www.dataprivacyday2010.org) have come from across the country….
Category: Misc
The One-Way-Mirror Society: Privacy Implications of the New Digital Signage Networks
The World Privacy Forum has issued a new report: New forms of sophisticated digital signage networks are being deployed widely by retailers and others in both public and private spaces. From simple people-counting sensors mounted on doorways to sophisticated facial recognition cameras mounted in flat video screens and end-cap displays, digital signage technologies are gathering…
A Primer on Information Theory and Privacy
Peter Eckersley of EFF writes: If we ask whether a fact about a person identifies that person, it turns out that the answer isn’t simply yes or no. If all I know about a person is their ZIP code, I don’t know who they are. If all I know is their date of birth, I…
Computer security: fraud fears as scientists crack ‘anonymous’ datasets
Anushka Asthana reports: Computer scientists in the US have discovered ways to “re-identify” the names of people included in supposedly anonymous datasets. In one example, a movie rental company released an anonymous list of film-ratings taken from its 500,000 subscribers. Using a statistical “de-anonymisation” technique, the academics were able to identify individuals and their film…