An editorial begins: How much leeway should law enforcement be granted to eavesdrop on citizens’ private conversations? That’s a question lawmakers on Beacon Hill will likely be grappling with this year. Legislation filed last week aims to update Massachusetts’ 1968 statute authorizing the use of wiretaps. Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley was joined by some lawmakers,…
Category: U.S.
Your employer may share your salary, and Equifax might sell that data
Bob Sullivan reports: The Equifax credit reporting agency, with the aid of thousands of human resource departments around the country, has assembled what may be the most powerful and thorough private database of Americans’ personal information ever created, containing 190 million employment and salary records covering more than one-third of U.S. adults. Some of the information…
UPDATE: Foursquare revises TOS; nyms allowed
I’ve been checking Foursquare’s site occasionally today as they indicated that a change in their Terms of Service was forthcoming. Now it’s here, and it’s great. As I blogged earlier today, Foursquare had implemented their new “full name” privacy policy, announced last month, even though it seemed to be in conflict with their media statements that suggested…
Amassing Student Data and Dissipating Privacy Rights
by Marc Rotenberg and Khaliah Barnes Marc Rotenberg is Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in Washington, D.C. He teaches Information Privacy Law at Georgetown University Law Center. Khaliah Barnes is Administrative Law Counsel at EPIC. From test-performance scores to student financial data to statewide longitudinal data systems, there has been a dramatic increase in…