Since yesterday, when Alessandro Acquisti and Ralph Gross of Carnegie Mellon University released a study demonstrating that it is relatively easy to predict an individual’s Social Security Number (SSN) using data from readily available public records, the security world has been buzzing. As someone who was given a draft copy of the paper to read…
Lawsuit fans flames of N.J. debate on adoption privacy
In New Jersey adoption circles, the right to privacy versus the need for an identity isn’t just an explosive issue of the moment: It’s been a painful, simmering fire for both sides for almost 30 years. […] Last month, numerous adoptee-rights groups and individuals from as far as Wyoming and Washington state contacted the Daily…
Does the PASS ID Act Protect Privacy?
Jim Harper of the Cato Institute takes aim at PASS ID and CDT’s praise for it. Here are a few snippets: One of the more interesting privacy “protections” in the PASS ID Act is a requirement that individuals may access, amend, and correct their own personally identifiable information. This is a new and different security/identity…
Self-Regulatory Proposal: Faint Praise, Criticisms
There has been relatively little reaction from the privacy community since a consortium of major players in online behavioral advertising led by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) issued a proposal for self-regulation last week. But Ryan Calo of the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society has turned his lawyerly eye to the proposal…