Tag: Personal Privacy

(Sep 19, 2019) The Telegraph reports India's government has remained insistent that Facebook add traceability to flagged WhatsApp messages. Instead of standard traceability, Facebook Global Affairs and Communications Vice President Nick Clegg recently proposed to IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad a mechanism for WhatsApp to act on threatening messages made through the platform. Facebook has argued to officials that adding message tracing would go against its policy on privacy and end-to-end encryption.Full Story... Read More

(Sep 19, 2019) Hong Kong's Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data has announced a fine of HK$84,000 against telecom SmarTone Mobile Communications for violations of the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance. The company was originally charged with a record 23 violations before being convicted of 14. The charges stem from SmarTone's lack of compliance related to a data subject requesting the company exclude her personal data from direct marketing campaigns.Full Story... Read More

(Sep 19, 2019) Utah's Democratic and Republican parties have come together to voice a desire to have a voter privacy law amended, The Salt Lake Tribune reports. The chairmen for both parties went before the Utah Legislature to argue for voter registration data, which 12.4% of voters have withheld from political parties under a law passed last year. Names, birthdates, addresses, phone numbers, party affiliation, and when or if a person voted are among the information that voters can keep from being disclosed. B... Read More

(Sep 19, 2019) Nextgov Senior Editor Aaron Boyd writes on the data collection and storage practices of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection on people crossing the country's borders. For U.S. citizens, CBP collects information related to their crossing, including date, time and information on belongings, and updates an existing record with each new cross. Non-citizens go through a similar process, but they are additionally subject to biometric data collection. Data from other federal databases also falls unde... Read More

(Sep 19, 2019) Facebook is introducing Portal TV to the market beginning in October, CNN Business reports. The small black camera that can be clipped to the top of a user's TV was initially marketed as "private by design" but is raising privacy concerns as Facebook may use contractors to listen to recordings between the Portal TV and other Portal devices. "When the microphone is active on this device ... when it hears ["Hey Portal"], a short voice recording and a transcript is created and sent to the servers, ... Read More

(Sep 18, 2019) According to the website for the Dutch courts, the Hague Court of Appeal has ruled a Dordrecht church must comply with a data subject access request. The ruling upholds a prior decision by the Rotterdam District Court in favor of the defendant, who was denied access to documents containing personal information based on the church's interpretation of the Dutch Data Protection Act. The court has also ordered the church to disclose who can see the documents containing the defendant's personal infor... Read More

(Sep 18, 2019) The medical records of more than 5 million Americans and millions of other patients worldwide were found to be publicly accessible on the internet, ProPublica reports. Analysts identified 187 unsecured servers in the U.S. that, depending on the provider, expose varying types of patient information. A server housing data for MobilexUSA revealed patient names, birthdates, doctors and procedures for more than 1 million patients. A server tied to a Los Angeles physician held the names, birthdates an... Read More

(Sep 18, 2019) Two independent research studies have found that smart TVs are sharing user data with companies like Netflix, Google and Facebook even when the devices are not in use, the Financial Times reports. In the first study, researchers at Northeastern University and Imperial College London discovered smart TVs and devices, including Samsung, LG, Roku and Amazon’s FireTV, send out data such as location and IP addresses to Netflix "whether or not the user had a Netflix account." In the second study, rese... Read More

(Sep 13, 2019) A study conducted by the University of Saskatchewan finds patients and clinicians differ on recording medical visits, CTV News Edmonton reports. The study revealed more than 61% of patients believe they should be allowed to document their treatment; however, only 28% of medical professionals agree. Alberta Health Services has responded to this trend by banning patients from taking photos in its facilities. “We’re definitely seeing an increase in it,” University of Alberta Chair of Emergency Medi... Read More

(Sep 12, 2019) The Charing Cross Gender Identity Clinic accidentally exposed the email addresses of nearly 2,000 individuals, BBC News reports. The London-based clinic sent patients two emails about an art competition; however, each message had hundreds of addresses attached. The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust announced it will investigate the breach. The trust also notified the U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office of the incident. "Due to an error, the email addresses of some of those we are inv... Read More