Tag: Privacy-Enhancing Technology

(Oct 19, 2018) During their keynote panel Thursday night at the Privacy. Security. Risk. conference in Austin, Texas, David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, and Jeff Jonas, founder of Senzing, had some good news for those of us who've maybe begun to see data collection as toxic: We're making serious progress on data integrity in a way that's benefitting democracy. Period. In an innovative use of privacy by design, the two have teamed up to cut down on the level of ... Read More

(Oct 19, 2018) Helm, a Seattle-based startup, announced the launch of a service designed to make it easier for users to assert control over their email, contacts and other personal data, Ars Technica reports. The service will offer personal servers and cloud-based offerings and has plans to offer photo storage and other services later. While the service will be for paying customers only, Giri Sreenivas, co-founder and CEO of Helm, said that consumers are more aware that even free services have a user cost. Poi... Read More

(Oct 18, 2018) During their keynote panel here in Austin, Texas, David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, and Jeff Jonas, founder of Senzing, had some good news for a crowd of privacy professionals who'd heard what some would say was a deluge of bad news via the keynotes presented at P.S.R. 2018 the night before. (The shorthand version of those keynotes is this: Algorithmic discrimination is pervasive and tech behemoths have us over a line, and for now we're simply v... Read More

(Oct 17, 2018) On Tuesday, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology initiated its process for the development of a privacy framework to a room full of privacy professionals here in Austin, Texas. The first in a series of public workshops, officials from NIST described the framework as a "voluntary enterprise risk-management tool." The framework is intended to be a collaborative effort with public and private sectors to help organizations "better identify, assess, manage, and communicate privacy... Read More

(Oct 17, 2018) The IAPP has released the "Q4" version of its Privacy Tech Vendor Report. When the IAPP first released its initial version of the report at the beginning of 2017, it contained fewer than 50 companies. Since then, the report has grown to become the de facto resource for privacy professionals looking to invest in technology to help operationalize their programs. With this fourth iteration of 2018, the report now includes 192 vendors represented in 10 different categories, with dynamic tables of co... Read More

(Oct 15, 2018) Privacy-centric browser DuckDuckGo announced it has topped 30 million daily searches, Forbes reports. The company posted on Twitter it took seven years for DuckDuckGo to eclipse 10 million searches and another two years to hit 20 million. The jump to 30 million daily searches represents a 50 percent growth from 2017. "With increased scrutiny on big tech, the tides have shifted, and consumers aren’t just looking for great service anymore, they’re also looking for responsible corporate stewardship... Read More

(Oct 9, 2018) The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology has released a report on blockchain. The report offers an overview of how blockchain works and seeks to emphasize the limitations and misconceptions around the technology. The overview covers the history of blockchain, the difference between permissioned and permissionless models, the components of blockchain, and various consensus models. “The use of blockchain technology is still in its early stages, but it is built on widely understood a... Read More

(Oct 5, 2018) BlackBerry announced it has developed a set of tools aimed at improving data privacy in emerging health care technologies, TechRepublic reports. Included in the toolkit is a blockchain solution to enable safer storage and transfer of medical data and a new operating system for secure medical devices, plus the company announced a partnership with the Melanoma Institute Australia and the Mackenzie Innovation Institute to focus on health care innovation. BlackBerry CEO John Chen said, "We are apply... Read More

(Oct 3, 2018) The IAB Technology Laboratory unveiled its blockchain protocol designed to give companies the ability to track data subjects’ consent, MediaPost reports. PrivacyChain, which is under review for public comment, allows users to choose the data topics retailers can use, such as names, email addresses, location and gender. The protocol offers details on each data transaction, including who received the information and when it was shared. PrivacyChain could potentially be used to assist in compliance... Read More

(Oct 1, 2018) ZDNet reports that Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the man credited with inventing the world wide web 28 years ago, launched a new open-source project, called Solid, to put data back in the hands of internet users. In a post for Medium, Berners-Lee writes, “Solid changes the current model where users have to hand over personal data to digital giants in exchange for perceived value. As we’ve all discovered, this hasn’t been in our best interests. Solid is how we evolve the web in order to restore balance — ... Read More