Posts tagged privacy issues
Staples should pay customers to wipe data
Jun 24th
When you want people to do something for you that is tedious and just altogether easier to skip, nothing works better than cold, hard cash.
Staples Inc. should consider paying its customers to effectively wipe their data off of storage devices they are returning to the retailer. The payment could come in the form of a credit towards the replacement storage device they buy, or just a cash refund that is a small percentage of the overall purchase. But why would Staples want to do this, you ask?
Brian Jackson, Associate Editor, ITBusiness.ca
Privacy by Design comes to power: Protecting personal information in the Smart Grid
Feb 4th
The current electrical grid is seen by some as the greatest engineering achievement of the 20th century. But it is increasingly out of date and overburdened. Efforts to modernize the grid – making it smarter, stronger, and greener – are gathering momentum, especially in North America and Europe.
Ann Cavoukian
Right now, the Smart Grid is very much in its infancy, existing mostly in the form of plans, projects, and small pilots. But ultimately, development of the Smart Grid is expected to enable a two-way flow of information and electricity that will provide major advantages for the system, and give consumers more choices about how, when, and how much electricity they use.
We all stand to benefit from the Smart Grid. And we stand to benefit most if it is well designed and well implemented. An important aspect of that, in my view, is making sure that the Smart Grid is also smart about privacy.
My office has been actively advocating on behalf of building privacy into the Smart Grid for some time. In November 2009, we released a white paper with the Future of Privacy Forum, entitled SmartPrivacy for the Smart Grid: Embedding Privacy into the Design of Electricity Conservation. The paper called attention to the privacy issues related to personal data generated and collected by the Smart Grid, and argued that improving the grid can be achieved without sacrificing privacy. Read the rest of this entry »
Facebook suspends controversial data mining feature – for now
Jan 19th
Well at least this time they didn’t wait to get rapped on the knuckles by Canadian privacy and security officials.
Faced with strong criticism over a feature that allows application developers and third party Web sites to access mobile phone numbers and addresses of some of its users, Facebook announced on Monday that it was temporarily disabling the feature.
Nestor Arellano
Basically, the now suspended feature allowed developers to ask for your home address and mobile phone number if you’ve included this information in your profile.
In a blog post Facebook, says it has decided to suspend the feature after receiving “useful feedback.”
Temporarily disabling? Useful feedback? Maybe it’s more like user outrage. Don’t these people get it? Read the rest of this entry »
Targeted malware attacks increase around G8 and G20 summits
Jun 24th
Most well-publicized events have accompanying spam runs, like the death of a famous person or large sporting events. Most of you will have seen a news-related e-mail at some point that turned out to be just another spam message trying to sell you a replica watch.
However, some events, though very well-publicized, don’t generate the same kind of rush in the spammers’ world probably because they believe their target audience would not be very interested in the topic, and so would be less likely to fall for any related scams.
Examples of this type of event are the semi-annual G20 summit and the annual G8 summit. These events seem to be of little interest to general spammers. We have not seen any of the usual types of spam referencing it in any way. But even though they are not exploited in the same way as an event like the World Cup, they still do not escape the notice of cyber criminals. Read the rest of this entry »
Facebook Strengthens User Privacy Controls
Jun 18th
In recent times, social networking giant Facebook has found itself in the spotlight again, and under the gun regarding its complex privacy settings. Last month Facebook responded to growing user discontent with the introduction of new privacy controls that are more straightforward, easier to use and most importantly, that give users greater control over their personal information. As a Privacy Commissioner and someone deeply interested in privacy, I think that Facebook has taken a firm step in the right direction.
As I keep saying – privacy is all about personal control and freedom of choice. Privacy, at its base, relates to an individual’s control over their own personal information and data flows, and the freedom to choose if and when it should be collected and used. The German concept of “informational self-determination” captures this notice of control very well.
Earlier this year, I wrote an op-ed for the Globe and Mail to correct the mistaken attribution to Mark Zuckerberg saying, “privacy is no longer a social norm.” What he actually said was, “People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time.” Read the rest of this entry »
The Toronto G8/G20 Summits:
Jun 16th
How Simple Security Communication Blunders Can Negatively Impact Public Opinion
Apparently Toronto drew the short straw. It’s our turn to host the distinguished G8 and G20 summits this year and Canada is certainly stepping up to the plate. All our reluctant tax-paying citizens are financially responsible for ensuring the comfort and safety of a select few heads of state and their entourage on this august occasion in June.
Claudiu Popa
And a respectable event it is, with such noble and specific goals as the opportunity to discuss major international issues and develop personal relations between heads of state. Unfortunately, every year and despite their best intentions, the host countries have to endure any number of protests and criticism over the way things are handled and naturally the futility of the entire exercise in light of continued global misery. Past protests have been marred by injuries and even death, thus undermining the point of the exercise.
G8 and G20 must address online privacy
Jun 14th
-It’s the least we can expect for our billion-dollar investment
It’s hard to imagine governments acting in citizens’ social media privacy best interests when they themselves often seem so inept in terms of integrating social media within their own respective environments. For every example of a government department success story using social media tools and principles, there always seems to be a counter-example that illustrates just how many elected leaders and civil servants still have their heads in the sand when it comes to Web 2.0 and beyond. All-staff Twitter bans and continued sequestering of data that could help the public in hierarchical and disconnected silos, anyone?
Despite our leaders’ difficulties in making social media the new normal for government-citizen interaction, the need for our elected officials to help facilitate the transition to a Web 2.0-based economy has never been greater.
Alternative sites to check out on Quit Facebook Day
May 31st
Happy Quit Facebook Day.
Think of the endless invitation to Mafia Wars or pleas to search for a missing cow on Farmville, not the constant updates from friends who just have to tell the world that they “just can’t wait for Friday” or that a “Sausage, eggs and mee goreng and a cup of Nescafe Gold” really perked them up today. All that could come to an end.
Nestor Arellano
Last time I checked the Quit Facebook Day movement, which officially starts today has only signed up 26,977 committed Facebook quitters out of the social networking site’s 400 million members. So good luck with that.
However, writer Steven Vaughan-Nichols has come up with a list of seven alternative sites that you might what to check out. We have his list here but you can also read the whole story on ITBusiness.ca Read the rest of this entry »
Unforgivable: Ignorance and apathy about user privacy can no longer be tolerated
May 21st
The Wall Street Journal’s discovery about the shady privacy practices of some of the world’s largest social networks came as a surprise and probably won’t help any of the big names they mentioned. In what the WSJ unfortunately characterized as a ‘privacy loophole’ exploited by such organizations as Facebook, MySpace, Hi5 and Digg, the social networks were found to send personally identifiable data about site users directly to advertisers.
Claudiu Popa
While apathy about their own privacy policies and their own users’ protection caused this gross mishandling of information, the recipients of that information, an august bunch including Google, Yahoo and DoubleClick, simply said they didn’t know the data was included or that they didn’t want it in the first place. But no one actually bothered to insist that it not be sent in the first place so that liability could be avoided in case of a breach (or the current outrage at the clear exploitation of user information). Yahoo actually went so far as to say they “prohibit the sending of personally identifiable information”, yet there it is.
Yahoo! demonstrates new transparency centre
May 3rd
While attending the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s Toronto privacy consultation last week, I caught up with Anne Toth, the head of privacy at Yahoo! Anne was one of the only representatives from online services companies that took part in the event, sitting on a panel about behavioural advertising. Companies such as Google and Facebook were nowhere to be seen, despite the attention those companies have attracted from privacy authorities lately.
