Posts tagged privacy
5 reasons why SOPA has to die
Jan 22nd
If you are wondering what SOPA is then you probably didn’t Wikipedia last week when it shutdown in protest. SOPA is a bill which the UScongress wanted to pass and it stands for Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).
It sounds harmless enough, after all we all want to stop piracy…don’t we! While we are against piracy we certainly aren’t against FREE SPEECH and SOPA takes it too far suggesting a China like authoritarian rule where record labels and cable companies have the power to shut down website because of alleged piracy acts, no matter how small the piracy act is….it may be as simple as you uploading a video of you and your family at a family bar-b-que with Lady Gaga playing in the background. You may be in violation and your website may be shut down.
Still not convinced, here are 5 reasons why SOPA needs to die…
Should You Feel Bad About Blocking Online Ads?
Jan 12th
by Claudiu Popa
I’m not a fan of banner ads, browser pop-ups nor of what’s come to be called behavioural advertising. I find that such promotion largely falls into two categories. The kind that has nothing to do with what I’m interested in, and the kind that is surprisingly well targeted to my personal interests.
Claudiu Popa
Since the former is irritating and the latter is downright creepy, I’m not likely to click on any online ads anytime soon. And I don’t think you are either.
That said, I’m certainly not against commercial promotion and far be it from me to pass judgment on one of the most profitable ways to spend – and make – money online ($25B in 2010 and an estimated $31B in 2011). I’m even sympathetic to the argument that online advertising keeps the Internet humming along as the subsidized services we practically depend on in turn depend on advertising dollars to resist the temptation to charge us. Read the rest of this entry »
Companies exposing Canadians’ personal information face no penalty
Dec 9th
By Brian Jackson
As social networking becomes more popular and online advertisers seek more effective ways to target their messages, our society is trying to cope with how to protect our privacy while sharing more details about ourselves than ever before via the Web.
If you doubt that the collection of personal details online is the top privacy concern, just look to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s work over the last several years. It has been preoccupied with Facebook, protecting children’s’ online privacy, fighting spam, and Google Streetview, just to name a few. Now we hear that commissioner Jennifer Stoddart will be turning a watchful eye towards companies engaging in online behavioural advertising.
Brian Jackson, Associate Editor, ITBusiness.ca
Appearing at a conference hosted by the Association of Canadian Advertisers, Stoddart said advertisers can’t use tracking technology that users are unaware of or unable to decline. If they do, they could face disciplinary measures such as an audit by the office, or being taken to Federal Court and publicly shamed. But we’ve heard this watchdog bark before, and rarely have we seen it bite.
NFC the next big thing? Do it right – embed privacy from the start
Dec 4th
by Dr. Ann Cavoukian
There was a lot of buzz about Near Field Communications (NFC) at The Future of the Internet Congress this week in Ottawa. NFC is an emerging short-range wireless technology being built into the latest generation of smartphones, allowing users to bridge the real and virtual worlds with simple “Tap ‘n Go” gestures.
Ann Cavoukian, Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario
NFC holds tremendous potential to change the way we interact with our physical environments, acquire and share information, access facilities, and pay for goods and services (to name just a few interoperabilities), using now-ubiquitous mobile devices.
Illustrative Uses Cases
At the Congress, I made available a new paper, entitled Mobile Near Field Communications (NFC) “Tap ‘n Go” – Keep it Secure & Private, that examines the technology’s potential in four illustrative use cases:
Hardening LinkedIn for privacy protection:
Nov 15th
The 12 settings that could impact your professional image
by Claudiu Popa
With the introduction of LinkedIn’s new settings page this year, the company also took the opportunity to make some changes to its Privacy Policy.
Since the expansive document’s 29 pages would put even the most troubled insomniac into a deep slumber, the company conveniently provided a summary which hints at the different ways it seeks to monetize its service and in some ways emulate Facebook’s much maligned model.
Claudiu Popa
Instead of stringing together 7415 words however, the latter prefers to describe its privacy-related practices through a series of nested pages that branch off an initial six sections. You get the idea. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. But enough of that. I plan to send you on your way with something you can actually use. Read the rest of this entry »
New fraud scheme targets lawyers
Nov 14th
by Monica Goyal
If you are not a lawyer, you may not have heard of this fraud.
Generally, the purpose of the scheme is to persuade a lawyer to take them on as a client in a settlement case, and then steal their money.
Monica Goyal
Here is an example email:
“De: John Fischer
Fecha: Mon, 12 Sep 2011 15:09:41 +0000
Para:
Asunto: YOUR LEGAL ASSISTANCE IS NEEDED. Read the rest of this entry »
How to lose public trust and achieve international ridicule
Oct 31st
by Claudiu Popa
Talk to anyone in the world of business about their biggest hacking fear and you’re bound to hear that “embarrassment” ranks right up there near the top.
Claudiu Popa
Everyone knows that to do a proper job of alienating clients and embarrassing your organization you need to not just be good at, but excel at three things:
- amateurish planning in protecting against security and privacy problems
- boneheaded response once a breach has taken place
- abject failure to make sure it doesn’t happen again
I know what you’re thinking: “Hey! That sounds pretty difficult to pull off! I was hoping for an easy way to annihilate my audience and damage my credibility! I thought you were good! Can you at least give me an example?” Read the rest of this entry »
Cavoukian orders Cancer Care Ontario to implement EMR
Oct 14th
by Nestor E. Arellano
What would it take to push forward a sluggish electronic patient records initiative? An embarrassing medical records fiasco of gargantuan proportion and one irate privacy commissioner perhaps?
In the case of Cancer Care Ontario (CCO) and Information and Privacy Commissioner (IPC) Dr. Ann Cavoukian at least that seems to be how things are shaping up.
Nestor Arellano
Sometime in March this year, the CCO lost several packages of patient records pertaining to over 20,000 cancer patients. Since then investigations conducted have brought down the number of missing records (originally sent by CCO to various doctor’s offices via Canada Post’s Xpresspost courier service) to just 7,000 colon cancer screening reports.
In an unprecedented move yesterday, Cavoukian issued ordered CCO to stop the practice of sending out sensitive patient records in paper format. Cavoukian also gave the CCO until January 13 next year to show proof of compliance and report back to her office on their progress towards adopting an electronic medical records (EMR) system that will transmit the sensitive private data to doctor’s office through the Internet instead.
“I needed to give this strong order because the loss of 7,000 patient records is totally unacceptable. It could have been prevented,” Cavoukian told me yesterday. “They better comply with the order.” Read the rest of this entry »
Mobile devices & medical research — protecting personal health information
Sep 13th
By Dr. Ann Cavoukian
Nothing disappoints me more than news of yet another lost unencrypted USB key or laptop containing personal health information. Unequivocally, there have been far too many breaches of this kind, most of which could have easily been avoided by utilizing well-established privacy and security measures and building in Privacy by Design (‘PbD’)best practices.
Ann Cavoukian, Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario
The numbers are startling. In the U.S. over a 20-month period ending June 2011, there were 288 notable breaches impacting millions of Americans – with about a third involving mobile devices. Here in Ontario, there have been a number of high-profile breaches over the past two years impacting well over 100,000 people.
Some of these breaches have been in the health research area, as researchers have become increasingly reliant on laptop computers, memory sticks and other mobile computing storage devices, to collect and store personal information.
Concerns over the privacy and security of personal health information used for research purposes should not undermine the resounding fact that health research is extremely important, and high quality research depends on the availability of high quality information. Read the rest of this entry »
LinkedIn founder dead wrong about privacy being just for ‘old people’
Oct 11th
Posted by Ann Cavoukian in Privacy and Security
11 comments
Here we go again. Once more, the chief of a major online social network has called into question the relevance of privacy in today’s connected world. This time it is Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, who recently said that “privacy is an ‘old people’ issue.” Really? He’s dead wrong
What is most unfortunate is that Mr Hoffman, like many of his peers, looks at privacy narrowly, through the wrong lens. He thinks along
Ann Cavoukian, Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario
the lines of classic zero-sum: you can only have more of one interest, not another. This is nonsense. People need to connect and have moments of solitude, reflection, intimacy – namely, privacy.
Read the rest of this entry »