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By Chris Jay Hoofnagle, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Putting Identity Theft on Ice: Freezing Credit Reports to Prevent Lending to Impostors. “This article argues that the third actor, credit granting institutions, are culpable for a large number of identity theft cases. Institutions enable identity theft by maintaining lax credit granting practices, …
From the Washington Post, ID Theft Scam Hits D.C. Area Residents From ChoicePoint: Update on Identity Fraud Notification, 02/21/2005. This announcement includes a chart with a state-by-state accounting of the current number of victims of this scam, addresses the company’s plan to participate in the investigation of the fraud, and its plans to “guard against …
Health Industry Under Pressure to Computerize: “The federal government has delivered a warning to the health care industry: move into the computer age or the government will probably impose a solution.” Related resources: Panel: Cultural Shift Needed to Make Health Data Valuable Better medicine without paper
From the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse: The ChoicePoint Data Security Breach: What It Means for You, and How to Find Out What ChoicePoint Knows about You Related resources: No Place to Hide, Behind the Scenes of Our Emerging Surveillance Society by Robert O’Harrow See also these related beSpacific postings, Online Interview With Author of New Book …
From the press release, Office of the Illinois Attorney General, February 16, 2005: “Joined by several other state Attorneys General, Attorney General Lisa Madigan has written to a Georgia company that collects vast amounts of personal and financial data urging that the company immediately notify any Illinoisans whose information may have been breached following the …
There have been a number of articles in recent months on privacy issues associated with search engine queries. This one, Is It Too Easy To Find People On Google? from Investor.com offers a quick review of how data from public sources is aggregated and returned in search results via services from Google, Yahoo and MapQuest.
From the press release: U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)…called for a Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on legislation that she sponsored which would require businesses or government agencies to notify individuals if a database has been broken into and personal data has been compromised, including Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses and credit cards. This follows two …
The results of the 2004 Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) Report Card, dated February 16, 2005, are a governmentwide grade of D+. Related references: Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis’ (R-VA) statement on the report includes links to the FISMA 2004 Report Grading Element and to a letter to the Commissioner of the Public …
Press release: “Today the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) released a white paper (Dangerous Terms A User’s Guide to EULAs) warning consumers about how they can be harmed by end user license agreements (EULAs) for consumer electronics and online services. Many EULAs contain terms that damage consumer interests, including invitations for vendors to snoop on …
As a follow-up to my posting yesterday, Data Mining Aggregator Reports Widespread ID Theft, an article from today’s San Francisco Chronicle offers more details, including information on the arrest and upcoming arraignment of a suspect and reports of additional cases of ID theft related to this incident.
From the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO), Welcome to the Jungle: The State Privacy Implications of Spam, Phishing and Spyware (15 pages, PDF).
From the Berkeley Daily Planet, Library’s New Technology Sparks Controversy. Related references: Parents and Civil Liberties Groups Urge School District to Terminate Use of Tracking Devices and Children and RFID Systems.
