Verizon Communications is paying the US government a settlement of $7.4 million following an investigation into how the company notifies customers of their privacy rights before using their information for marketing, according to the US Federal Communications Commission. This marks the largest fine relating to phone customers’ privacy in FCC history. The agency’s investigation discovered that beginning in 2006, the company didn’t provide roughly 2 million new landline telephone customers with proper privacy notices—explaining how to opt out of having their personal information provided for marketing offers—in their first bill. Under US law, phone companies cannot use customers’ personal data for marketing without their permission. Under the terms of the settlement, Verizon will send opt-out notices with every telephone bill. Verizon said that it advertently violated FCC rules that it takes the agency’s regulations seriously, and that it has implemented measures to avoid a recurrence. (Reuters)
Saturday, September 27, 2014
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
New Chrome Encryption Extension Promises Better Privacy
Google now offers an extension for its Chrome browser designed to provide easy e-mail encryption to users. The company is touting the End-to-End extension for its simplicity of use compared to similar open source tools such as PGP and GnuPG. Google is basing End-to-End on the OpenPGP standard. The tool is in alpha, meaning the code is available for testing and evaluation now at https://code.google.com/p/end-to-end/source/checkout . Google also is offering bounties for any bugs found in End-to-End through its Vulnerability Reward Program. (Businessweek)(PC Mag)(TIME)(Google Online Security Blog)
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
US Security Officials Use Government, Private Databases to Prescreen Airline Passengers; Privacy Advocates Worry
The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has expanded its airline-passenger screening by gathering information from various government and private databases, including those that the Department of Homeland Security maintains. Privacy advocates are concerned about the intrusive nature of the program, which was likened to a “pre-crime assessment every time you fly” according to a consultant to one of the groups opposing the program. Edward Hasbrouck said, “The default will be the highest, most intrusive level of search.” TSA agents are now accessing data such as car registrations, tax identification numbers, previous travel information, and material gathered by law-enforcement or intelligence officials for all travelers, not just those entering the US. The TSA has not publicly released many details of the new program. “The measures go beyond the background check the government has conducted for years, called Secure Flight, in which a passenger’s name, gender and date of birth are compared with terrorist watch lists,” noted the New York Times. (SlashDot)(The New York Times)
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
France Seeks Sanctions against Google for Flaunting Privacy Laws
Google faces financial sanctions in France after failing to obey with an order to bring the way in which it stores and shares user data in compliance with the nation’s privacy laws. The company faced scrutiny by various European data-protection authorities after changing its privacy policy in 2012. Google was ordered on 20 June 2013 to comply with French privacy laws within three months, but it has reportedly did not do so by the time the deadline passed. Google faces a maximum fine of €150,000 (US$202,562) for a first offense with an additional €300,000 for a second offense. It could also be ordered to change aspects of how it processes personal data for three months. (SlashDot)(CMO)(C.Nationale de L'Informatique et des Libertes)
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Modern Privacy: More Access to Cells than Toilets
What ‘s happening to privacy in today’s world? On first sight it seems to get bigger. Most people in the world now live in a city, feeling pretty anonymous. An even bigger number of people don’t have to defocate out in the open anymore, but have access to a toilet. And then there’s this growing amount of people that can talk in private on their cells. But beware, these are false senses of privacy.
In Nature’s Scientific Reports researchers from Massachusets and Belgium published their findings on what you can do with mobility data. With probably thousands of other people permanently moving around you, it might feel as if your own whereabouts easily get lost in the data pool of all the others. But it turns out the way you move around is very unique.
If someone knows just four recent locations of your phone, they can allready trace your identity, at least in 95 percent of the cases. And it’s not only the phone calls you that make you traceable. Think about all the apps that retrieve your geographic location and the wifi spots you use.
Mobility data is nowadays among the most sensitive data currently being collected. And more and more people are getting plugged into this data pool. UN just found out that out of the 7 billion people on our planet, 4.5 billion people have access to working toilets, while 6 billion have access to mobile phones.
Photo: Flickr, Scallop Holden
Source: Time, Phys.org
de Montjoye YA, Hidalgo CA, Verleysen M, & Blondel VD (2013). Unique in the Crowd: The privacy bounds of human mobility. Scientific reports, 3 PMID: 23524645
cell phone privacy