The question is how anonymous is your data once stripped of ‘personal identifying information’ (PII) when used by data aggregation companies for analysis. PII can include name, postcode, etc. I made a couple of blog posts in 2008 concerning this. According to a study led by the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, previously anonymised data were able to be correlated again from patient prescription records rending the anonymising process ineffective and a threat to patient privacy.
Tag: Children’s Privacy
Expectation for privacy?
Interesting report from the Privacy Advisor (The International Association of Privacy Professionals), should we have an expectation of privacy?
Half a million dollars awarded for healthcare privacy research in US
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded $538,595 to the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research to support a two-year project titled “Protecting Privacy in Health Research.”
The group specifically intends to address the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act’s (HIPAA) “Privacy Rule,” which they contend falls short of adequately protecting privacy, yet impedes medical research by placing unreasonable burdens upon life scientists. Full article here.
Get to know your plumbing
Another article that I’ve had published in 2009, although this one is available to all online. Name of the article is Get to know your plumbing: Protecting your organisation from leaking soft information. Enjoy 🙂
Facebook permits third-parties to use your pictures
Facebook has agreed to let third party advertisers use your posted pictures without your permission. To prevent this intrusion:
1. Click on “Settings” up at the top where you see the “Logout” link.
2. Select “Privacy”.
3. Then select “News Feed and Wall”.
4. Next, select the tab that reads “Facebook Ads”. In the drop down box, select “No One”.
5. Then save your changes.
Is your trash private?
What do you think? If you throw out your rubbish and it is sitting in a garbage can waiting for collection on your property. Should the police need a search warrant to search through your trash? Apparently not so in Canada.
I’m back, and oh boy what a lot has happened in the last month!
A European Union panel will this week release its legal opinion on anti-doping rules that require Olympic-level athletes to disclose their locations every day, reports Reuters. A legal challenge has been lodged in Belgium on behalf of 65 athletes, including cyclists and volleyball players, who argue the rule breaks EU privacy laws. FIFPro, the soccer players’ union, is also mounting a case.
The panel’s decision will form the basis of a broader and far-reaching binding legal opinion by the European Commission, the executive arm which oversees EU legislation within the 27-nation bloc due to be published before the northern summer.
Data ownership to the Facebook users!
Interesting discussion with Mark Zuckerberg last Thursday during a press conference . Facebook’s vision is to have a new, more perfect union with users when it comes to privacy and data ownership. Read more from cnet news.
Online there is no expectation of privacy rule Canadian courts
A Superior Court in Ontario, Canada has ruled that IP addresses are akin to your home address, and therefore people have no expectation of privacy when it comes to their online activities being accessed by law enforcement. This means that, in Canada, police can potentially request information from your ISP about online activities, and can do so without a warrant.
Your activities on the Internet are akin to your activities out in public—they’re not private and are possibly open for police scrutiny, according to an Ontario Superior Court. The ruling was made by Justice Lynne Leitch on—surprise!—a child pornography case. The judge said that there’s “no reasonable expectation of privacy” when it comes to logs kept by ISPs. ….. scarey, read more.
Facebook’s vision for a new terms of service
wow it’s been an amazing week so far with Facebook eventually managing their exposure quite well I light of the media explosion 😉
First there was the initial shock and disbelief at what they had done, even though it is written in the terms of service that they have the right to change these without users’ consent, they made a subtle change that was a direct flout of their users’ privacy. In fact the terms of service were pretty bad already without this change.
The changes were actually made in early February but not widely noticed until Sunday, when The Consumerist’s Chris Walters stumbled upon the subtly shifted language. The section in question explains how Facebook has an “irrevocable, perpetual” license to use your “name, likeness, and image” in essentially any way, including within promotions or external advertising. These changes made by Facebook would effectively give then eternal ownership of your personal content–even if you decide to delete your account. At the moment they only have this right so long as your account is active. Read more …
Finally Mark Zuckerberg made a blog posting yesterday stating that Facebook had reverted to their original terms of service and are working on creating a new terms of service. I really like his approach, on his blog he wrote that “More than 175 million people use Facebook. If it were a country, it would be the sixth most populated country in the world. Our terms aren’t just a document that protect our rights; it’s the governing document for how the service is used by everyone across the world. Given its importance, we need to make sure the terms reflect the principles and values of the people using the service.”
And we can be involved in building this new terms of service, check out http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=69048030774.
Smartly managed Mark!