Privacy worry over location data

Privacy advocates are warning of the dangers of rushing headlong into using location based services.

The Centre for Digital Democracy told the BBC that "while these services will be a powerful force in our lives they are a potential privacy nightmare."

The Centre's comments follow Yahoo's launch of Fire Eagle which lets users manage information on where they are.

"Hard privacy protection questions need to be asked," said Jeff Chester, director of the Centre.


The problem for privacy watchers is that privacy policies across the web are all very different and using a service through a third party could raise some real issues.

Data protection officials in Germany have called for privacy laws to be tightened amid a scandal over illegal sales of personal data.

The officials say they were able to buy six million items of personal data on the internet, including bank account details and phone numbers.

The data cost just 850 euros (£671), the officials said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7572774.stm

They had to buy it?

Duh.

well, it was cheap though.

and here are a couple links that i was going to post when the board was on hold last week and just remembered

http://blog.wired.com/sterling/2008/08/arphid-watch-in.html
Protesters will gather today in Manhattan to greet attendees of the
third annual "RFID in Fashion" conference, an event organized to
promote the use of RFID in clothing and footwear. Dr. Katherine
Albrecht, the Harvard-educated privacy campaigner featured in the film
"Freedom to Fascism" and co-author of the bestselling book "Spychips,"
will be on-hand to speak to attendees arriving for the opening keynote
this afternoon at NYC's Fashion Institute of Technology.



http://www.boycotttesco.com/spychips.html
For the past year, Tesco has been running trials that put it in
violation of an international call for a moratorium on item-level RFID
tagging issued by privacy experts from around the world. Item-level
tagging means placing an RFID tag on a product a consumer buys (as
opposed to putting a tag on the outside of a crate or box of products
in the warehouse).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7581417.stm
There is massive support among election officials in England for a ban on the sale of voters' personal data to direct mail companies, a survey has found.

Last month, in a government-ordered review, Information Commissioner Richard Thomas said providing electoral rolls to marketing firms sent out a "poor message" about the treatment of personal data.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7581540.stm
Bank customer data 'sold on eBay'

A computer containing a million bank customers' personal data has reportedly been sold on an internet auction site.

The Daily Mail says an ex-worker for archiving firm Graphic Data sold it for £35 on eBay without removing sensitive information from the hard drive.

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and its subsidiary, Natwest, have confirmed their customers' details were involved.

"Clearly such details should never have been included in the hard drive of the computer offered for sale on eBay. We fully expect Mr Chapman to hand it back to Graphic Data as soon as possible. We will of course work with Graphic Data to establish how it came to be available for sale on our site."

quote:

Originally posted by Mr.Push:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7581417.stm
There is massive support among election officials in England for a ban on the sale of voters' personal data to direct mail companies, a survey has found.

Last month, in a government-ordered review, Information Commissioner Richard Thomas said providing electoral rolls to marketing firms sent out a "poor message" about the treatment of personal data.

Yerfuckinwhat?

Selling electoral data? Really? Both disclosing private info - that leads to junk mail?

This is what we pay the FeeBies to do?

Fuck those motherfuckin' wannabe spooks!!! The kid didn't even get a fuckin' trial! You can goddamn bet they didn't even need to ask for a goddamn warrant because there's no need for warrants anymore. He made no profit, I don't see how we need to waste our resources like this. Their PC was based on a RIAA detective telling them about it. Anyone stupid enough to buy the dumb thing would not be able to figure out how to download something to begin with. It's not like they lost a sale. They didn't lose anything at all and are claiming theft. Fucking LIARS!!

Of all the artists that need to be discouraged from recording, Axl is defnintly in the top five.

Kid should get a damn medal.

And the "agent" that busted him ought to be deployed to Iraq.

Where he's needed.

quote:

Originally posted by lithos:
Yerfuckinwhat?

Selling electoral data? Really? Both disclosing private info - that leads to junk mail?

and then they wonder why we don't trust them to handle data in a reasonable and secure fashion, on budget, on time, and worthwhile.

They've sold that data for years quite openly and legally. It's never been a secret.

yup, not suggesting it is. the story was to do with recent surveys that suggest people aren't entirely happy with it. and that undoubtedly ties into recent balls ups and the ongoing annoyance of junk.

chinese monitoring (tom-)skype communication