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Privacy in the News

The views represented in these articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editor, the Privacy Act Program, or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

• Social Security numbers fall out of favor as personal identifiers
  NextGov - July 7, 2009
  "Government and industry should stop using Social Security numbers as a primary method for verifying identity, according to the author of a recent study that showed how easily thieves can use a combination of personal information and computer software programs to figure out the nine digits."

• FTC Rule on Identity Theft Draws Strong Criticism From Bar Groups
  LAW.COM - July 1, 2009
  "The New York State Bar Association Monday became the latest bar group to protest new Federal Trade Commission rules requiring lawyers to become involved in preventing identity theft, calling the move unauthorized, unnecessary and destructive to the attorney-client relationship."

• High court won't touch privacy law
  Nashua (NH) Telegraph - June 30, 2009
  "New Hampshire survived the strongest legal test to a law making doctors' prescription-writing habits confidential. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday announced it refused to hear the appeal of two data-mining companies that analyze and sell prescription dispensing information."

• New Privacy Law Getting Closer
  PC World - June 30, 2009
  "Comprehensive legislation to protect consumers' privacy is closer to becoming a reality in the U.S. Congress than it's been in several years, officials with the Center for Democracy and Technology said Tuesday."

• Homeland Security to kill domestic satellite spying program
  NextGov - June 23, 2009
  "Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano plans to kill a program begun by the Bush administration that would use U.S. spy satellites for domestic security and law enforcement, a government official said Monday."

• Congress Mulls Online Privacy Law
  Forbes - June 18, 2009
  "Online giants like Google and Yahoo! like to brag that they allow privacy-conscious users to easily opt out with just a single mouse click from the data collection systems used to target ads at them. But how many people actually take advantage of the option?"

• Court Stiffs Veterans Caught in Privacy Breach
  Wired - June 18, 2009
  "Veterans suffering anxiety and paranoia following the theft of a government hard drive containing the medical histories and Social Security numbers of 198,000 of their brethren cannot recover financial damages, a federal appeals court says."

• FTC Testifies on Efforts to Combat Identity Theft
  7th Space - June 18, 2009
  "The FTC's testimony recommended that, to help prevent identity theft, Congress should establish data security standards across the private sector requiring all organizations that hold sensitive consumer data to take reasonable measures to safeguard it, and to notify consumers when the security of their information has been breached."

• Sensitive information protection remains tough
  Federal Computer Week - June 15, 2009
  "The government's ability to share sensitive but unclassified information data securely has become central to coordinating counterterrorism efforts, in part because many local officials don't have the security clearances needed to make use of classified information."

• U.S. Court Weighs E-mail Privacy, Again
  Information Week - June 12, 2009
  "In a replay of a court decision from two years ago, civil liberties groups are again trying to persuade the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit that e-mail messages deserve the same privacy protection as telephone calls."

• Electronic Health Records and Privacy Law
  LAW.COM - June 9, 2009
  "Health information of a particularly sensitive nature, such as records concerning an individual's treatment for mental illness, drug addiction or alcohol abuse, creates uniquely complicated legal and practical problems with respect to interoperable EHR technology."

• Information Security: Employee Errors Put Data at Risk
  Government Technology - June 8, 2009
  "If you work in IT, recent goings-on in the security realm could be enough to make you throw your arms up in despair and kiss the safety of your data goodbye. Reports make it seem downright hopeless."

• Hidden Camera Case Turns on Expectation of Privacy in Workplace
  LAW.COM - June 5, 2009
  "Does the mere attempt to videotape an individual qualify as an invasion of privacy or must there be an actual intrusion -- such as the taping of an innocent person changing clothes -- for liability to come into play?"

• Deep Packet Inspection Here to Stay, Say Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference Experts
  BroadbandCensus.COM - June 4, 2009
  "The problems with so-called "deep packet inspection" are too big to ignore, a panel of broadband experts said on the third and final day of the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference at George Washington University here."

• Privacy: does it actually exist?
  Gerson Lehrman Group - June 4, 2009
  "Being part of a global network, interconnected with each other, that not only provides us with Internet but also with Telephony and other services inevitably causes the risk of information leakage. Privacy related information in particular is very prone to leakage."

• The Obama Administration's Silence on Privacy
  New York Times - June 2, 2009
  "Peter Swire, an Ohio State law professor who served on the Obama transition team, offered one reason it might be difficult for the administration to find its voice on privacy. There is a split...between the typical view of privacy among technology experts and the emerging view of people brought up in the social networking, Web 2.0 world."

• Senate panel weighs Privacy Act update
  NextGov - May 28, 2009
  "The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is exploring potential updates to the 35-year-old Privacy Act and could advance legislation this Congress, a top panel aide said today."

• Is your Employer Snooping in your Personal E-Mail Account?
  Internet Business Law Services - May 25, 2009
  "It is clear that employees do not have any expectation of privacy in the e-mail account provided by their employers; but what about personal e-mail accounts accessed through the employer's computers at the place of employment?"

• IRS lax in destroying sensitive tax papers - report
  Reuters - May 21, 2009
  "Sensitive documents about U.S. taxpayers were found in trash outside all Internal Revenue Service sites visited in a[n] investigation, putting the people at risk of identity theft, an inspector's report says."

• Congress and Credit Cards Mean the Death of Privacy
  Time - May 20, 2009
  "The most recent innovation to make the details of everyone's life available to everyone else is a GPS tracking phone. Someone late for a meeting can no longer say he is stuck in traffic. His phone shows he is in the coffee shop just around the corner."

• Consumers Left in the Dark on Net Privacy
  InternetNews - May 15, 2009
  "Experts may debate whether there's more than meets the eye in online data collection, but they agree that Internet users need education."

• Senators call on regulatory nominee to focus on privacy issues
  FederalTimes - May 13, 2009
  "Sunstein should work closely with Vivek Kundra, the federal chief information officer and head of OMB's e-government office, to clarify responsibilities for ensuring personal data privacy, Lieberman said."

• Cyber-Criminal Demands $10 Million Ransom After Breaching Virginia Medical Records
  Government Technology - May 7, 2009
  "The FBI and the Virginia State Police are on the hunt for a malicious hacker who breached millions of medical records last week and is now threatening to sell them unless someone forks over $10 million."

• Expanded DNA Databases: Violation of Privacy or Crime Solving Tool?
  Forensic Magazine - May 7, 2009
  "It has become common practice to collect DNA samples from convicted violent crime offenders, but recently states and even the FBI have been expanding their databases by collecting DNA from suspects who have been arrested but not convicted."

• House Internet privacy, data breach bills could merge
  NextGov - May 6, 2009
  "Consumer privacy bills championed by two House Energy and Commerce subcommittee chairmen that are now progressing on parallel tracks could merge to become a sweeping measure with implications for information brokers, broadband service providers, Internet companies and other technology stakeholders."

• Copiers Put Consumers At Risk Of Identity Theft
  KMGH Denver News - May 4, 2009
  "Copies made at work or at a business like a mortgage company or accountant's office, are in many cases being saved onto the machine's hard drive. Wherever those machines go next, they could be taking your personal information along for the ride."

• The end of privacy
  Emporia (KS) Gazette - May 4, 2009
  "The trend of electronic communication, from Facebook to texting to sexting to Twitter, is more than a record of the advance of technology and ingenuity. It forms the basis of a massive, voluntary flight from the very concept of individual privacy."

• Massive FBI Data-mining Project Needs Congressional Oversight
  Kansas City infoZine - May 3, 2009
  "The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) called on Congress recently to examine the Investigative Data Warehouse (IDW) -- a massive FBI data-mining project that includes a billion records, many of which contain personal information on American citizens."

• Court Orders Review of FBI Records on California Muslim Organizations
  OMB Watch - April 30, 2009
  "Responding to claims that Muslim organizations have been illegally spied upon in southern California, a federal judge said on April 20, 2009 he will conduct a review of the FBI records."

• US Lawmakers Target Deep Packet Inspection in Privacy Bill
  PC World - April 23, 2009
  "U.S. lawmakers plan to introduce privacy legislation that would limit how Internet service providers can track their users, despite reports that no U.S. ISPs are using such technologies except for legitimate security reasons."

• HHS offers health IT privacy guidelines
  Government Health IT - April 20, 2009
  "HHS published guidance on April 17 that outlines the ways that health information can be protected from security breaches. It builds on rules in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)."

• Study: Privacy restrictions may slow rollouts of e-health systems
  ComputerWorld - April 20, 2009
  "Two researchers from MIT and the University of Virginia claim in a study publicly released last week that increased efforts to protect the privacy of health care data could hamper the deployment of electronic medical records systems."

• F.B.I. and States Vastly Expand DNA Databases
  New York Times - April 18. 2009
  "Law enforcement officials are vastly expanding their collection of DNA to include millions more people who have been arrested or detained but not yet convicted. The move, intended to help solve more crimes, is raising concerns about the privacy of petty offenders and people who are presumed innocent."

• State privacy laws may undercut electronic medical records
  Ars Technica - April 14, 2009
  "A study looks at correlations between stated medical privacy laws and the adoption of electronic record keeping by the hospitals within a state, and finds that an emphasis on privacy may decrease the rate of adoption of electronic systems."

• Close call highlights need for overhaul of record-keeping
  Boston Globe - April 11, 2009
  "This frightening incident underscores the current need for patients to have electronic personal health records that they can easily access, understand, and share."

• Tampa Bay mug shot site draws ethical questions
  Los Angeles Times - April 10, 2009
  "A new website that showcases mug shots of people arrested in several Florida counties is like a modern "Scarlet Letter." Some privacy activists are condemning the site, but what's an alleged bad boy (or bad girl) to do?"

• White House: Obama 'absolutely' stands behind effort to throw out warrantless wiretapping suit
  The Raw Story - April 10, 2009
  "President Barack Obama endorsed a Justice Department move to dismiss a case in which the National Security Agency is being sued over its warrantless wiretapping program, because he believes the case presents a risk to national security, the White House told Raw Story Thursday."

• Can Lawyers Use Clients' E-Discoveries?
  LAW.COM - April 7, 2009
  "A suspicious wife accesses her husband's personal e-mail account on their mutually-owned computer... Her review of the e-mails proves that he has not been the faithful husband she thought he was. Wife files for divorce and forwards e-mails to you, her lawyer. Can you use those e-mails as proof in your case...?"

• Google + Twitter = End of privacy
  ComputerWorld - April 6, 2009
  "Think Google knows too much about you already? If the company buys Twitter, you can kiss your privacy good-bye."

• Fusion Centers Should Be Dismantled, Expert Says
  Security Management - April 2, 2009
  "A constitutional and international lawyer told lawmakers yesterday that the United States should dismantle state-run intelligence fusion centers, which have grown dramatically since 9-11 with the assistance of the federal government."

• The Senate's Cyber Lightning Rod
  Forbes - April 1, 2009
  "A new Senate bill introduced Wednesday is poised to extend federal cybersecurity regulations further into the private sector than ever before, and it is already sparking confusion and criticism among watchdog groups."

• Group Calls for 'Next Generation' of Privacy in Health IT Policy
  ARMA Washington Policy Brief - April 1, 2009
  "The Health Privacy Project (HPP) at the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) released a major policy paper calling for the adoption of "next generation" privacy policies to be built into the nation's rapidly advancing health information technology system."

• A How-To Guide to Keeping Medical Records Private
  New York Times - March 31, 2009
  "Today, the World Privacy Forum has released a plain-spoken online guide that can help people regain some control and a measure of privacy over their health records."

• E-Mail Theft Case Sparks First-of-a-Kind Ruling
  LAW.COM - March 27, 2009
  "[A] panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently became the first circuit to hold that plaintiffs must prove actual damages in order to be eligible for an award of statutory damages under the federal Stored Communications Act."

• It's Time to Drop the 'Expectation of Privacy' Test
  Wired - March 26, 2009
  "Between the NSA's massive internet eavesdropping program and Gmail's content-dependent advertising, does anyone actually expect their e-mail to be private? Between calls for ISPs to retain user data and companies serving content-dependent web ads, does anyone expect their web browsing to be private?"

• Coalition Urges Obama to Defend California Financial Privacy Law
  California Progress Report - March 24, 2009
  "A coalition of privacy groups today urged the Obama Administration to defend California's landmark financial privacy law against the banking industry's legal efforts to overturn it."

• House Votes to Create Privacy Officers at DHS
  Common Dreams - March 24, 2009
  "The House of Representatives passed legislation today that creates a privacy official for each division of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). If established by law, these new positions would be responsible for ensuring privacy laws and regulations are followed by DHS."

• A Call to Legislate Internet Privacy
  New York Times - March 13, 2009
  "While he hasn't written the bill yet, Mr. Boucher said that he, working with Representative Cliff Stearns, the Florida Republican who is the ranking minority member on the subcommittee, wants to require Web sites to disclose how they collect and use data, and give users the option to opt out of any data collection."

• Microsoft-led Privacy Group Backs off Legislation
  PC World - March 13, 2009
  "A Microsoft-led group set up three years ago has backed away from its original goal of pushing for comprehensive U.S. privacy legislation."

• People Search Engines: Slam the Door on Info
  ComputerWorld - March 11, 2009
  "As we slowly put more and more pieces of ourselves online, specialized search engines are making it easier than ever to pull them together into a highly detailed (and potentially invasive) profile of our virtual lives."

• Security vs. privacy? Reinterpreting the Fourth Amendment
  Ars Technica - March 11, 2009
  "A Yale legal scholar suggests a radical reinterpretation of the Fourth Amendment, in which "security" replaces "privacy" as the guiding principle."

• Identity Theft Upgrades to "Identity Assumption"
  The Cutting Edge - March 10, 2009
  "The dark and increasingly dangerous world of identity theft is often presented to us as mere personal chaos revolving around fake credit card charges. While this is a valid concern, the emerging dimension of this threat is far more sinister."

• California privacy law challenged by banks
  AZCentral - March 9, 2009
  "The U.S. Supreme Court signaled interest in a banking industry challenge to a California law that restricts the ability of financial institutions to share information about consumers among company units."

• Google Health Enables Sharing Health Records
  InformationWeek - March 5, 2009
  "In keeping with its mission to organize the world's information, make it universally accessible, and confound privacy advocates, Google on Wednesday gave Google Health users the ability to share their online medical records."

• Lieberman questions courts on information-sharing law
  FederalComputerWeek - March 2, 2009
  "The federal court system may be charging too much money for public online documents and may not be adequately protecting private information in those documents, according to Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.)."

• File-sharing networks used to uncover thousands of medical records
  NextGov - February 27, 2009
  "Just days after President Obama signed a law giving billions of dollars to develop electronic health records, a university technology professor submitted a paper showing that he was able to uncover tens of thousands of medical files containing names, addresses and Social Security numbers for patients seeking treatment for conditions ranging from AIDS to mental health problems."

• Law requires health data breach notifications
  FederalComputerWeek - February 27, 2009
  "The recently enacted economic stimulus law includes new requirements for how companies must notify people of breaches to their protected health information."

• Does Cloud Computing Mean More Risks to Privacy?
  New York Times - February 23, 2009
  "As people and businesses take advantage of all sorts of Internet-based services, they may well find trade secrets in the hands of competitors, private medical records made public, and e-mail correspondence in the hands of government investigators without any prior notice."

• Stimulus Law Boosts Health Privacy Rules
  Workforce Management - February 23, 2009
  "Economic stimulus legislation that President Barack Obama signed into law last week makes sweeping changes to the Health Insurance Privacy and Portability Act that could be onerous for employers and their health care plan partners."

• Feds Propose Storing Internet User Data for 2 Years
  Wired - February 20, 2009
  "In the name of combating child pornography, federal lawmakers are proposing that internet users' online surfing habits be retained for two years."

• Survey to check attitudes on privacy, services
  FederalComputerWeek - February 19, 2009
  "The General Services Administration wants to know if people want to receive information about the federal government via online services such as Facebook and YouTube, according to a GSA announcement on FedBizOpps.gov."

• SSA takes lead on joining electronic health records program
  NextGov - February 18, 2009
  "The Social Security Administration will begin using the nationwide health information network on Feb. 28, making it the first agency to test the government's approach to interoperable electronic health records."

• Despite Obama pledge, Justice defends Bush secrets
  USA Today - February 16, 2009
  "Despite President Obama's vow to open government more than ever, the Justice Department is defending Bush administration decisions to keep secret many documents about domestic wiretapping, data collection on travelers and U.S. citizens, and interrogation of suspected terrorists."

• Do We Need a New Internet?
  New York Times - February 14, 2009
  "What a new Internet might look like is still widely debated, but one alternative would, in effect, create a 'gated community' where users would give up their anonymity and certain freedoms in return for safety."

• Privacy Trumps Profit in Obama's $19 Billion Health Stimulus
  Bloomberg - February 13, 2009
  "Patients' advocates claimed victory in a battle over the privacy of health records as the U.S. Congress prepares to vote on the economic stimulus bill, which contains $19 billion for health-care information."

• 40% of hard drives bought on eBay hold personal, corporate data
  ComputerWorld - February 10, 2009
  "A New York computer forensics firm found that 40% of the hard disk drives it recently purchased in bulk orders from eBay contained personal, private and sensitive information -- everything from corporate financial data to the Web-surfing history and downloads of a man with a foot fetish."

• Lobbying War Ensues Over Digital Health Data
  Washington Post - February 10, 2009
  "The Senate and House appear headed for a clash over competing visions of how to protect the privacy of patients' electronic medical records, with the House favoring strict protections advocated by consumer groups while the Senate is poised to endorse more limited safeguards urged by business interests."

• Daschle received speaking fees from groups opposing patient privacy
  NextGov - February 2, 2009
  "Tom Daschle, President Obama's nominee for secretary of the Health and Human Services Department, received speaking fees last year from two organizations that are aligned with health industry groups that opposed strong patient privacy protections in the health care section of the stimulus bill..."

• Industry giants to weigh in on US privacy laws
  MacWorld - February 2, 2009
  "A group of U.S. companies, led by technology giants Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and eBay, is set to outline recommendations for new federal data-privacy legislation that could make life easier for consumers and lead to a standard federal breach-notification law."

• Justice orchestrates TSP hoax to test employees on security
  Government Executive - January 30, 2009
  "According to the Associated Press, the phony e-mail initially was sent by Justice to its employees two weeks ago, giving them a Jan. 31 deadline to provide personal information that might help them recover money they lost as the value of TSP funds plummeted along with the stock markets."

• Scalia speaks on digital privacy at NYC conference
  Newsday - January 28, 2009
  "Discussions of privacy rights in the digital era should distinguish between such confidential data as medical records and information that might be personal but is easy to find out, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Wednesday."

• Thrift store MP3 player contains secret military files
  CNN - January 27, 2009
  "Chris Ogle of New Zealand was in Oklahoma about a year ago when he bought a used MP3 player from a thrift store for $9. A few weeks ago, he plugged it into his computer to download a song, and he instead discovered confidential U.S. military files."

• White House Web Site Revisits Privacy Policy
  InformationWeek - January 23, 2009
  "With the Obama administration now in place, White House media staff has been reviewing the WhiteHouse.gov Web site this week to address issues raised by privacy advocates."

• The Balance of Secrecy and Privacy
  TPM Cafe - January 20, 2009
  "Obama at the moment has unequivocally embraced transparency, promising that his new Chief Technology Officer will ensure that administration holds open meetings with live webcasts, and uses blogging software and wikis to communicate with the public."

• Economic Stimulus Package Could Impinge on Americans' Health Privacy, Says Group
  Government Technology - January 19, 2009
  "'HIPAA was never intended for the digital age, because the 1996 HIPAA law never anticipated the emergence of Web-based records.' -- David Brailer, former national coordinator for Health Information Technology."

• Privacy Issue Complicates Push to Link Medical Data
  New York Times - January 17, 2009
  "President-elect Barack Obama's plan to link up doctors and hospitals with new information technology, as part of an ambitious job-creation program, is imperiled by a bitter, seemingly intractable dispute over how to protect the privacy of electronic medical records."

• Audit: IRS ignored risks in deploying online filing system
  NextGov - January 15, 2009
  "The Internal Revenue Service launched the latest version of its online tax-filing system despite known security gaps that could put taxpayer information at risk, according to an inspector general report released on Thursday."

• Search Privacy Issue Goes Mobile
  PCMag - January 13, 2009
  "Two D.C.-based interest groups argue that regulators are ignoring phone-based data mining activities, and are asking that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) open an investigation."

• E-Discovery Ruling Gives Companies Another Data Worry
  Enterprise Storage Forum - January 12, 2009
  "[A] U.S. District Court ruled that metadata associated with e-mails and electronic files must be preserved, maintained and produced in the course of legal discovery, particularly when sought by the requesting party in its initial request."

• How private is your personal information?
  Washington Examiner - January 12, 2009
  "Would you be alarmed to know that even when you think things are private, a perfect stranger can look you up online, see your address, birth date, past addresses, and even see a photo of your home, down to the detail of your child's play set out in the back yard? Alarmed yet? You should be."

• Careful what you search for
  Fortune - January 6, 2009
  "Google recently released its annual rundown of popular searches for 2008 - what they call the "zeitgeist" list - and it's a reminder, once again, of how much we reveal about ourselves every time we type into a search bar."

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