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• News Archive: October 2009

News Archive: October 2009

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.

THE SCOOP for October 29, 2009

• Balance sought on rising cost of gathering electronic evidence
  Denver Post - October 25, 2009
  "In many legal disputes, the smoking gun is found in e-mail, but the cost to search and retrieve electronic evidence is increasingly more than the lawsuit is worth."

• Bill That Would Block Release of Torture Photos Expected to Be Signed Into Law
  Truthout - October 22, 2009
  "Both the inclusion of the FOIA amendment in the bill as well as the administration's decision to fight the release of the photos has been disillusioning for many who hoped that Obama would usher in a change to the policies which marred the Bush presidency."

• DHS information-sharing initiative stalls due to privacy concerns
  NextGov - October 23, 2009
  "To start the flow of funding, the Homeland Security secretary must certify that the project -- designed to give intelligence and law enforcement agencies access to DHS immigration information -- complies with applicable laws, including privacy and civil liberties standards."

• The Digital Pioneer
  Wall Street Journal - October 27, 2009
  "As health-care providers gear up for a digital overhaul, they could learn important lessons from an early innovator in the field—veterans hospitals."

• Electronic medical records not seen as a cure-all
  Washington Post - October 25, 2009
  "'Health IT can be beneficial, but many current systems are clunky, counterintuitive and in some cases dangerous,' said Ross Koppel, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine who published a key study on electronic medical records in 2005."

• Labor Dept. Still Destroying Email, Group Claims
  US Government Info - October 27, 2009
  "Despite President Obama's direction for transparency in government, the Department of Labor is continuing its Bush-era practice of destroying email records of its former employees, according to the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)."

• Online Data Present A Privacy Minefield
  NPR - October 26, 2009
  "NextMark CEO Joe Pych says this information comes from us...Even medical data. Federal law prohibits doctors and hospitals from selling health records, but if people voluntarily answer questions on an online health survey, that information is fair game."

• Probe of Homeland Security privacy office sought
  Washington Post - October 27, 2009
  "In a letter sent Friday to the House Homeland Security Committee, 21 organizations and seven people belonging to the Privacy Coalition say the department's chief privacy officer has seen its role as enabling, rather than curbing, government surveillance and intelligence programs."

• Stolen fingers: The case against biometric identity theft protection
  ComputerWorld - October 27, 2009
  "If a credit card number can be stolen, then the sequence of numbers that make up a fingerprint can be stolen just as easily...[I]n the years to come, news reports about fingerprint, palm print and retinal eye scan thefts will be just as common as credit card number thefts are today."

• Trust the Cloud? Americans Say No Way
  PC World - October 24, 2009
  "Misuse of personal information has 65% of respondents very or extremely concerned, the survey says, followed closely by fear of someone stealing credit card information (cited by 64%). That's on a par with respondents' concerns about national security and fighting terrorism, which also found 64% very or extremely concerned."

• White House Seeking Comment on Information Policy
  OMB Watch - October 27, 2009
  "The White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is asking the public for ideas on ways to improve the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) – the 29-year-old law that governs federal information collection, dissemination, and management."

THE SCOOP for October 21, 2009

• Cloud-based e-mail and archives for agencies sparks security concerns
  NextGov - October 8, 2009
  "Agencies that are routing e-mail through cloud-based data centers face a potential petri dish of security hazards, according to some computer specialists. But government officials say they are achieving better system integrity, and inexpensively, by using such services."

• E-Health Records Put Patient Privacy At Risk
  InformationWeek - October 20, 2009
  "Healthcare providers aren't adequately protecting patient privacy in implementing e-health records, according to a recent survey of healthcare IT managers. Some 80% of healthcare organizations have experienced at least one incident of lost or stolen health information in the past year."

• Electronic Records Reduce Errors, Increase Safety at Lenox Hill
  Nurse.com - October 19, 2009
  "But it wasn't always that way. Their story illustrates how successful clinical decision support is more complicated than plugging in a new software system."

• ERA Receives Records from Bush Administration
  ARMA Washington Policy Brief - October 2009
  "The National Archives is well on its way to loading the electronic records of President George W. Bush into the Electronic Records Archives (ERA) system,according to Acting Archivist of the United States Adrienne Thomas. To date, more than 85% of the total volume has been ingested."

• EU puts more than 100,000 historical documents online
  BetaNews - October 19, 2009
  "While initiatives at various levels of United States government strive to put current documents and publications online for public consumption, the European Union has been keeping up with new documents and scanning its archives to boot."

• The Fallacy of Identity Theft
  Wall Street Journal - October 13, 2009
  "The real victims of fraud problem are retailers who have to absorb the 'vast majority' of the losses and fees associated with fraud, according to forthcoming data from LexisNexis Risk Solutions, which provides technology for retailers."

• Feds nix welfare data use in hiring
  Chicago Tribune - October 14, 2009
  "The data-sharing proposal...raises questions about the privacy of the personal financial information and other data that qualifies 1.2 million Indiana adults and children for food stamps, Medicaid and other welfare benefits."

• Government Can Supress Torture Evidence...If It Wants
  Atlantic - October 19, 2009
  "The finding complicates efforts by civil liberties groups to obtain information about torture through Freedom of Information Act requests, and it could mean that some detainees who bring civil suits alleging they were tortured by the hands of U.S. interrogators may have a tougher time proving as much in court."

• High court delays reviewing release of detainee abuse photos
  CNN - October 13, 2009
  "The Senate in May approved the Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act, which would limit the reach of the Freedom of Information Act. The House adopted a similar provision this month. Conferees from both chambers on Wednesday then reached a compromise to keep the photos under wraps."

• New data technology trade rules needed: Microsoft
  Reuters - October 14, 2009
  "One country may insist that e-mails be kept for a year for security purposes while another requires they be erased after six months to protect privacy."

• SaaS: The Fact, the Fiction, and the Fanatical
  Infonomics - September/October 2009
  "Definitions, dogma, and misdirected debate are confusing the issue of what software deployment option is right for your organization."

• When 2+2 Equals a Privacy Question
  New York Times - October 17, 2009
  "While Netflix and some health care concerns say they have been able to offer study data to researchers stripped of specific personal details like your name, phone number and e-mail address, in some cases researchers may be able to re-identify you by correlating anonymous information with the digital trail that you've left on blogs, chat rooms and Twitter."

THE SCOOP for October 14, 2009

• 6 Ways We Gave Up Our Privacy
  CSO Security and Risk - October 12, 2009
  "Privacy has long been seen as a basic, sacred right. But in the Web 2.0 world, where the average user is addicted to Google apps, GPS devices, their BlackBerry or iPhone, and such social networking sites as Facebook and Twitter, that right is slowly and willingly being chipped away. In fact, some security experts believe it's gone already."

• 8 ways the American information worker remains a Luddite
  ComputerWorld - October 12, 2009
  "A Forrester Research study is showing that what is a hit in Silicon Valley or among the virtual "Twitterati" has yet to be picked up by most U.S. information workers. 9 out of 10 never use social networking or videoconferencing for work..."

• Critics: National Archives lax in records management enforcement
  NextGov - October 7, 2009
  "A newly released update to 1980s rules on federal records management might not go far enough to ensure agencies safeguard electronic information, because of the National Archives' lax enforcement, said records management specialists and transparency activists."

• Effectively using cloud computing at your federal agency
  Federal News Radio - October 13, 2009
  "[Kevin Paschuck] told the Daily Debrief that there are three main benefits to using cloud computing technologies in the federal space. 'It enables cost reduction. Two, it enables a rapid modular implementation -- and then, three, is something that we call the virtual CIO.'"

• EHR System Improves Care in Rural Communities
  ARMA Washington Policy Brief - October 2009
  "The report examines how the Columbia Basin Health Association (CBHA) in Othello, Wash., uses health information technology to improve healthcare quality and patient safety, as well as promote care coordination and continuity."

• FBI delves into DMV photos in search for fugitives
  Associated Press - October 12, 2009
  "In its search for fugitives, the FBI has begun using facial-recognition technology on millions of motorists, comparing driver's license photos with pictures of convicts in a high-tech analysis of chin widths and nose sizes."

• Federal Shift to Cloud Raises Tough Issues for CIOs
  Government Technology - October 7, 2009
  "[C]loud computing is closely related to another important phenomenon taking place within government agencies: socialization. The business of government is being challenged and transformed by the emergence of social networks, with government data mashed up with external data to support service delivery."

• Move EDD Constraints to Your Advantage
  LAW.COM - October 6, 2009
  "[L]earning the intricacies of a...client's document retention policies, determining the appropriate metes and bounds of who within an... organization should be subject to a litigation 'hold' over the destruction of documents, are exercises that are complicated by the uncertain boundaries between what courts will regard as good faith compliance and what courts may regard as sanctionable conduct."

• Organizing Electronic Documents Successfully on a Shared Network Drive
  InformIT - October 6, 2009
  "Creating an electronic structure is more than just determining a file hierarchy. It also involves establishing clear guidelines of how that data should be organized, saved, and maintained."

• Probe Targets Archives' Handling of Data on 70 Million Vets
  Wired - October 1, 2009
  "The inspector general of the National Archives and Records Administration is investigating a potential data breach affecting tens of millions of records about U.S. military veterans...The issue involves a defective hard drive the agency sent back to its vendor for repair and recycling without first destroying the data."

• U.S. Intelligence Pulls Plug On Cross-Agency E-Mail System
  Information Week - October 8, 2009
  "A spokeswoman for the Directorate of National Intelligence cited security among the reasons for phasing out the uGov system, but it's unclear exactly what security issues were considered troublesome."

• VA completes first phase of daunting health records program, CIO says
  Federal Computer Week - October 8, 2009
  "The Veterans Affairs Department has completed work on the first phase of the Lifetime Virtual Electronic Record and is now preparing to put the records on a national health exchange platform, VA Chief Information Officer Roger Baker said today."

THE SCOOP for October 7, 2009

• 8 Reasons to Revisit Your ECM Strategy
  CRM - October 5, 2009
  "The convergence of developments such as mobile devices and anywhere Web connectivity is creating an incredible challenge and dramatically changing information management..."

• Electronic Evidence: Can You Lay A Foundation?
  Infonomics - September/October 2009
  "We have an evidentiary system...founded on the idea that evidence was physical and could be examined to determine its authenticity... But, we have moved into an age where it is more likely that...a document...will have been stored electronically and who can really say if it is the same after it has been stored as bits of electronic confetti...?"

• Federal Judge Rebuffs ACLU, Denies Release of CIA Interrogation Memos
  LAW.COM - October 1, 2009
  "Ninety-two videotapes of the sessions were destroyed after the American Civil Liberties Union several years ago sued in the Southern District asking Hellerstein to order their production under the Freedom of Information Act, (FOIA)."

• Federal Register goes XML -- at last
  Federal Computer Week - October 5, 2009
  "The Federal Register is now available in a format that lets readers browse, reorganize, and electronically customize the publication's daily contents, White House officials announced today."

• How to avoid an e-discovery disaster
  ComputerWorld - October 5, 2009
  "You know that feeling you get when you realize you forgot to do something important? That's how you'll feel if you overlook something during the e-discovery process when your company is involved in legal proceedings."

• The Imperative for Record-Keeping Principles
  Data Storage Today - September 29, 2009
  "Recognizing last fall that the recent economic meltdown would provoke a rush to legislation and additional regulatory oversight ... ARMA International seized the opportunity to work with legislators and other stakeholders to ensure that proven recordkeeping best practices will be incorporated in the legislation."

• Lack of eHealth standards, privacy concerns costing lives
  ComputerWorld - October 2, 2009
  "Hundreds of billions of gigabytes of health information are being collected in EMRs, and three-quarters (76%) of more than 700 health-care executives recently surveyed by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP agree that mining that information will be their organization's greatest asset over the next five years..."

• Panel to vote on data privacy measure
  NextGov - September 29, 2009
  "The House Energy and Commerce Committee is slated to vote Wednesday on legislation that would require strong security policies from firms that collect and store individuals' sensitive information and provide for nationwide notification in the event of a data breach."

• Proactive Discovery Begins With Information Management
  Metropolitan Corporate Counsel - October 4, 2009
  "You are in-house counsel at an organization and have just received a complaint filed in Federal Court. The complaint raises product liability claims, and the allegations implicate the engineering, manufacturing, marketing and sales organizations. Relevant information needs to be identified and preserved, and the clock has started ticking - what do you do?"

• Senators seek end to telecom's immunity for spying program
  ComputerWorld - September 29, 2009
  "The new legislation, supported by Sens. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, would repeal telecom immunity provisions in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act, passed by Congress in July 2008."

• Shocker: Informed Consumers Want Privacy, Not Tailored Ads
  DSL Reports - September 30, 2009
  "[A] new study from the Universities of Pennsylvania and California, Berkeley finds that once consumers are educated on the width and depth of today's online privacy practices, they overwhelmingly oppose this kind of tracking."

• What's government's role in making the Web secure?
  Associated Press - September 27, 2009
  "So far at least 18 bills have been introduced as Congress works carefully to give federal authorities the power to protect the country in the event of a massive cyberattack. Lawmakers do not want to violate personal and corporate privacy or squelching innovation. All involved acknowledge it isn't going to be easy."

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