privacy

Justice Department bends on (some) e-mail privacy fixes

The Obama administration has dropped its insistence that police should be able to warrantlessly peruse Americans' e-mail correspondence.

But at the same time, the Justice Department is advancing new proposals that would expand government surveillance powers over e-mail messages, Twitter direct messages, and Facebook direct messages in other ways.

It's a development that will complicate the political wrangling over Americans' electronic privacy rights, which are in large part protected by a 1986 privacy law written in the pre-Internet days of the black-and-white Macintosh Plus and dial-up computer bulletin board systems.

"It's like two steps forward and two … Read more

Google reaches $7 million settlement with states over Street View case

The long-running Google Street View privacy case was settled today, as the company reached an agreement with 37 states and the District of Columbia to stop unauthorized data collection and train its employees on privacy issues.

Google will also pay a $7 million fine to the states involved. The company will also launch a nationwide consumer education campaign, according to the settlement.

The settlement concerns Google's collection of data from unsecured wireless networks nationwide between 2008 and 2010 as part of its Street View mapping service. Google improperly collected and stored information from consumers including email and text messages, … Read more

Google nearing settlement on Street View case, reports say

Google could announce a settlement in the long-running Street View privacy case as early as next week, according to new reports.

Bloomberg said the search giant had agreed to pay about $7 million to settle allegations that it improperly collected personal data using Street View between 2007 and 2010. Attorneys general representing 30 states have sued over the program, which the Federal Communications Commission found to have improperly collected sensitive data including e-mail, text messages, passwords, and Web history.

The parties have reached an agreement in principle, according to Bloomberg. A spokesperson told AllThingsD: "We work hard to get … Read more

Judge: We can't rely on what Apple tells court in privacy suit

Apple must detail for a court what it's doing to produce documents in a privacy suit, a judge ruled, saying he has already "refereed" this particular dispute and that he can no longer believe what the company tells him.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal issued the order March 6 after the plaintiffs in the case accused Apple of withholding documents it had been ordered to turn over. He noted that while the plaintiffs "presented to the court little more than suspicions that Apple has withheld responsive documents," Apple provided enough evidence on its … Read more

EU feeling pressure to tweak data, privacy legislation

Just over a year after the European Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding lifted the lid on plans to reform the data protection and privacy laws in the region, Brussels is facing its greatest challenge yet by no other than its own member states.

The Commission may "water down" proposals after a group of EU member states said they were heavily opposed to a number of proposed measures, according to the Financial Times of London. These include measures that could see EU-based firms fined up to 2 percent of a company's global revenue for data breaches.

Due to an … Read more

Police would need warrants for e-mail, phone tracking, bill says

The FBI and other police agencies would be required to obtain search warrants before reading Americans' e-mail or tracking their mobile devices under a bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives today.

It's not a new proposal: Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat whose district includes the heart of Silicon Valley, announced almost exactly the same measure last fall. But because the clock ran out without Congress acting, she's trying a second time.

"Fourth Amendment protections don't stop at the Internet," Lofgren said in a statement today. "Americans expect Constitutional protections to extend … Read more

PasswordBox lets you keep all of your online log-ins in one place

PasswordBox keeps all of your online passwords in one convenient location accessible from any computer. This application is slowly becoming a preferred tool around the office known for decreasing log-in time increasing time spent on Facebook and Tumblr.

The installation file will you set you up with the PasswordBox add-ons for popular browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and IE. It runs from within the browser environment and works the same way across the board. PasswordBox is still in beta, and the setup is one way to make an account.

Essentially a vault for all of your online passwords, PasswordBox … Read more

DHS built domestic surveillance tech into Predator drones

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has customized its Predator drones, originally built for overseas military operations, to carry out at-home surveillance tasks that have civil libertarians worried: identifying civilians carrying guns and tracking their cell phones, government documents show.

The documents provide more details about the surveillance capabilities of the department's unmanned Predator B drones, which are primarily used to patrol the United States' northern and southern borders but have been pressed into service on behalf of a growing number of law enforcement agencies including the FBI, the Secret Service, the Texas Rangers, and local police. … Read more

Police chief suspended for Facebook pic with gun-toting woman

As a society, we have become used to difficult, inappropriate, and embarrassing pictures being uploaded to Facebook.

No, it hasn't yet stopped us from marveling, musing, and laughing at their content.

But we've become more understanding about humans' urges to display themselves being greater than their capacity to think through the consequences of such a display.

Still, we should reserve our judgment about an image posted to Facebook that featured Tom Keller, the police chief of Confluence, Penn.

It is impossible to know precisely what confluence of events led to this picture appearing on his Facebook page.

What'… Read more

Google's European conundrum: When does privacy mean censorship?

How Google and other American Internet companies operate in Europe could come down to a link that, depending on what side of the Atlantic Ocean you're on, should or should not be deleted.

A case heard Tuesday before the European Court of Justice (ECJ) hinges on a complaint submitted by a Spanish citizen who searched Google for his name and found a news article from several years earlier, saying his property would be auctioned because of failed payments to his social security contributions.

Spanish authorities argued that Google, other search engines, and other Web companies operating in Spain should … Read more