local6.com - Controversial Police Database Lists 'Future Criminals'. Names, Addresses Of Potential Suspects Listed

WILMINGTON, Del. -- Defense lawyers and the American Civil Liberties Union are up in arms over a police file of potential criminals in Delaware.

The database contains a list of people who police believe are likely to break the law. It features names, addresses and photographs of potential suspects -- many of whom have clean slates.

Slashdot | Your Rights Online - Police Database Lists 'Future Criminals'.

Rio writes: "A Local6.com article tells us about a database that contains a list of people who police believe are likely to break the law. It features names, addresses and photographs of potential suspects --many of whom have clean slates. Since the system was introduced in Wilmington in June, most of the 200 people included in the file have been minorities from poor, high-crime neighborhoods."

This was also discussed in todays 'Talk Back Live' on CNN.

New York State Department of Law (Press Release) - Major Online Advertiser Agrees To Privacy Standards For Online Tracking. Company to Increase Visibility and Verify Data Collection Practices

Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced today a settlement with the nation's leading Internet advertising service that sets a new standard for consumers' online privacy. Under its agreement with New York and the other states, Manhattan-based DoubleClick Inc. will use its clients' privacy policies to make its tracking activities more visible and will give consumers access to their online profiles. Terms of the settlement include provisions requiring DoubleClick to provide independent verification of its compliance with the agreement and to pay the states $450,000 for investigative costs and consumer education.

"It's hard for consumers to trust e-commerce when they can't see the practices behind the promises," Spitzer said. "Consumers need reliable privacy verification--either first-hand, or through an independent and publicized review. DoubleClick is to be commended for its cooperation in setting an industry standard for promoting consumer privacy in the data collection and tracking taking place across networked websites."

Thanks to Danny for pointing this one out.

KoreaTimes : 40 Pct of Workers Report Internet Surveillance.

Four out of every 10 employees are concerned about employers' monitoring of their private use of the Internet usage during office hours. About 68.2 percent of respondents claimed that bosses are infringing upon their privacy by tracking the e-mail they exchange.

In an online survey of 37,660 employees, leading Korean Internet portal Daum Communications found that 40.3 percent of respondents are subjected to electronic surveillance when using chatting programs and sending e-mails.

[ ... ]

About 8.7 percent of respondents reported having their access to the Internet confined to specified sites authorized by the company. Another 7.6 percent complained their companies trace the websites they visit through a log file analysis, and 4.1 percent reported that their employers actually check the content of e-mail exchanged at work.

About 45.5 percent reported no restrictions on use of their Internet in the workplace.

NPR  - Online Health Records Raise Privacy Concerns

This link is an indirect one via Moreover.com The content is probably audio and will require RealAudio to listen.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Privacy deal over net names.

The overseers of the .uk net domain are delaying changes to the list of who owns which site to head off worries over privacy.

Nominet, which looks after the .uk domain, was proposing to provide comprehensive contact details to anyone searching for the owner of a .uk domain.

But the proposal met fierce criticism from parents and other groups worried that their privacy would be at risk if the changes went ahead.

Now Nominet is proposing a compromise that it hopes will calm the fears of domain owners.

[ ... ]

Nominet is now proposing a compromise that will return detailed information for companies, but will let individuals nominate a net service provider as their point of contact.

Lesley Cowley, Nominet Managing Director, said it had resisted pressure from people keen to keep the situation unchanged and those that wanted to see full disclosure for all .uk domains.

CNET NEWS.COM By Declan McCullagh - Internet privacy loses a voice in D.C..

WASHINGTON--Georgia Rep. Bob Barr is an irascible conservative, an unyielding foe of abortion, gay marriage, and any drug more potent than nicotine. A floor manager during Bill Clinton's impeachment, Barr had lobbied for the president's ouster long before anyone knew of an intern's unfortunate affections inside the Oval Office.

Yet even Naderites should recognize that Barr's defeat in Georgia's Republican primary last week removes the fiercest champion of privacy in the U.S. House of Representatives, and his electoral loss will be a gain for the surveillance state.

As a member of the influential House Judiciary Committee, which oversees criminal laws, Barr has been in a unique position to advance privacy-friendly proposals while thwarting his opponents' more heinous schemes. Barr tried to limit government snooping on Americans' bank accounts (it failed, in a 129-299 vote), successfully campaigned for more oversight of the FBI's Carnivore monitoring system, and opposed a plan to let police obtain customer records from Internet providers and telephone companies without search warrants.

In 1999, Barr, a former CIA analyst, pressed for hearings to investigate the extent of the National Security Agency's shadowy Echelon surveillance network. "If Congress doesn't exercise regular as well as periodic oversight, then agencies are going to get away with as much as they can," he told me at the time.

[ ... ]

Barr says he's not giving up the privacy fight. "It's an issue that has been very close to my heart during the entire time that I've been in the Congress," Barr said last Friday. "A lot of it stems from the fact that I've been a prosecutor and I've been at the CIA and I know from prior public service just how powerful government is. It's given me a very healthy skepticism of giving government more and more power."

Barr is an unusual political phenomenon: An unapologetic Republican--boasting a 100 percent voting rating from the Christian Coalition and a zero percent rating from the League of Conservation Voters--who frequently allies with left-leaning groups on privacy topics. The American Civil Liberties Union applauds his approach to privacy, and even the liberal diehards at People for the American Way say they agree with Barr on the invasive nature of "legislation proposed and passed since September 11."

[ ... ]

Libertarians may applaud Barr's suspicion of government eavesdropping, his support of low taxes, and his vigorous defense of Second Amendment rights. But that's about it.

Privacy News from Wired News - There's No Place to Hide.

The next word in security is a system so thorough that it will reveal even the contents of a cigarette pack hidden in your coat pocket.

Developed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the scanner uses holographic imaging technology to provide full-body, 360-degree coverage of a person in near real time. Unlike the technology displayed in Schwarzenegger's sci-fi thriller Total Recall and most of today's scanning devices, this 3-D Body Holo Scanner doesn't use X-rays to obtain its comprehensive images.

[ ... ]

The information is sent to a high-speed, image-processing computer that produces a high-resolution, 3-D image from the signals. An operator then screens for suspicious materials. Because it "sees through" clothing to detect potential threats, it raises some privacy concerns.

"Privacy has been one of the issues that has prevented this from being placed in airports until now," said Greg Koller, PNNL's media manager. "However, engineers understood the concern expressed by some on privacy and have worked to reprogram the system so that the concealed objects could be placed on a genderless wireframe mannequin or a human silhouette, giving the operator a view of only concealed items and not the person's image."

SafeView expects the privacy concern to be easily resolved before commercial distribution.

Business News from Wired News - Tech Keeps Tabs on School Kids.

To stay vigilant, parents and school administrators are increasingly relying on an arsenal of gadgets that will watch, track and, in a worst-case scenario, identify the remains of their charges.

Before little Suzy skips out the door swinging her Powerpuff Girls lunchbox, her parents can lock a Wherify GPS-enabled bracelet on her wrist that works like a personal LoJack, pinpointing her exact location as she walks to class. If she's tardy, her parents can jump on the Internet and check her coordinates using aerial or street maps. And if she runs into a strange man asking for help finding a lost kitty, she can press two buttons on the bulky device to dial 911. The bracelet also notifies the cops if someone tries to forcefully remove it.

[ ... ]

Once Suzy traipses safely through the doors of Hometown Elementary School, she hands her lunchbox to an attendant and steps through a metal detector to make sure she's not packing heat next to the peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

As she jostles her way through crammed corridors to her homeroom, she is followed by a maze of pivoting cameras made by Axis Communications that beam her image over the Internet to the principal's Palm Pilot or the database of an outside security firm.

New York Times - free registration required Tracking Bay Area Traffic Creates Concern for Privacy.

Drivers who use electronic passes to pay bridge tolls in the San Francisco Bay area will soon find themselves participating in a broad government traffic-watch program, with highway officials tracking their movements throughout the region to gather data on delays and driving times

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission is to begin installing about 150 roadside transponders in November for a network that will eventually cover 500 miles of freeway. Philip E. Agre, an expert on electronic surveillance, said he believed it was the first routine government use of the technology for any purpose other than collecting tolls.

While privacy advocates have said they are wary of the new system, commission officials insisted that it had many safeguards to ensure the anonymity of drivers and that it would never become a tool of law enforcement or other prying eyes.

[ ... ]

While several privacy experts praised the initial design of the system as considerate of the privacy of drivers, they said they worried that it could be altered later.

Jayashri Srikantiah, a staff lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union here, said: "In this environment, we're very concerned that a system, which initially installed has some checks for anonymity, would be expanded so that it is used to surveil innocent motorists. All it takes is a small tweak in the system."

Beth Givens, founder and director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, an advocacy group in San Diego, said her initial hostility had been dimmed by the way the system planned to encrypt information and to purge it daily. "Given those two things, it's hard for me to be quite so negative," Ms. Givens said. But, she cautioned, "They can always change their policy."

Toll collection records have been used by the police in the New York area, Massachusetts and Florida. But tracking devices only on toll highways or at bridges and tunnels offer more limited surveillance than the Bay Area system would without privacy safeguards.

[ ... ]

He added: "It's hard for me to sit here and prove a negative -- that I'm not going to do what I say I am not going to do. We're not going to change the policies. We're not going to comply with the California Highway Patrol if for some reason they ask us to change the policies."

But if such assurances are not enough, he offers one more protection. All FasTrak users will be sent a simple device to keep the transponders from tracking their car: a Mylar bag.

A driver can put his FasTrak pass into the bag, and the transponders will never know it is there.