The N.Y.P.D. Is Watching Certain People: Via NYTimes.com .

From 2004 through 2009, in a policy that has gotten completely out of control, New York City police officers stopped people on the street and checked them out nearly three million times, frisking and otherwise humiliating many of them.

Upward of 90 percent of the people stopped are completely innocent of any wrongdoing. And yet the New York Police Department is compounding this intolerable indignity by compiling an enormous and permanent computerized database of these encounters between innocent New Yorkers and the police.

Not only are most of the people innocent, but a vast majority are either black or Hispanic. There is no defense for this policy. It’s a gruesome, racist practice that should offend all New Yorkers, and it should cease. [ Read more ... ]

Hospital keeps secret DNA file: Via Times Online (UK).

Children’s University hospital in Temple Street is under investigation by the Data Protection Commissioner

A DUBLIN hospital has built a database containing the DNA of almost every person born in the country since 1984 without their knowledge in an apparent breach of data protection laws.

The Children’s University hospital in Temple Street is under investigation by the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) since The Sunday Times discovered it has a policy of indefinitely keeping blood samples taken to screen newborn babies for diseases.

Unknown to the DPC, the hospital has amassed 1,548,300 blood samples from “heel prick tests” on newborns which are sent to it for screening, creating, in effect, a secret national DNA database. The majority of hospitals act on implied or verbal consent and do not inform parents what happens to their child’s sample.

The blood samples are stored at room temperature on cards with information including the baby’s name, address, date of birth, hospital of birth and test result. The DPC said it was shocked at the discovery. [ Read more ... ]

Facebook's New Privacy Changes: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Via Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Five months after it first announced coming privacy changes this past summer, Facebook is finally rolling out a new set of revamped privacy settings for its 350 million users. The social networking site has rightly been criticized for its confusing privacy settings, most notably in a must-read report by the Canadian Privacy Commissioner issued in July and most recently by a Norwegian consumer protection agency. We're glad to see Facebook is attempting to respond to those privacy criticisms with these changes, which are going live this evening. Unfortunately, several of the claimed privacy "improvements" have created new and serious privacy problems for users of the popular social network service.

The new changes are intended to simplify Facebook's notoriously complex privacy settings and, in the words of today's privacy announcement to all Facebook users, "give you more control of your information." But do all of the changes really give Facebook users more control over their information? EFF took a close look at the changes to figure out which ones are for the better — and which ones are for the worse. [ Read more ... ]

Swiss privacy commissioner miffed, taking Google to court: Via Law & Disorder Section - Ars Technica.

Loved by many, Google's Street View feature remains controversial among users and consumer groups who are concerned about privacy. The latest uproar comes from Switzerland's Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC), which claims Google hasn't taken sufficient measures to protect citizens' privacy and is now threatening to take the company to federal court. [ Read more ... ]

School’s fingerprint system may breach laws: Via Irish Examiner.

A CO Limerick secondary school may be forced to drop a hi-tech fingerprint student monitoring system for breaching data protection legislation.

All 420 students at the mixed Salesian College in Pallaskenry have been fingerprinted for the new biometric system used for daily enrolment.

A fingerprint from each hand is registered on two scanners when students arrive in the morning and return after lunch. [ Read more ... ]

Overseeing Surveillance - Lessons from the UK Experience?: Via IT Law in Ireland.

In a previous post I pointed out the remarkable lack of transparency in the oversight of surveillance in Ireland. This has become all the more worrying since July when the remit of this oversight system was extended (by the Criminal Justice (Surveillance) Act 2009) beyond telephone tapping and data retention to include also the planting of covert audio bugs, video cameras and gps trackers. In effect, the Designated Judge has now been given (by ad hoc extensions of his role) oversight of most forms of surveillance - with public accountability in respect of this oversight remaining limited to a single page annual report.

Two recently published documents from the UK illustrate a better model of oversight. [ Read more ... ]

NZ Post survey not compulsory - commissioner: Via Otago Daily Times Online(New Zealand).

The Privacy Commissioner says people are under no compulsion to fill out a New Zealand Post survey called An Opportunity to Win after a number of people complained about it.

The nationwide household survey asks for detailed personal information about individuals, their families and their households.

"Some people contacting us are confused about whether they must complete the survey because it comes from New Zealand Post," said Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff.

People were under no compulsion to fill in the survey, or could choose to complete it in part, she said.

"The important thing is for people to be clear about the commercial purposes of the survey, which is to collect their personal details and preferences." [ Read more ... ]

Privacy Commissioner Criticizes Canadian DMCA - Via Slashdot: Your Rights Online:

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Jennifer Stoddart, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, has criticized the proposed Canadian DMCA in a public letter to Jim Prentice, the Canadian Minister of Industry. [ Read more ... ]

TheStar.com - Business - Privacy report a major disappointment: "The Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics issued its much-anticipated report on the reform of Canada's private sector privacy law earlier this month. Despite hearing from 67 witnesses, the committee followed the lead of Industry Minister Maxime Bernier and Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart - neither of whom argued forcefully for reform - by issuing a tepid report that rejects the changes that many privacy advocates believe are necessary to improve the effectiveness of the current legal framework.

Instead, the final report, which includes separate dissenting opinions from the Conservative and Bloc Quebecois Members of Parliament, features 25 recommendations that at best represent little more than tinkering with the law and at worst undermine privacy protections in several key areas, most notably the use of privacy law to counter the mounting spam problem. [ Read more ... ]

Tougher reporting needed for identity theft, MPs say: "OTTAWA -- Companies may soon be forced to tell Canadians when their personal information is lost or stolen by identity thieves under recommendations released Wednesday by a parliamentary committee seeking to beef up federal privacy laws.

Companies that suffer a security breach should be required to inform the federal privacy commissioner, who will then decide whether the loss is serious enough to inform affected individuals, said the report by MPs on the privacy and ethics committee. [ Read more ... ]

Ireland pounces on school fingerprinters: "

Issues guidance

The Irish Information Commissioner's Office has come down on the notion of school fingerprinting and taken early action to prevent the technology being deployed arbitrarily.…

"

(Via The Register - Security.)