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Privacy Ref
11 years ago

“There is no privacy, get over it”

I am sure you have heard this several times since Scott McNealy, Sun’s CEO, first said it back in 1999, “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it”. After 14 years it seems Americans haven’t gotten over it. A Pew Research study shows more people are concerned about the gov...
Privacy Ref
11 years ago

A visit to a new doctor raises privacy questions

Recently my wife and I have begun finding new doctors and dentists. While filling out the paperwork at each office we are being asked for our driver’s license numbers and I was not sure why.  Also, being a privacy person, I read the privacy policies at these offices and sometimes had questi...
Privacy Ref
11 years ago

“It’s only an email address!”

Facebook, Ubisoft, and Morningstar are all recent examples of data breaches that involved the unauthorized release of email addresses. In one of several conversations I have had about these events some people could not understand why others were upset about the release; after all, they are only e...
Privacy Ref
11 years ago

Leave a hair, lose some privacy

We all have seen those police dramas where a forensics specialist finds a hair at a crime scene, the DNA is extracted, and a suspect confirmed. Heather Dewey-Hagborg has taken this a bit further with her project Stranger Visions providing an insight into how that simple hair may compromise privacy.
Privacy Ref
11 years ago

Three Random Privacy Stories…after Father’s Day

Father’s Day weekend has come and gone. Being with friends and family the discussion turned to memories, the future, and privacy (thanks NSA). I wanted to share three of the more entertaining and interesting discussions with you. To quote Jack Webb, “Only the names have been changed t...
Privacy Ref
11 years ago

Privacy and the Cloud

Cloud computing provides an opportunity for businesses to lower costs and increase their computing infrastructure’s flexibility. When utilizing a cloud service provider for additional storage, computing power, or a full application you should look into the privacy implications as these are ...
Privacy Ref
11 years ago

Valuable functionality can cause a privacy breach

Last Friday it was revealed that reporters from Bloomberg News could retrieve information from the profiles of subscribers to Bloomberg’s data terminals as well as the subscribers’ system usage (NYT article here). While I agree with the characterization of this incident as a “mi...
Privacy Ref
11 years ago

Change a process, update a form

I have had to a lot of personal information requested by different businesses over the past few weeks. Some of it was for credit card payments, some for insurance, and some other legitimate purposes. It was interesting to find the number of businesses that requested unnecessary personal informati...
Privacy Ref
11 years ago

Emerging technology, privacy, and your business

Google Glass has sparked a wide ranging discussion about the product’s potential  impact on privacy. The conversations I have seen have mostly focused on the impact to the existence of privacy in our technology-dependent world, but I have seen only limited discussion on the impact to a busi...