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...

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...

Fingerprints, privacy notice, and theme parks

My wife and I recently visited a major theme park and were surprised that our fingerprints were requested when we entered. While I understand the good business reason the fingerprints were requested, I remain dumbfounded why I could not find a privacy notice that disclosed how the information was...

Privacy observations while waiting for a memory upgrade

Deciding I needed a memory upgrade for my laptop, I went to the nearest Best Buy on the advice of another retailer. Things got a little complicated allowing me to spend about two and a half hours in the store. This gave me a chance  me to see how this particular Geek Squad protected privacy. My [...

SMB privacy: no free pass

Like larger enterprises, small and medium businesses (SMBs) collect personal information about their customers, employees, vendors and other stakeholders; it is just part of doing business. Establishing an SMB privacy program would be very beneficial for these businesses, but for the majority of ...

Personal Information From Above

As a child growing up in New York City I always wanted to go to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. The floats, the balloons, the clowns, the celebrities, the marching bands, the scraps of personal information….wait…personal information?

Two reactions from customers to a data breach

TD Bank has notified their customers of a data breach through the  loss of a backup tape. Initial reports have said that the tapes contain  the account information and Social Security numbers of more than 267,000 customers on the US East Coast. The tape was not encrypted so, while the bank is una...

Your staff needs to be “privacy aware”

When it is all said and done, no matter what policies you put in place, no mater what procedures you define, no matter what documentation has been written to support your privacy program, it is worthless unless your organization’s staff is knows that these tools exist making them “pri...

Facial recognition, familiarity, and the creepiness factor

Several weeks ago there were a number of articles on  British Airways googling their VIP passengers before boarding a flight. This practice allowed BA to step up their  level of customer service including recognizing these people by name as they arrived. BA could also gather all sorts of personal...