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Information Week reports that the beta version of Google’s personal search tool is raising significant privacy concerns among privacy advocates. No one is a bigger fan of Google as a whole and I have defended Google’s privacy practices in the past. But not this time. The lack of privacy protection in their Google Personal Search Tracker is inexcusable.
IBM has contracted with UAE CERT Telematics, the “leading technology and research organization of the United Arab Emirates” (according to their site), to develop and deploy over 100,000 automobile-monitoring systems in the next four years. The devices, according to this article at GeekCoffee, “would be installed in cars to provide a voice warning if the driver exceeds the local speed limit for wherever he may be driving. If the voice warning is ignored, the system would use a GSM/GPRS link to beam the car’s speed, identity and location to the police so that a ticket could be issued.”
There is no announcement yet as to whether these devices will be mandatory, or who will be selected for having to install the devices in their vehicles. Read the rest of this entry »
Network World Fusion reports that a “medical group” in San Jose California experienced a burglary in their offices in the middle of the night. Two laptops were stolen containing personal information for 185,000 patients. The patient information included social security numbers. Thanks to the California law known as SB1386, these news stories are becoming more and more common because it requires that organizations make a good faith effort at notifying people affected by identity theft.
According to the Associated Press, a thief recently stole a laptop from the University of California at Berkeley, which contains personal information about nearly 100,000 alumni, graduate students and past applicants. Information contained on the laptop includes names and Social Security numbers dating back to 1976.
Recently there were several similar security breaches reported involving loss of a large amount of personal data, including ChoicePoint Inc., a consumer data firm duped into distributing personal information about 145,000 people; Lexis-Nexis, where computer hackers obtained access to the personal information of 32,000 people; and Chico State University, where a computer hacking job exposed 59,000 people to potential identity theft.