Thank you for your interest! Please check back in a few months to see the survey results.

Previous survey results can be found in the following publications:

Earp, J.B.; Antón, A.I.; Aiman-Smith, L.; Stufflebeam, W.H., “Examining Internet privacy policies within the context of user privacy values,” IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, vol.52, no.2, pp. 227-237, May 2005

Carlos Jensen, Colin Potts, Christian Jensen, “Privacy practices of internet users: Self-reports versus observed behavior,” International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, vol. 63, no. 1-2, pp. 203–227, 2005.

Vail, M. W.; Earp, J. B.; Antón, A. I., “An Empirical Study of Consumer Perceptions and Comprehension of Web Site Privacy Policies,” IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, vol.55, no.3, pp.442-454, Aug. 2008

As a way of saying thank you for taking the time to complete our survey, we are also offering the chance to enter a drawing for one of two $50 Amazon gift certificates.

The URL is: http://www.theprivacyplace.org/current-survey/

The results will be posted on ThePrivacyPlace.org later in 2008.

The scan does not make a record of a person’s fingerprints. Guests place their index and middle fingers on the scanner and the system recognizes certain characteristics such as finger thickness and length. A number is assigned based on these measurements, and this number is stored in the system for future comparisons. Injuries to the index and/or middle fingers can cause the system to falsely reject a guest’s profile, as can more mundane changes such as the presence of a ring that was not worn during the initial scan. AllEarsNet, an unofficial Walt Disney World guide, has an online FAQ about the scan. At present, the system is only being used in Walt Disney World, and not in Disneyland in California or any of Disney’s international theme parks. Universal Studios Orlando and SeaWorld are said to be planning to introduce similar verification systems in the future.

Larry Spalding of the American Civil Liberties Union was quoted as saying that while the Disney system, known as Ticket Tag, had been brought to the ACLU’s attention, no one had yet filed a complaint. Spalding expressed concern about the system, saying “Slowly but surely we’re just giving away our right of privacy, and the question is what are we getting in return?” Even if the records aren’t kept and can’t be matched to other biometric identifiers such as fingerprints, it still seems a bit disconcerting. As Civil Liberties Union spokesman George Crossley said, “I think it is a step toward collection of personal information on people regardless of what Disney says.”

Slashdot discussion here.

But did they really? When you dig several paragraphs deeper into the story the picture becomes much more ambiguous than the headline would lead you to believe.

A woman, known as “Elisa” and “Diva of the Disgruntled” on her weblog had been terminated from her job as a web coordinator at Kaiser. Some time later, she claimed that Kaiser had posted a series of system schematics for Electronic Medical Records (EMR) project on a publicly accessible web site as well as personal patient information for about 140 people. She filed a complaint with the Office Of Civil Rights on the grounds that it is a violation of HIPAA regulations. She apparently made no attempt to notify Kaiser directly. A Kaiser spokesman said that the company learned of the incident when the Office of Civil Rights began an investigation.

The parts of the story regarding posting of the EMR project schematics doesn’t seem to be in dispute. Elisa found the web site URL with the schematics when she googled the name of her former manager. She made these URLs publc on her web log. A Kaiser spokesman admitted that the schematics had been put on the web site in order to share them with remote IT people. It’s unclear that the project schematics themselves were particularly sensistive, though they have since been put behind a password protected site.

Now, if that had been all there was to this story it wouldn’t have been such a big deal. But what about the patient data for those 140 individuals? Elisa didn’t provide a URL on the Kaiser site where that information had been posted. She only posted the URL to where the schematcs were located. So as far as can be determined by the information in the Computerworld article, Elisa doesn’t seem to have produced any forensic evidence that Kaiser accidently exposed the information on their public web site.

What is known to have happened is that Elisa posted the real patient information on her web log. So it’s clear that she had possession of the patient information, but it’s not at all clear that she obtained that information from the Kaiser public web site. Kaiser got the web log ISP to remove the information and had to do so at least twice because Elisa reposted the information. She claims that she had intended to remove the information once the Office of Civil Rights had investigated. Of course she could have supplied the information directly to the consumers and she could have refrained from posting patient medical ecords to her publc web log.

The Kaiser spokesman said that Kaiser has notified the affected patients and is continuing to investigate how Elisa came into possession of the data.

Now, read the headline again:
Kaiser Permanente patient data exposed online

Ask yourself, does this headline accurately reflect the story? I don’t think so. The only evidence of an exposure is for the IT system schematics and it’s not at all clear that these are particularly sensitive, especially from a HIPAA point of view. Perhaps a more accurate headline should have been:

Former Kaiser Employee Posts Kaiser Patient Data To Weblog

There is no dispute about the fact that Elisa did this. But there is no evidence (at least none mentioned in the article) that Elisa obtained this information through an accidental disclosure on the Kaiser web site.

My point is not to disparage Linda Rosencrance or ComputerWorld for a misleading headline. My point is that Elisa had access to patient data somehow. Maybe she got it from the Kaiser public website as she claims. Maybe she somehow got access to the data while she was still employeed. Maybe she received it from an insider who still works for Kaiser. The fact of the matter is that it doesn’t matter to Kaiser how Elisa obtained the patient data. It’s still a publicity nightmare.

The question is, how can this be prevented? This is the heart of good data stewardship and good data governance. As far as I can see, there’s no way to prevent this except to treat the operating environment of the business inside the firewall as an untrusted environment. Everytime sensitive information is seen by eyeballs, everytime it’s written to any media as clear text, there’s a potential for this kind of incident, which I expect is keeping a lot of CSO-types awake at night.

This case involved an employer installing a physical device between his secretary’s computer and keyboard that monitored and recorded what she typed.

Privacy advocates have argued that since keystroke logging facilitates covertly monitoring and recording information and conversations, cases should be prosecuted using the same laws that protect the public from telephone wiretaps. However, the wiretap laws offer very specific protection. In this case the best the prosecution could offer was that the computer being monitored was used to compose emails. Email can be protected under the wiretap laws but only as they travel over data networks. After they are stored, snooping is not protected under wiretap laws.

More information on this story can be found at SecurityFocus.com and more on keystroke loggers can be found at Wikipedia.org

Current Louisiana treasurer, John Kennedy’s web site says, “We will not sell personal information provided through this Web site to unrelated third-parties.” Many people raised questions as to who are these “unrelated third parties?” The privacy policy on that website definitely needs to be updated. For more information please read: Louisiana Elections and Politics: Campaigns, e-mail and privacy

Previously, all know phishing scams required the user to buy into the original fraudulent email and click on a link and then type in their information. However, a phishing scam that doesn’t require anything from a user other than opening an email has emerged. The email triggers a script that compromises the users computer so that the next time they attempt visit certain online banking sites they are re-directed to imposter websites that steal their personal information.

Fortunately, this attack only targets insecurely configured or out-of-date versions of Microsoft’s Outlook email program, but more sophisticated attacks are likely on the way. This is another example of why you need to keep your software up-to-date as well as consider unique vulnerabilities your particular email client or web browser may have. Personally, I would avoid Microsoft Outlook as well as Internet Explorer in favor of alternatives like Thunderbird and Firefox from mozilla.org.

Read more about this attack at silicon.com.

Enforcement measures like these are encouraging, and should help to deter identity theft, but the sheer magnitude of information thieves can steal emphasizes the need to keep a close watch on information you want to keep private.

Read more at C|Net.

RFID stands for Radio Frequency Identification, and the technology is being deployed in small tags that can be attached to everything from articles of clothing to tires on your car. These tags can then be used to track movement, location, etc. of the items to which they are attached, which obviously raises many privacy issues to be considered as this technology gets deployed into widespread use.

Dean McCullagh wrote a good article called RFID tage: Big Brother in small packages which explains the technology in a fair amount of detail. There’s also a lot of information available just by searching Google for “RFID tags”.

These things, like many technologies, have the possibility of being extremely useful or extremely creepy, depending on the uses that they are put to. They have already been made as small as half the size of a grain of sand and can be attached to almost anything.

In the case of the Japanese school, the technology may turn out to be a great help to the administration in keeping track of students, preventing unauthorized activities, etc. We may see similar systems deployed in the workplace for employee tracking, in place of time clocks, etc.

But what happens when every item of clothing, every posession that you are carrying with you begins interacting with transmitters in the stores you walk by. They know your preferences, your previous purchases, maybe they’re even predicting the kind of mood you’re in at the moment (by the comfort food you’re holding, etc.) The whole thing has the possibility of becoming very much like the eye scanning depicted in the movie Minority Report.

It’s important to consider the privacy implications of any new technology, and this just happens to be one we should be watching closely.