Elaine Edwards reports: A code of practice that would have forced organisations to report cases where personal data was stolen or compromised cannot be enforced because it was not put before the Oireachtas prior to the dissolution of the last Dáil. Data Protection Commissioner Billy Hawkes approved the code last year to help organisations to…
Author: Dissent
EPIC Files Amicus Brief on Risk of "Reidentification," Urges US Supreme Court to Uphold Vermont Privacy Law
From EPIC.org: EPIC has filed an amicus brief in Sorrell v. IMS Health, a case now before the US Supreme Court concerning a state privacy law that seeks to regulate datamining of prescription records for commercial purposes. Datamining companies have challenged the Vermont law, arguing that it violates the First Amendment and also that there…
GOP War on Women: If You Have Sex, Republicans Want to Pry In Your Private Parts
Amanda Marcotte writes: With a recent surge in unprecedented attacks on reproductive rights—federal assaults on women’s right to use private funding for abortion and the House attempting to defund Planned Parenthood—it certainly seems like it’s high season for misogyny. In the woman-hating clamor, one story has risen to the top: a Georgia state legislator (Republican,…
Arrest made in South Florida ID theft case
Lisa J. Huriash reports that 400 Oakland Park and Delray Beach firefighters and police are watching their accounts after 31 of their own of them learned that their identity information was used in a tax refund fraud scheme. Both towns use the same retirement plan administrator, raising the possibility of a common point of a…
AU: Project risks medical record privacy, expert warns
Karen Dearne reports: Health bureaucrats risk exposing patient medical information by starting e-health projects before key decisions on security, consent, technical controls and regulatory oversight are made. And Australian Privacy Foundation chair Roger Clarke has attacked the National E-Health Transition Authority and federal Health officials for cutting consumers out of the design process for the…
UK: Forced sterilisation case heard in public
Clare Jaycock writes: On 15 February 2011 Hedley J ordered that a case proceeding in the Court of Protection which featured medical information of the highest sensitivity should be held in open court. The Court of Protection normally hears such cases in private. The case concerned a young woman aged 21 with severe learning difficulties…