The highest court in Germany has ruled against telephone and email data retention used to track criminal networks. Melissa Eddy of the Global and Mail reports: "A law ordering data on calls made from mobile or landline telephones and e-mail exchanges be retained for six months for possible use by criminal authorities violated Germans' constitutional right to private correspondence, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled. In its ruling, the court said the law failed to sufficiently balance the need for personal privacy against that for providing security."
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In a presentation EU Commissioner Viviane Reding gave a preview of the new Privacy regulation her DG is preparing. As she states, privacy rules need to be brought up to date and harmonized. With all 27 member states having the same rules and tools to enforce, a company only will deal with one privacy commissioner... So, what if we, for the sake of this blog, take this initiative towards spam and cyber crime. What would this do to spam enforcement? more
The 2013 NSA revelations by the American whistleblower Edward Snowden was a stern wake call for French politicians. more
The past couple of weeks have been pretty seminal for anyone concerned about the state of Internet security and the bigger picture as to how much we could - do - and should - trust the Web. These two strange words - WikiLeaks and Stuxnet - have suddenly entered our lexicon and there is a lot to be concerned about in the world of smart grid. more
As businesses adjust to the "new normal" in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to quickly take stock of where your organization stands on privacy and security risk. Even in these unusual circumstances, organizations of all sizes and sophistication continue to be expected to act with reasonable care and comply with their public commitments and regulatory obligations. Enterprises may be finding different or better ways to operate, collaborate, and service customers. more
Within a single month, privacy has moved to the top of the "to-do" list for government, business and consumers. In fact, the confluence of activity is the best indication in the last ten years that the will exists to establish regulatory and self-governance programs that complement consumer protection. Privacy is a growth market. more
As today is the Global Encryption Day, I decided to make my first post here on this topic. About two months ago, Apple caused a controversy by announcing the adoption of a measure to combat the spread of Child Sexual Abuse Materials (CSAM). The controversy was so huge that, a month after its announcement, Apple decided to postpone its plans for the new features to have more time to gather information from the various stakeholders and implement improvements before releasing the measures originally announced. more
Researchers from the University of Maryland have revealed significant privacy and security concerns related to the way Apple and Starlink geo-locate devices. Their study found that Apple's Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS) collects and publicly shares precise locations of Wi-Fi access points. more
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a new rule under the Privacy Act of 1974 in the Federal Register last week, detailing how it intends to expand the information it collects when determining a person's immigration status to include social media handles and potentially even search histories. more
In 2012 I wrote a blog on CircleID called State hacking: Do's and don'ts, pros and cons. In this post I give some thoughts to the concept of a government "hacking back" at criminals. The reason for this was an announcement by the Dutch government that it contemplated law along these lines. The proposed law is now here: the Act Computer Criminality III. more
Europe is at the forefront of the global debate about data protection and privacy. Unfortunately that debate is characterised more by hyberbole and scaremongering than real discussion. Europeans deserve better -- and so does the world, who rightly see Europe as a leader on this subject. The new Commission has a chance to truly lead in partnership with governments, like Brazil, that agree with us. more
The impact of the recently revealed US government data collection practices may go well beyond the privacy ramifications outlined in the Internet Society's statement: expect a chilling effect on global, resilient network architecture. As governments of other countries realize how much of their citizens' traffic flows through the US, whether or not it is destined for any user or service there, expect to see moves to curtail connections to and through the US. more
In case you missed it a few days, a story broke that said that Facebook was caught hiring a PR firm to spread stories about Google about how they invade people's privacy... Even though I work for Microsoft and therefore can hardly be considered unbiased, I think Microsoft would be in a position to call out others for lack of privacy protection. I say this based on the fact that in my division, every new feature that we implement has to go through Privacy reviews... more
Last year Europe imposed GDPR, arguably the world's toughest standard for data privacy and now, a year later, there has yet to be any enforcement action against a big tech firm. more
Today I released a report on 'National cyber crime and online threats reporting centres. A study into national and international cooperation'. Mitigating online threats and the subsequent enforcing of violations of laws often involves many different organisations and countries. Many countries are presently engaged in erecting national centres aimed at reporting cyber crime, spam or botnet mitigation. more
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