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Privacy Tech-Know Blog: The actual privacy benefits of virtual private networks

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) let you establish a secure communications channel between your computing device and a server. After connecting to the server, you could gain access to a private network that has work files or applications, or use the server as a relay point to then access Internet content when browsing from a public network.

Children’s Privacy Sweep yields positive changes

So whatever happened with that Children’s Privacy Sweep, you ask?

Child sweepers share observations on web/mobile app privacy

From APP-laudable to dis-APP-ointing, global mobile app privacy sweep yields mixed results

Back in May, the Global Privacy Enforcement Network (GPEN) embarked upon its second annual Privacy Sweep, this time with a focus on mobile apps.

A First-Person-Sweeper Perspective

Yesterday, our Office participated in the first ever international internet privacy sweep. An initiative of the Global Privacy Enforcement Network (GPEN), the sweep is a coordinated effort among a number of data protection agencies to address a particular privacy issue. This year’s sweep assessed transparency online.

OPC Hosts International Group - Monitoring Risks and Highlighting Opportunities

Our Office is pleased to be hosting the 49th meeting of the “Berlin Group”, more formally known as the International Working Group on Data Protection in Telecommunications, which takes place today and tomorrow, in Montreal. This is the first time that this Group has met in Canada. Participants in the meeting, representing more than 20 international data protection and privacy authorities, will be focusing on privacy-related topics such as electronic payments, vehicle event data recorders and locational privacy.

Transparency, search engines and government appetite for data

There has been a long-standing debate between privacy advocates and government officials about the extent of government interest in the information transmitted across domestic and international networks. The passage of USA PATRIOT Act intensified this debate and prompted concern from a more general audience as well. Ever since, the digerati and online crowd have been whispering and wondering about the interface between search engines, particularly Google, and law enforcement and national security bodies.

Freedom Not Fear Day

On October 11, In 22 cities across Europe, citizens demonstrated to express their concerns over what they see as the increasing growth in government-created surveillance societies. October 11 was Freedom Not Fear Day, organized by the German Working Group on Data Retention.

Privacy for the next decade, not next week

Is the privacy community weakening its influence by concentrating on the incidents and obsessions of everyday life? By reacting to decisions made by individual companies, by focusing on specific technical challenges and eventually acceding to the creation of tools that both solve those technical challenges and enable the gradual erosion of our right to privacy, are we behaving shortsightedly?