Day to day, our actions are being captured, and increasingly, it’s being done by surveillance cameras. This technology – like RFID tags – is being used by more organizations everyday to improve security and deter thieves. And while that’s a perfectly legitimate reason to employ cameras, organizations should also be ensuring their surveillance activities minimize the impact on people’s privacy.
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While there are certainly some novel uses for RFID technology out there (like studying the secret life of bees), RFID systems are increasingly being used for the more practical purposes of improving productivity and enhancing security.
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We know you didn’t watch the Oscars last weekend. Neither did we. And according to the latest figures from the Nielsen Company, neither did many viewers. Nielsen has been tracking the habits of TV viewers for decades now, and their research figures prominently in the business decisions made by television and advertising industry heads.
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Today, we issued a news release celebrating Data Privacy Day, an initiative of the International Association of Privacy Professionals. In that release we made the assertion that “We have seen a proliferation of identity theft and spam as well as a tripling of reported data breaches around the world last year” – based on an analysis of data breaches first reported in USA Today, and similar reporting by the Associated Press.
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As we close out 2007, we’d like to sound a note of caution for privacy rights in Canada. We are lucky to have a variety of protections for personal information and data at the territorial, provincial and federal levels. Nevertheless, the Commissioner took a moment last week to highlight some of the steps that need to be taken by individuals, corporations and the government in the face of continuing challenges:
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In Britain, the National Consumer Council and Childnet have released the results of an extensive series of surveys and interviews with children, youth and their parents. Their work sheds some light into these groups’ activities online, including participation on youth-oriented websites, how they react to advertising aimed at children and youth, and their attitudes towards privacy.
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Earlier this fall, we discussed the challenge delivered by Secretary Chertoff at the 29th International Conference: he argued that privacy rights must be balanced off against a country’s security needs.
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This week, we’ve been speaking to the mediaFootnote 1 about an incident at the Passport Office: a person using their online application form found that they could access others’ personal documents by changing one variable in the URL displayed in their browser. The Globe and Mail and Slashdot report that this was likely the result of an error in the code behind the web page – or an omission in the code.
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