Privacy Versus Security

Bambauer, Derek E. "Privacy Versus Security." Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, forthcoming. 

From the report: "Legal scholarship tends to conflate privacy and security. However, security and privacy can, and should, be treated as distinct concerns. Privacy discourse involves difficult normative decisions about competing claims to legitimate access to, use of, and alteration of information. It is about selecting among different philosophies, and choosing how various rights and entitlements ought to be ordered. Security implements those choices – it intermediates between information and privacy selections. This Article argues separating privacy from security has important practical consequences. Security failings should be penalized more readily, and more heavily, than privacy ones, because there are no competing moral claims to resolve, and because security flaws make all parties worse off. Currently, security flaws are penalized too rarely, and privacy ones too readily. The Article closes with a set of policy questions highlighted by the privacy versus security distinction that deserve further research." Read more

Twitter Gives Up User Data to Feds 69% of the Time

Miners, Zach. "Twitter Gives Up User Data to Feds 69% of the Time." Computer World, January 28, 2013. 

From the article: "Twitter has released new numbers showing that the social network complied with government data requests 69% of the time in the U.S., as government requests for user information worldwide continue to rise.

The total number of information requests increased to 1,009 during the second half of 2012, up from 849 during the first half of the year, according to Twitter's transparency report. Government requests for content removal also increased to 42 from just six." Read more

Finding the Best of the Imperfect Alternatives for Privacy, Health IT, and Cybersecurity

Swire, Peter P. "Finding the Best of the Imperfect Alternatives for Privacy, Health IT, and Cybersecurity." Ohio State Public Law Working Paper No. 178, December 10, 2012. 

From the report: "This article is part of a Wisconsin Law Review symposium in honor of the work of Neil Komesar, and particularly his book “Imperfect Alternatives: Choosing Institutions in Law, Economics, and Public Policy.” I used this as the main text in 2003 for one of the first law school courses on “The Law of Cybersecurity,” even though the book doesn’t even mention cybersecurity. The reason was that it was the best single vehicle I had found to prepare students to think critically about comparative institutional analysis, such as how to create institutions that better foster cybersecurity." Read more

Internet Censorship Circumvention Technology Use in Human Rights Organizations: An Exploratory Analysis

Maitland, Carleen, Thomas, Herschel F. and Louis-Marie Ngamassi Tchouakeu. "Internet Censorship Circumvention Technology Use in Human Rights Organizations: An Exploratory Analysis." Journal of Information Technology 4 (2012): 285-300.

From the report: "Using an organizational informatics approach, this study explores the implications of human rights organizations’ use of censorship circumvention technologies. Through qualitative analyses of data collected through in-depth interviews, the research examines the factors influencing the use of circumvention technologies and the organizational effects of their use. The outcomes include a revised model of censorship circumvention technology use as well as a new model situating human rights organizations and their audiences in bidirectional information flows. The research provides recommendations for practice as well as insight for organizational informatics and information systems security research in the areas of protective technologies, awareness, detection, and physical security." Read more

Increasing Control Over Release of Information Leads People To Divulge More Online, Carnegie Mellon Researchers Find

"Increasing Control Over Release of Information Leads People To Divulge More Online, Carnegie Mellon Researchers Find." Carnegie Mellon University, November 26, 2012.

From the press release: "When perceiving they have more control over their personal information, people increase their willingness to disclose sensitive information that allows them to be personally identified, according to a study done by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University. 

The study investigated how people respond when given control over their personal information, allowing them to choose how much to reveal about themselves. CMU researchers Laura Brandimarte, Alessandro Acquisti and George Loewenstein found that users given more privacy controls share more sensitive information with larger, and possibly riskier, audiences." Read more

See also

Brandimarte, Laura, Acquisti, Alessandro, and George Lowenstein. "Misplaced Confidences: Privacy and the Control Paradox." Social Psychological and Personality Science, August 9, 2012.

Trust And Information Sharing Key In Tight Fiscal Times

Kenyon, Henry. "Trust And Information Sharing Key In Tight Fiscal Times." AOL Government, November 29, 2012. 

From the article: "Secure information sharing is another important and complex issue for federal agencies, he said. There is often a tension between local islands of network use and the enterprise, Wennergren said. He describes these issues as a "polarity" about information sharing between the different professional communities in an organization. Instead of viewing the situation as one about information security, he prefers to call it a "secure relationship."

The challenge is that many government agencies polarize themselves because they see many technology issues as a single problem, rather than a conflict between different mission needs within the organization, he said." Read more

Teens and Venture Investors Demand Online Safety and Privacy

Kolodny, Lora. "Teens and Venture Investors Demand Online Safety and Privacy." Wall Street Journal, November 14, 2012.

From the article: A new study from the Family Online Safety Institute, a nonprofit on a mission to “make the online world safe for kids and families,” found that teens are not only more connected than ever, increasingly using mobile devices and social networks, but they understand privacy and safety issues in a way that previous generations didn’t.

In addition, FOSI and venture investors say they are focused on ensuring that entrepreneurs consider safety and privacy issues and plan for them from the start when developing a business.  Read more

See also

Hart Research Associates. The Online Generation Gap: Contrasting Attitudes and Behaviors of Parents and Teens, prepared for The Family Online Safety Institute, November 14, 2012.

MasterCard Mines Purchase Data For Analytics

Davis, Wendy. "MasterCard Mines Purchase Data For Analytics." MediaPost, October 17, 2012.

From the article: "Credit card giant MasterCard has rolled out a new analytics offering that draws on purchase data to predict buying patterns. The company is offering that analysis to BlueKai, which can make it available to ad networks through its platform.

For the initiative, MasterCard is mining data from 34 billion annual transactions. The company then sifts through aggregated, anonymous data to figure out how that activity can predict people's propensity to make certain kinds of future purchases -- such as meals in restaurants." Read more

EU data chiefs ask Google to change privacy policy

Davenport, Claire and Leila Abboud. "EU Data Chiefs Ask Google to Change Privacy Policy." Reuters, October 15, 2012.

From the article: "European Union regulators want Google to make changes to its new privacy policy to protect the rights of its users, the EU's national data protection regulators said in a letter to the U.S. internet company… The letter, which stopped short of declaring Google's approach to collecting user data illegal, follows an investigation led by France's Commission Nationale de l'Informatique (CNIL) that began in February.

Leading the inquiry on behalf of Europe, France's data protection watchdog had already questioned the legality and fairness of Google's new privacy policy, introduced in March. This consolidated 60 privacy policies into one and pooled data collected on individual users across its services, including YouTube, Gmail and its social network Google+. Users cannot opt out." Read more

Panel: Protect Patients Who Use Whole Genome Sequencing

Lloyd, Janice. "Panel: Protect Patients Who Use Whole Genome Sequencing." USA Today, October 11, 2012. 

From the article: "A government panel issued a report Thursday calling for consistent policies and laws to protect the privacy of patients who submit to whole genome sequencing and to ensure the data security.

The panel recommends officials create laws at the state and federal level to prevent the data from falling into the hands of insurance companies, employers and others who could use it as a form of discrimination, to ensure patients are told when being tested, and to hold collectors, storers and users of the information accountable for any breaches of data." Read more

See also
Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethics. "President's Bioethics Commission Releases Report on Genomics and Privacy." U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, October 11, 2012.