July 29th, 2010 by admin.
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The Scottish government has begun investigating the extent to which freedom of information laws need to be extended to ensure that organisations make information available to the public in the same way that public bodies do.
The reasoning behind this request for a more consistent blanket approach is due to the fact that public authorities frequently outsource for contractors and other organisations and companies to run the show at arm length. The result of this is that members of the general public lose their right to access certain information from the public authority in regard to those services.
Even some of Scotland’s prisons are run by private companies. The Association of Chief Police Officers co-ordinate policies for such to abide by and in accordance with the Scottish governments proposal, these ought to be covered by freedom of information laws.
The Scottish government recently chose to launch an investigation into the need for further regulation in a bid to prevent unnecessarily swamping private companies with further legislation to abide by.
Parliamentary business minister Bruce Crawford stated that transparency with the public is fundamental to a democratic society. If it is found to be required, the freedom of information laws will be extended by Scottish ministers to enable such transparency.
The proposal to extend this law in Scotland was initially contemplated by Kevin Dunion, the Scottish Information Commissioner.
The consultation document lays down the scope of the proposed rules as well as stating when and how these rules will apply to private companies operating public organisations. The company’s annual income will be a factor of its level of appropriation to the proposed rules, should they come into force after being approved by Scottish ministers.
July 23rd, 2010 by admin.
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The Office of Fair Trading, also known as the OFT, has stated that buyers who live in the UK need to be well educated about the website terms and conditions dangers of shopping online, to prevent them becoming victims to legal problems and scams.
Plans have already been drawn up by the OFT to help provide more protection for buyers when they shop using the internet. It hasn’t made any recommendations about bringing in any new laws or different regulations, so far it has just stated that anyone buying goods online need far more protection that what they are currently receiving, and these consumers will need to be educated in order to prevent them from falling victim to these scams. It has also been stated that guidance from what the Government give organisations and companies is in need of huge improvement, and that it would also be a good idea for organisations and any enforcement agencies to work together more closely.
The Government have requested that the OFT should bring out a document which lays out clearly what its plans are to approach this new e-consumer protection. And they are hopeful that all of these new regulations will come into force no later than the end of this year and any responses to this consultation will need to be put forward before the middle of October.
The OFT has said that their strategy will give help and guidance to customers who wish to shop online and offer them some safety to do this, it will also focus on the improvement of quality enforcement by making the regulation of retailers vastly improve.
The plans will guide customers to exactly what the protection is that they have while shopping online and will try to ensure that there is total consistency between the online and offline protection for consumers.
July 20th, 2010 by admin.
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EU privacy regulators call for telecommunication companies to reduce data retention to less than two years.
Article 29 Working Party is a committee that has been created by privacy watchdogs from all over the European Union coming together as one from all 27 member states. The committee has proposed amendments to the Data Retention Directive to ensure individuals privacy rights are met as well as improved.
The EU Directive operates to compel all EU member countries to pass laws that require all telecommunications companies, including internet service providers, to record the details of calls and online behaviour for the benefit of the authorities should a security breach occur. Within the Directive, each of the 27 member states has the option to impose a data retention period upon companies of 6 months to 2 years.
The European Commission has committed to commence an investigation into the impact of the Directive by September this year. The European Commission will inform the European Council and Parliament of its findings and provide instruction as to whether the Directive should be modified.
The Article 29 Working Party is hopeful that the European Committee will consider the recommendations they have made.
The concern over the current Directive is that the domestic law is not consistent throughout the 27 member states as they can each legally alter the scope of the data retention period. As a result of this, each member state interpreted that Directive differently in regard to the legal extent of the retention of data.
The committee wants the European Commission to set a blanket limit for the retention of data to ensure EU citizens receive equal privacy rights. The committee has recommended that the maximum data retention period of 2 years be shortened if a blanket limit is not set.
July 16th, 2010 by admin.
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Last year, the number of privacy complaints made in the UK jumped by more than 30% according to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Similarly, complaints made against public bodies compliance with the Freedom of Information Act increased by 20%.
The ICO has many duties, including to ensure that public organisations observe privacy laws in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) and the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act.
Each year the ICO issues a report containing data protection analysis. The ICOs recent report unveiled the 30% increase in enquiries regarding the integrity of data protection for 2009-2010. The ICO received more than 30,000 enquiries last year. The ICO is concerned by the volume of complaints received as the rights of individuals to access personal data accounted for 28% of the 30% increase.
Each complaint centered around the focal point that people were concerned about the extent of data disclosed by public bodies, as well as the accuracy of such.
The Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham, stated in the report that the ICO was committed to campaigning for stricter penalties for people found guilty of purchasing and selling on others personal information.
The Information Commissioner also reiterated that the ICO ought to be funded using a more transparent approach and should be directly responsible to parliament rather than a government department, as is currently in place.
July 9th, 2010 by admin.
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Google Analytics have issued an opt-out add-on for your browser. Many businesses use Google Analytics to analyse website data and many individuals have been concerned by the amount of information that can be collected.
The new add-on operates to prevent personal data being obtained from your computer when you visit websites that use Google Analytics. In the past, website user’s only option was to disable javascript, however the result of this was that many other website accessed could not load properly and so the user was unable to utilise online resources to their fullest extent when trying to preserve personal data.
The add-on opt-out is currently being offered to users of Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer.
Google has said that it wants to provide users with a simply, easier to understand service that is transparent with the use of personal data collection. However, some Google Analytics users have decided to remain opted-in as there is growing concern that by using the opt-out add-on any recorded data will be inaccurate or incomplete.
Google have faced many criticisms of late, including the ongoing argument on the location of the search engines privacy policy by privacy rights campaigners.
July 5th, 2010 by admin.
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Google has been ordered by a French competition regulator to restore its traffic light warning system for adverts after it was held that Google’s blocking of such adverts without prior warning could be discriminatory. A final ruling will be made in a few months time on the issue.
Navx’s website has resources useful for drivers , such as the location of speed camera’s. The Authorité de la Concurrence has stated that when Google blocked Navx from advertising through Google’s advertising service, AdWords, the website’s revenues were critically affected as a result.
The French competition regulator, the Authorité de la Concurrence, recently made an interim ruling after finding that Google had been acting unfairly by putting on hold Navx’s account without prior warning. The regulator further added that the search engine giant will have just four months to make clear its policies.
Google released a statement that said through AdWords they advise advertisers to not advertise speed-radar identification services and that other countries have banned advertising of such.
It has been estimated that Navx’s revenue fell by almost 70% from the date of the suspension by Google. As a result, Navx was obliged to purchase Google ads due to the fact that more than 90% of French online searches are made via Google’s search engine.
The European Court of Justice has said that Google have not broken the law but that it is the advertisers that are likely to have broken the law in reality.
July 2nd, 2010 by admin.
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Google has been attacked over the visibility of its privacy policy as privacy advocates have expressed more concerns that the search engine is not operating in compliance with Californian law.
Last week Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, received a letter from several privacy organisations who had joined forces. It is believed that the letter stated that the privacy advocates were alarmed that Google was not displaying its privacy policy in a highly visible manner.
The signatories collected to protest against the location of Google’s privacy policy included the Electronic Privacy Information Centre, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The issue regarding the visibility of Google’s privacy policy as it relates to Californian law is unclear and it is yet to be formerly decided whether Google is operating in compliance with the law. The new concerns were raised after an article was published in the New York Times which questioned the search engines observance of the California Online Privacy Protection Act.
The above law requires all commercial websites to place their privacy policy in a highly visible position on the website where that website collects and stores user’s personal data.
Currently, Google’s privacy policy is not on its home page, but instead is two clicks away.
Even though Google has been highly criticised by privacy campaigners, Google has tried to simplify its privacy policy to make it easier for users to read and understand before they use its services.
In a news conference, the privacy advocates admitted that they had not, at any point, endeavoured to reach an agreement with Google directly.
June 28th, 2010 by admin.
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The government has stated its intentions to prepare for the sharing of government information with members of the public. The government has set down a code by which it shall follow on the release of government data to the general public.
The government has made a pledge to create public access to certain information within one month from the date of the information’s initial publication. This is so that the public is up to date on the contemporary issues faced by the government. Within one month from the coalition government being formed, they had adhered to their promise and issued a database accessible by the public called COINS (Combined Online Information System), which shall release information on public concerns such as spending.
The Public Sector Transparency Board (PSTB) monitors the publication of data and has issued a set of principles by which all governmental publications shall follow. The primary focus of these principles is to ensure the data released by the government is useful to the public to know.
Further to this, the PSTB has said that all statistics and data released by the government should be free for re-use by public bodies. This is to encourage accuracy when statistics are used and published by third parties and to encourage third parties to promptly publish the government facts and figures to encourage communication and accuracy in a bid to quash the effect of Chinese whispers.
The purpose of public data shall be to present factual statistics and data to public services such as local councils and education centres on which many policies are based to promote a transparency between members of the public and the government, and perhaps even encourage trust.
June 25th, 2010 by admin.
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The European Commission has stated that it shall initiate proceedings in the European Court of Justice (ECJ) against the UK Government if the UK continues to operate an inadequate privacy policy.
The European Commission has given the UK Government two months to strengthen the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) powers in relation to data protection laws.
The European Commission has demanded that the ICO be given the authority to perform unsystematic compliance data protection checks on companies and to issue penalties to those against which the European Commission shall take action.
In addition to this, the ICO would also be given powers to assess other countries data privacy policies prior to the transfer of such information with the UK.
There is currently a three step process in place to enforce EU directives. The European Commission has presented the UK with a reasoned opinion to enforce the EU directive in question, which is yet to be passed fully into UK domestic law.
The first step of the three step process is for the European Commission to send the country in question a Letter of Formal Notice. Should that countries response to the notice be unacceptable, a reasoned opinion is then sent to that country.
Countries have two months in which to comply with the reasoned opinion. If they do not comply with the request, the European Commission takes the case to Europe’s highest court, the ECJ.
The European Commission further stated that the UK must modify the law in place on the public’s right to have their personal information and details erased from organisations and companies directories.
The European Commission has complained to the UK consistently since 2004 regarding the UKs implementation of the Data Protection Directive.
Last year the European Commission stated that the Data Protection and Privacy and Electronic Communication Directives had not been adequately implemented into UK law. The Commission’s complaints regarding the UKs compliance was in response to growing concerns over the contentious Phorm advertising technology.
June 21st, 2010 by admin.
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Facebook’s Privacy Settings Still Inadequate
Since the social networking website Facebook altered its privacy settings it has been hard pressed to find a set of settings that keeps the critics at bay. It has even been said that Facebooks recent privacy policy changes are a lesson in how not to control user’s privacy.
Two months ago today Facebook released detail at a conference to enable users to share more of their personal information. However, instead the result of these changes were to users privacy settings as users personal information was available to the world online. Instead, users had to opt out as they were automatically opted in to share their sensitive information with anybody. Such information accessible under the amended privacy settings included name, date of birth, address and more.
The fundamental issue was that the social networking site did not request the permission of the users to release such sensitive information and so many users were left open to their sensitive information being misused due to the availability of it across the world wide web, viewable by all.
The new privacy settings were seen as a step backward from the previous settings that had been in place on the site. Although Facebook quickly extended the scope of the privacy settings, these were deemed too complex for the majority of users to fully understand and so many users were unable to make an informed decision based on the complexity of the settings. Further to this, many users were unaware of the privacy policy changes as there was insufficient notice on the site to users.
The criticism Facebook has faced has been due Facebook seemingly choosing for users, rather than allowing the individual to choose how much information they wish to share with outsiders.
Critics have held onto this because Facebook’s original standpoint was based on a private social network whereby users could choose to share information with friends only if they desired.
Transparency in society is a relatively new concept being undertaken by many websites and is popular among business and government enterprises. However, it is feared that this trend for social transparency will create an open book for social network users whose personal information becomes used for behavioural advertising, general spam or even identity theft.
Unlike Twitter which openly functions to share your thoughts with the world, Facebook was not founded on that premise and many users are struggling to understand the new direction the social networking site is attempting to enter into. Due to complaints made by its users, Facebook amended its privacy settings yet again and simplified the privacy settings to assist users in understanding how they can control their privacy on the site.
The golden rule would seem to be to not make automatic changes without first sending a generic notification to all users and create a download free privacy policy. To appease users, a site with this level of functionality ought to have set the privacy settings to be private, and then to direct users to alter their settings to the degree of transparency they wished to have with the public.
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