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privacy
privacy
(qJake)
Want To Look At A Car? Dodge Dealership Needs All Of Your Info
By Laura Northrup on May 21, 2012 9:00 AM
96 Comments
Allen wanted to look at a new Dodge Charger. Not test-drive it. Just look at it, and maybe check out the interior or sit inside. But the dealership he visited wouldn't let him even look at the car without taking down his name, address, driver's license information, and phone number. Annoyed, he left the dealership and did a Google Images search or something instead. More »
College Instructor Accused Of Using Patients' X-Rays Without Permission
By Chris Morran on April 23, 2012 2:30 PM
33 Comments
When you go into a hospital, even for something as simple as a broken leg, you have an expectation that your documents are only to be used by your physicians and nurses. At the very least, you don't expect that your X-rays and records will end up being used — with no attempt made to hide your identity — in a college class. More »
(STL Okie)
Facebook Is Not Interested In Your So-Called 'Privacy' Preferences
By Laura Northrup on April 18, 2012 11:30 AM
47 Comments
If there's anything we should have learned about Facebook by now, it's that "privacy" is an essentially meaningless word to the company, and any privacy settings that you have now will be undone in the next update. Jeff, who is a writer, uses Facebook but keeps his profile pretty locked down in order to keep his personal life separate from his public persona. (We empathize.) He set up his account so that his list of friends wouldn't be visible to his other friends in order to prevent people he knows from adding virtual strangers who happen to be on Jeff's friends list. More »
([RAWRZ!])
A Privacy Advocate Seeks Public Help To Build A Spy-Proof ISP
By Paul Eng on April 13, 2012 12:30 PM
15 Comments
The Patriot Act of 2001 is just one example of how the U.S. government is trying to legally beef up its electronic surveillance power on the Internet Service and other digital communications networks. But for Nicholas Merrill, the increasing amount of such government powers has sparked the drive to build a communication service that puts its customers' privacy first and foremost. And he's seeking your dollars to help to do it. More »
Report: Charity Tax Forms Expose Nearly Half A Million Social Security Numbers
By Phil Villarreal on April 10, 2012 9:00 AM
7 Comments
According to researchers from an identity protection company, publicly available tax forms have potentially put hundreds of thousands of identities at risk, publishing 472,866 Social Security Numbers in a five-year span. Charities unnecessarily included the numbers in 990 forms, which are part of public record. More »
Maybe Your New TV Is Watching You
By Laura Northrup on March 20, 2012 9:00 AM
65 Comments
It's the entire point, really. New smart TVs from Samsung boast video cameras with facial-recognition software and microphones with speech-recognition software. They can tell who's in the room, understand spoken commands, and be controlled with gestures. That's great news for those of us who can never find the remote, but made our friends over at HD Guru wonder: is there anyone behind that camera watching us back? More »
Reminder: Turn Off Your Google Web History Today
By Chris Morran on March 1, 2012 11:56 AM
31 Comments
Starting today, Google's new unified privacy policy kicks in, meaning that your web browsing history can be tracked and shared been other Google products like Google+ and YouTube. So if that strikes you as a bit invasive, there's an easy way to turn it off. More »
(_tar0_)
Netflix Pays Out $9M To Settle Privacy Violation Suit
By Phil Villarreal on February 14, 2012 8:30 AM
36 Comments
A 1988 law continues to be the "buffering" in Netflix's success stream. The Video Privacy Protection Act, which forbids movie rental companies from sharing customers' rental history, is not only stopping Netflix from integrating movie-streaming with Facebook in the U.S., but has cost the company $9 million to settle a class-action lawsuit. More »
Viral Facebook Status Update Hoax Won't Protect Your Privacy
By Phil Villarreal on February 3, 2012 9:15 AM
24 Comments
A generally harmless but misleading — as well as quite annoying — status update is worming its way through Facebook, imploring contacts to perform a ritual that will supposedly stop strangers from seeing their comments on the sidebar. (It won't). More »
Google Reaching Its Grabby Arms Out To Combine More Of Your Personal information
By Mary Beth Quirk on January 25, 2012 10:00 AM
31 Comments
Google wants to change things up a bit and grant itself the right to combine your personal information across its products. So how is it planning on doing that? By simply rewriting its privacy policy to let you know about it first, which they figure you'll agree to if you want to keep using Google stuff. More »
(TheeErin)
Hospital CEO Thinks It's Perfectly OK To Show Patient's Records To Newspaper
By Chris Morran on January 4, 2012 1:35 PM
126 Comments
Last January, a woman in California says she was billed by a hospital for a treatment she never received. She took her complaint to the folks at California Watch, who published a story about her predicament. But when a local newspaper went to verify the information, the hospital's CEO had absolutely no problem showing up at the reporter's door to rifle through that patient's file without her permission. More »
D.C. Residents, Recycle Your Cat Litter Or Face Garbage Snooping, Fines
By Phil Villarreal on December 14, 2011 9:00 AM
97 Comments
The Washington, D.C. Department of Public Works is apparently so dedicated to enforcing recycling laws that they're willing to dig through trash to find evidence to issue fines. A resident says she's been stuck with $2,000 worth of fines, some of which come from a government employee who admits to discovering her violations by snooping in her garbage. More »
AT&T Says Hackers Tried To Swipe Account Info
By Phil Villarreal on November 22, 2011 9:30 AM
13 Comments
According to AT&T, hackers tried to break into some users' accounts and make off with some private information. The company calls the attack an "organized and systematic attempt," but more importantly, a failure. More »
(jk+too)
Report: Google Analytics Can Reveal Identities Of Anonymous Bloggers
By Phil Villarreal on November 18, 2011 9:00 AM
19 Comments
Those who harbor secret online identities may not be as anonymous as they think. Determined snoopers can potentially uncover bloggers with a little legwork and the use of Google Analytics. More »
UK City Forcing Taxi Drivers To Record All Passengers
By Chris Morran on November 15, 2011 2:00 PM
53 Comments
You're probably familiar with the long-running HBO special "Taxicab Confessions," in which cab passengers —often under the influence of some sort of intoxicant — open their hearts, minds, and sometimes their blouses to drivers of taxis rigged with multiple hidden cameras. Now the UK city of Oxford is turning its entire fleet of cabs into rolling recording devices. More »
Thank You For [Not] Being A Chase Customer, Here Is Your Junk Mail
By Laura Northrup on November 9, 2011 9:00 AM
40 Comments
Jonathan received a letter from Chase thanking him for being a customers, and asking him to send it back in order to opt out of receiving promotional mailings. Which is interesting, because Jonathan not only isn't a Chase customer, he doesn't live at that particular address full-time or normally receive mail there. Concerned about identity theft, he learned that he wasn't the only non-customer being thanked for patronizing Chase. But they won't let him get off their mailing list, either. More »
Hundreds Of People's Tax Returns Found Dumped In Front Of Jackson Hewitt Office Because They Were "So Heavy"
By Ben Popken on November 4, 2011 1:00 PM
39 Comments
A soggy pile of hundreds of old tax returns was found in front of an abandoned Jackson Hewitt tax prep office in San Francisco in late October. The papers had social security numbers, names, addresses, and phone numbers, a potential goldmine for any identity thief who got their hands on them. More »
Senator Is Victim Of Credit Card Fraud, Thieves Rack Up $12,000 At Walmart
By Ben Popken on October 28, 2011 3:00 PM
50 Comments
It's a measure of the brazenness and ubiquity of identity theft that a U.S. Senator has become the latest victim of credit card fraud. Thieves stole the credit card numbers belonging to Senator Daniel Inouye (D) of Hawaii, embedded them on the magnetic strip of a fake credit card, and went on a $12,000 Walmart shopping spree. More »
Groups Call On TransUnion To Stop Selling Employee Credit Reports To Employers
By Ben Popken on October 26, 2011 5:00 PM
84 Comments
Employers pull the credit reports of prospective employees as a way to determine whether they're trustworthy and good at managing money. But now more than 25 civil rights groups, labor unions and consumer groups have banned together to demand that TransUnion stop selling credit reports to employers. They say the practice is invasive, discriminatory, and worst of all, doesn't even work. More »
NYC Taxis To Start Asking Passengers How Much Money They Make
By Ben Popken on October 26, 2011 11:00 AM
77 Comments
If you've ever thought your New York City taxi driver was too talkative, the taxis there are about to get a whole lot nosier. The screens in NYC taxis are now going to start asking passengers how much money they make. That's a bit presumptuous! More »
