Chicago mayor Richard Daley has proposed a city ordinance that would require all bars open until 4 a.m. to install closed-circuit security cameras to monitor the comings and goings of patrons. The proposal includes measures that would eventually require all businesses open longer than 12 hours a day to do the same—all this, we should note, at their own expense. Never mind that the businesses already pay taxes to support a police force that, if these cameras are necessary, aren’t effective enough.
privacy
Another Day, Another Quarter-Million Credit Card Numbers Made Public
By 2.2.06
Both the Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette distributed printed materials with last Sunday’s paper that included the credit and debit card numbers of nearly a quarter-million subscribers. Officials with the company have a hot line, (888) 665-2644, to which customers may call and begin to slowly berate the company for treating their personal information with disregard.
Another Day, Another Loss of Hundreds of Thousands of Personal Records
By 1.27.06
This time, they’re medical records. From Computerworld:
The tapes and disks were taken home by the employee as part of a backup protocol that sent them off-site to protect them against loss from fires or other disasters. That practice, which was only used by the home health care division of the hospital system, has since been stopped, said health system spokesman Gary Walker.
Really, taking the tapes home wasn’t that bad of an idea, although he probably should have dropped them off at a cave or something. The real issue is the inevitability that your information will (has!) already travelled from one of the hundreds of databases that already holds it into the hands of someone who can abuse it.
Remainders: Digg and Slate Edition
By 1.24.06
Although we don’t intend to make this a regular feature just yet, we spotted a rash of Consumeristy links over at Digg that we thought we’d pass on.
