2021 was a rough year for many businesses, but there was at least one winner: in a recent blog post, privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo reported a record growth of over 46 percent and now claims to serve more than 27 million Americans. Unlike other search engines, which sell targeted advertisements based on individual user
Data Privacy
Smart Health Cards, Vaccine Passports, and Privacy
By Deborah George on
Posted in Coronavirus, Data Privacy
Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker and Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee recently announced that they are considering implementing vaccine passport programs in their respective states. Baker stated that he is working with other states to use a QR code system that allows users to scan to verify vaccination status. In Rhode Island, the Department of Health…
How Creepy Is That New Product? Mozilla’s *privacy not included Privacy Guide Will Tell You
By Deborah George on
Posted in Data Privacy
It’s that time of year again when we start to think about holiday gifts and Black Friday shopping. So as any good privacy pro knows, the Mozilla *privacy not included guide is the place to go to learn about the “creepiness” of the latest toy or gift that you are looking to buy.
This year,…
New State Privacy Laws Impose Higher Restrictions on Processing Sensitive Personal Data
By Guest Contributor on
Posted in Data Privacy
With the passage of the Colorado Privacy Act, Colorado joins Virginia and California as early adopters of state-level privacy legislation. These laws impose higher restrictions on companies processing specific sensitive categories of data that reveal information such as sexual orientation and ethnic origin. However, the law remains unclear on what constitutes “revealing” information. For example,…
Meta Announces the End of Facial Recognition Technology on Facebook
By Deborah George on
Posted in Data Privacy
The Facebook company now known as Meta announced this week that it is shutting down the Face Recognition system on Facebook. Meta stated that this is part of a company-wide move to limit the use of facial recognition technology in its products. What does this mean? If you have a Facebook page and you previously…
Join Us As We Discuss Privacy + Cybersecurity
By Linn Foster Freedman & Kathryn Rattigan on
- November 9 – Kathryn Rattigan is presenting the “Rise of Drones and Erosion of Privacy” in a live video-broadcast hosted by myLawCLE.
- November 10 – Kathryn Rattigan will be presenting as part of the Western Michigan University (WMU) Cooley Law School Homeland & National Security Law and the WMU-Cooley Homeland & National Security
…
Privacy Tip #301 – Can Your Co-Worker Guess Your Password? Probably!
By Linn Foster Freedman on
We talk about passwords a lot. As you know, I am a fan of passphrases instead of passwords as they are hard to guess and easy to remember—a perfect combination for security data.
Despite emphasizing how important passwords and passphrases are in protecting data, most individuals are not trying very hard to think about and…
Irish DPA Hits WhatsApp with $266M Fine for Alleged GDPR Violations
By Linn Foster Freedman on
When GDPR became effective three years ago, companies took notice of the fines and penalties attached to violations of the stringent privacy law—4 percent of global annual sales. The fines have been racking up, including the most recent one by the Irish Data Protection Commission against WhatsApp—$266 million. WhatsApp is owned by Facebook.
The fine…
U.S. Customs and Border Protection Failed to Adequately Secure and Protect Traveler Data
By Kathryn Rattigan on
Posted in Data Privacy
This week, the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general said in an oversight report that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials have failed to use adequate cybersecurity measures and safeguards to protect travelers’ data. The report says that from July 2017 to December 2019, personal data was left vulnerable to hackers in the Mobile…
Location Data Results in Resignation of High-Profile Church Official
By Kathleen Porter on
Posted in Data Privacy
Location data is data that marks the longitude/latitude location of a smartphone or other device at a particular time, or over a period of time. It works like this: each day our device, which has a unique identifier or ID, uses or connects to multiple location signals, like GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cell towers or other…