eBay has changed its privacy policy to warn members that it may be more willing to give out their personal information to other users or companies. Previously, eBay warned members that it would give out information about them in connection with government investigations or inquiries by companies that felt their copyrights had been violated. Under the new policy, eBay warned it could give out information "as we in our sole discretion determine necessary or appropriate to maintain a level of trust and safety in our community and to enforce our user agreement, privacy policy and any posted policies or rules applicable to services you use through our site." Jason Catlett of Junkbusters calls this an "outrageous change" in the policy and has written a letter to the FTC asking them to investigate.
Microsoft Windows Media Player (WMP) creates a log file of all the DVD movies viewed using the program. Additionally, the program �phones home� when CDs are played to capture the disc name and titles of the songs. WMP also has a universal identifier associated with the program, so that each user could be tracked based on media consumption. Microsoft has issued a new privacy policy notifying users of the data collection.
The Supreme Court has ruled in Owasso v. Falvo that �peer grading� does not violate the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). In the case, the plaintiff argued that the practice of having classmates grade papers violated FERPA. The Court declined to decide whether FERPA can be used to support a private suit against the government.
Forty-four state attorneys general have urged the Federal Trade Commission to require clear and concise financial privacy notices under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA). The attorneys general have argued that businesses should send standardized notices that are easier to read. This action mirrors the movement of public interest and consumer groups that filed comments with federal agencies in July 2001 arguing that GLBA notices were too difficult to read, and that standard notices should be issued.
Despite vendor claims of 99% accuracy in facial recognition technology, in Department of Defense (DoD) tests, the Agency found that the technology only recognized people 51% of the time.
The United State Court of Appeals has held that the military is subject to the Privacy Act of 1974. This decision comes a year after a lower court barred a Privacy Act claim against the military under the �Feres� doctrine. In that case, a soldier�s training records were leaked to an author without consent.
A feature in MSN and Windows Messenger that apparently is intended to identify IE users (without their knowledge or consent) on Microsoft Web sites can easily be abused by any Webmaster with a bit of Javascript or VBscript. The feature allows anyone to obtain a surfer's Messenger username and those of his contacts, according to Richard Burton in a post Monday to the BugTraq mailing list. Worse, if a username is not available, the e-mail address of the surfer and those of his contacts are displayed instead.
According to the Better Business Bureau "For consumers shopping on the Internet, privacy is a major concern. Almost three-quarters of Internet users are concerned about having control over the release of their private information when shopping online." They have launched new site, called the Safe Shopping Site, that lets consumers locate online companies that have met BBB standards for privacy in e-commerce. It also educates online shoppers about how to protect their privacy on the Internet.
The FTC is launching a program that should make it
easier for victims of identity theft to alert creditors and
merchants to fraudulent activity on their accounts. The FTC
hopes its ID Fraud Affidavit will simplify the reporting
process by allowing victims to send the same form to dozens
of credit issuers and merchants that have agreed to
participate in the program.
A U.S. Department of Transportation task force is moving forward with plans for a national transportation-worker identity card intended as a first step toward "trusted-traveler" cards for airline passengers. The trusted-traveler card is part of the Aviation and Transportation Security signed by President Bush Nov. 19 that authorized the Transportation Security Administration to "establish requirements to implement trusted passenger programs and use available technologies to expedite the security screening of passengers." Trusted-traveler cards would authorize passengers to bypass extensive security screening at airport checkpoints. The electronic card would have an encoded biometric description of the owner to ensure that the person using it is the same person identified on the card. The Transportation Department task force wants the cards to be used throughout airports and transportation services internationally. The card is intended to shorten lines at airports for frequent fliers who will undergo FBI and foreign background checks. Information the owners will also be shared with law enforcement agencies around the world.
Federal aviation authorities and technology companies will soon begin testing a vast air security screening system designed to instantly pull together every passenger's travel history and living arrangements, plus a wealth of other personal and demographic information. The government's plan is to establish a computer network linking every reservation system in the United States to private and government databases. The network would use data-mining and predictive software to profile passenger activity and intuit obscure clues about potential threats, even before the scheduled day of flight. A profiling system of this size and range of applications has never been contemplated and is a dramatic departure from American values and traditions.
