Comments to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) are due Friday. EPIC urges individuals to advocate a national do-not-call list that supports Internet enrollment, an affirmative obligation on telemarketers to send caller ID information, and a prohibition on autodialers that produce "dead air" or "abandoned calls." Instructions for filing comments are on the EPIC and FTC telemarketing web pages. UPDATE:The FTC has extended the deadline and the Commission will accept Telemarketing Comments until April 15, 2002.
A new report released by Robert Gellman, a privacy and information policy consultant, analyzes the costs to individuals that result from a lack of privacy protection. Gellman also critiques recent business studies that emphasize regulatory costs of privacy legislation without addressing how self-regulatory approaches to privacy shift costs to consumers and to society. Gellman argues that "the costs incurred by both business and individuals due to incomplete or insufficient privacy protections reach tens of billions of dollars every year."
Also, the updated EPIC Public Opinion and Privacy Page shows strong support among Americans for opt-in privacy protections, and a rejection of the current self-regulatory model for privacy protections in law.
The National Park Service will begin round-the-clock video surveillance at all major monuments on the Mall by October, moving aggressively in the wake of last year's terrorist attacks to tighten security around national symbols visited by millions of tourists each year.
Closed-circuit television cameras will be installed for the first time to monitor public areas in and around the Washington Monument and the Jefferson, Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Vietnam Veterans and Korean War memorials, according to John G. Parsons, associate regional director for the Park Service's National Capital Region.
The decision, disclosed in testimony Parsons submitted for delivery to a congressional panel on Friday drew sharp questioning from members of Congress.
EPIC has launched a new Web site � "Observing Surveillance" � to document the growing presence of spy cameras in the Nation's Capital.
A story in the New York Times describe how scannable data on driver's licenses is increasingly being used by private industry. Already, about 40 states issue driver's licenses with bar codes or magnetic stripes that carry standardized data, and most of the others plan to issue them within the next few years. The article notes that the electronic trails created by scanning driver's licenses are raising concerns among privacy advocates. Standards and scanning are a dangerous combination that essentially creates a de facto national identity card or internal passport that can be registered in many databases. Mr. Barclay, a bar owner, says "You swipe the license, and all of a sudden someone's whole life as we know it pops up in front of you, it's almost voyeuristic." He had bought the machine to keep out underage drinkers who use fake ID's. But he soon found that he could build a database of personal information, providing an intimate perspective on his clientele that can be useful in marketing. "It's not just an ID check," he said. "It's a tool."
A new Pennsylvania state law will hold Internet Service Providers responsible for blocking child porn. Penalties include fines and possible prison terms for non-compliance. The law, perhaps the first of its kind, does not require the ISP to monitor users or web sites, but rather the ISP is required to block a list of sites provided on a court order. The state attorney general is responsible for obtaining the court order and the site operator might challenge the characterization of the material in court.
A closely-held software package designed to allow law enforcement agencies to secretly monitor a suspect's computer turned up on an anonymous Web site in the Netherlands Wednesday, along with user manuals, financial information, contracts and invoices apparently stolen from the company that makes the surveillance tool. The manuals released on the Web indicate that D.I.R.T. operates in much the same way as well-known hacker Trojan horses like Back Orifice and Sub Seven, with a covert server, what Codex calls a "bug," arriving at a target's computer wrapped within a seemingly innocuous program. Once the hapless target executes the program, the bug monitors the target's keystrokes and sends the results periodically to the person doing the monitoring via email.
Support for a national ID card, which hit an all-time high after the Sept. 11 attacks, appears to be fading, according to a nationwide poll released Tuesday.
A survey by Gartner Inc. found that 41 percent of Americans opposed a national identification system, while 26 percent backed the idea.
The results contrast sharply with a Pew Research Center poll conducted the week after the attack, in which 70 percent of respondents supported a national ID card that would be shown to authorities on demand.
AOL Time Warner's Netscape unit is snooping on searches performed by users of its latest Navigator browser at Google and other search sites. According to a network traffic analysis performed by Newsbytes, Netscape is capturing Navigator 6 users' search terms, along with their Internet protocol (IP) address, the date Navigator was installed and a unique identification number. There have also not disclosed this intrusive practice in their privacy policy.
A student who was coaxed into removing her clothes at a wet T-shirt contest and then filmed without consent has obtained a $5 million default judgment against the video company and a network that advertised the video.
This is the first judgment against a video company that produces tapes in the �girls gone wild� genre. This type of video features young women who are exposing parts of their body while in public. Often, the video makers film individuals who are under the influence of alcohol
