Yahoo announced that, after 90 days, it will obscure some elements in the records that it keeps about all Internet users who use the company's services. The search company will continue to keep modified record locators, time/date stamps, web pages viewed, and a persistent user identifier, known as a "cookie" for an indefinite period. Yahoo is also retaining much of the IP address, which typically identifies a user's device, such as a laptop or a mobile phone. Privacy rules classify IP addresses as "personal data." Experts have criticized the partial deletion of IP address data as insufficient to protect search engine consumers, and called for complete deletion.
Yahool Limits Retention of Personal Data, New York Times, December 18, 2008
The Department of Homeland Security has released the Privacy Impact Assessment for the State, Local, and Regional Fusion Center Initiative. The assessment examines the privacy implications of the State, Local and Regional Fusion Centers and the DHS' State and Local Program Management Office. In May, EPIC prevailed in its freedom of information request to disclose documents describing the federal government's involvement in efforts to limit Virginia's transparency and privacy laws and uncovered a secret contract between the State Police and the FBI that limits the rights of Virginia citizens to learn what information the State Police collect about them.
The Supreme Court affirmed the authority of states to establish safeguards that provide stronger consumer protections than federal laws. Cigarette companies challenged a Maine consumer protection law that prohibits unfair or deceptive trade practices, claiming that a weaker federal law "pre-empted" the Maine measure. However, the Supreme Court upheld the state protections, holding that the Maine law was not pre-empted by the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act or federal regulators' authority. Many states have passed strong consumer privacy laws that private companies hope to preempt with weaker federal laws. The decision also follows President-elect Barack Obama's statement that "a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory." Obama's statement echoes Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who advocated for state lawmakers' broad freedom to create innovative consumer protections as "laboratories of democracy."
International Human Rights Day - Privacy is a Fundamental Right. December 10, International Human Rights Day, commemorates the 1948 adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Human Rights Day 2008 marks the start of a year-long commemoration of the 61st anniversary of the Declaration. The document is the foundation of international human rights law, the first universal statement on the basic principles of inalienable human rights, and a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations. Article 12 of the Declaration includes privacy as a fundamental human right.
