Your Social Security Number Isn’t a Secret

By Lisa Rabasca Roepe

After roughly half of Americans’ Social Security numbers were compromised in the 2017 Equifax breach, Jeremy Grant, founder of the industry group, the Better Identity Coalition, proposed a way to stop identity theft.

His plan: Tell banks and credit agencies to stop using Social Security numbers to authenticate individual identity.

Instead, government agencies, such as state motor-vehicle departments or the Social Security Administration, could confirm a person’s identity — at the individual’s request. 

Continue reading “Q&A: Better Identity Coalition’s Jeremy Grant” →

Face Technology Could Stymie First Amendment-Protected Activities

By C.J. Thompson

“You are probably in a criminal face-recognition network,” is a chilling statement from “The Perpetual Line-Up: Unregulated Police Face Recognition in America,” a 2016 report by the Center on Privacy & Technology at the Georgetown University School of Law.

Given the high participation and law-enforcement surveillance at recent demonstrations against police brutality, the statement likely is true now for even more people.

As the report documented, facial-recognition regulation is spotty to nonexistent across the growing number of police departments that employ it.

The document included 30 recommendations that have served as a reference for lawmakers as demands for regulation and oversight have increased.

Continue reading “Q&A: Georgetown Law’s Clare Garvie” →

How Your Death Affects Your Privacy

By Bree Brouwer

Speaker and psychologist Elaine Kasket is a longtime scholar of death in the digital age.

Her recent book — “All the Ghosts in the Machine: The Digital Afterlife of Your Personal Data” — addresses modern privacy challenges from birth to beyond death.

Kasket told Digital Privacy News that privacy proponents should know everything possible about their digital afterlife and how to manage it.

Continue reading “Q&A: Psychologist Elaine Kasket” →

‘Each of These Laws Bears High Stakes for Global Economics, Politics and Our Daily Lives’

By Charles McDermid

Emmanuel Pernot-Leplay is making a career in the space where global privacy laws collide.

The 32-year-old from Paris graduated from law schools in France and China before earning a Ph.D. in comparative data-protection law at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, focusing on the U.S., China and the European Union. 

For the last two years, Pernot-Leplay has worked as a consultant at Deloitte Cyber Risk in Paris, advising clients on data-privacy compliance. This month, he starts a new position as a postdoctoral researcher in technology law at Tilburg University in the Netherlands.

“I first studied theories on the diffusion of laws and the movement of policies across jurisdictions to build the framework I use for comparing laws globally,” he said this week. 

Continue reading “Q&A: Data-Protection Expert Emmanuel Pernot-Leplay” →

Social Media Privacy Is Not an Oxymoron

By Maureen Nkatha

In 2018, Cambridge Analytica exploited the private information of more than 50 million Facebook users to influence the 2016 presidential election.

This data breach and many others have prompted advocacy for tighter regulations.

Aleecia M. McDonald, an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Information Networking Institute, says social media companies must protect users by allowing them to download their data, by disclosing what information has been “shared,” by letting them bar third-party access to their data and by providing ways to delete information completely.

Continue reading “Q&A: Carnegie Mellon’s Aleecia M. McDonald” →

Healthcare Firms Ripe for Ransomware Attacks During COVID

By Patrick W. Dunne

Healthcare companies long have been a prime target for hackers and scammers.

Last year’s Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report found that healthcare companies comprised 15% of breaches. The coronavirus now has only made such companies even more vulnerable to malicious outsiders.

Emsisoft threat analyst Brett Callow said that as many as 764 healthcare providers were affected by ransomware attacks last year.

Continue reading “Q&A: Emsisoft Threat Analyst Brett Callow” →

People Don’t Trust Face Technology

By Jeff Benson

Last of two parts.

Erik Learned-Miller, a computer scientist at University of Massachusetts Amherst, believes the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) provides an effective model for regulating face-recognition technologies (FRTs).

The professor explains how an FDA-like agency could foster trust in FRTs.

Continue reading “Q&A: UMass’ Erik Learned-Miller” →

Why Facial-Recognition Technologies Need Their Own FDA

By Jeff Benson

First of two parts.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has worked to ensure the nation’s food and drug supplies are safe and effective since its initial founding in 1927.

In a white paper released last month, “Facial Recognition Technologies in the Wild: A Call for a Federal Office,” four researchers argue that emerging facial-recognition tech needs its own version of the FDA. 

Co-author Erik Learned-Miller, a professor of computer science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, believes facial-recognition technologies (FRTs) are too complex for legislation alone to be effective.

Continue reading “Q&A: UMass’ Erik Learned-Miller” →

‘It’s a Very Discouraging Time for Democracy’

By Aisheh Barghouti

Last of two parts.

David Burnham spent years as an investigative reporter.

Now 87, Burnham is co-director and co-founder of the nonprofit Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a nonpartisan research organization in Syracuse, N.Y., that since 1989 has maintained and analyzed a vast database of federal enforcement, staffing and financial information.

During his long career as a journalist and at TRAC, Burnham has worked to hold federal agencies accountable for accomplishing their stated goals.

He is the author of “The Rise of the Computer State” (1983), about computers’ threat to privacy and democracy; “A Law Unto Itself” (1988), on the IRS and its abuses, and “Above the Law” (1996), spotlighting the U.S. Justice Department.

In today’s report, Burnham told Digital Privacy News that the collapse of the media is a primary reason privacy is in greater jeopardy today.

Continue reading “Q&A: Journalist, Author David Burnham” →

‘Society has gotten less interested in privacy’

By Aisheh Barghouti

First of two parts.

David Burnham is a former investigative reporter who, during his tenure at The New York Times, covered everything from corruption in the New York City Police Department to the inner workings of the Internal Revenue Service.

His groundbreaking work on corruption in the police department led to revelations documented in the 1973 film “Serpico.” Burnham was also the journalist labor union activist Karen Silkwood (on whom the 1983 film “Silkwood” is based) was on her way to meet when she was killed in a car accident that remains suspicious.

Now 87, he is co-director and co-founder of the nonprofit Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a nonpartisan research organization that maintains a database of federal enforcement, staffing and financial data.

Continue reading “Q&A: Journalist, Author David Burnham” →

Updating HIPAA for a Modern Time

By Patrick W. Dunne

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was signed into law in 1996 by President Bill Clinton.

HIPAA restricts who gets access to a patient’s private health data. This allows Americans to keep their health status and identity a secret from unwanted third parties. 

However, the law has not been without its share of critics. One is Dr. Fred H. Cate, a professor and vice president for research at Indiana University in Bloomington. As an expert in privacy and security laws, he has much to say about HIPAA. 

Continue reading “Q&A: Indiana University’s Fred H. Cate” →

A Privacy Solution That Combines Decentralization and Cryptocurrency

By Jackson Chen

With the market for virtual privacy networks growing to more than $25 billion last year, a field of established brand-name providers has dominated the market.

As major virtual private network (VPN) providers all include their own vulnerabilities, one platform seeks to offer a decentralized privacy solution that runs off cryptocurrency. 

Orchid, a peer-to-peer privacy network that uses its own cryptocurrency — OXT — for payment, was launched in December.

Continue reading “Q&A: Orchid VPN Co-Founder Steven Waterhouse” →

‘Data Can Be Used to Create Social Movements’

By Terry Collins

The race is on for Data 4 Black Lives co-founder Yeshimabeit Milner, who admits time is of the essence.

She’s desperately seeking critical information on how many African Americans have contracted and died from COVID-19.

Mostly known as a privacy advocate seeking to abolish big data that she believes leads to social and political oppression, Milner’s group of engineers, data scientists and community leaders are making a hard pivot.

Continue reading “Q&A: Data 4 Black Lives’ Yeshimabeit Milner” →

Health Oversight Waiver Opens Door to Broad Uses of Private Data

By Myrle Croasdale

To fight COVID-19, the federal government recently waived enforcement penalties for failing to comply with some patient-privacy provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

The first of these waivers has been beneficial, said Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, a nonprofit research group in San Diego, Calif., focused on privacy in the digital age.

One makes it easier for providers to release information to a patient’s family and friends. Another expands telemedicine.

Others, however, have raised concerns. 

Continue reading “Q&A: World Privacy Forum’s Pam Dixon” →