Mobile devices are creeping into almost every facet of modern life and each week seems to deliver a new use for your mobile phone or tablet: digital wallet, digital newspaper, mobile gaming center, social lifeline, etc. Research suggests that people actually form emotional attachments to their mobile devices. Anyone who has ridden a bus or subway in the last year has likely seen a throng of commuters staring lovingly into their devices, faces awash in a soft digital glow.
So while...
After many years of delays and hand-wringing the era of federal privacy legislation is finally upon us. Two years ago the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) caused quite a stir when it released its preliminary consumer privacy framework. Since then the FTC has been gathering feedback and recommendations from the public and recently released the final version of their recommendations called Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change. If these recommendations are signed into law there...
Do you remember the recent flap over a mobile software company called Carrier IQ? They made headlines last year amid numerous accusations that their mobile phone software was recording and transmitting information to mobile carriers for (presumably) nefarious purposes. It turns out this wasn’t happening (probably) and the story eventually died down after Carrier IQ...
The social networking behemoth Facebook has encountered its share of privacy run-ins with federal regulators in the US and abroad, but even smaller social networking sites are under scrutiny for their data collection practices as a recent case from Georgia demonstrates.
The...
The news has been abuzz recently with stories of unprecedented hacking attacks and data breaches. The list of targets reads like a Hollywood script: banks, defense contractors, the IMF! Companies and governments alike seem to be scrambling to shore up their data handling and protection policies and with good reason: some estimates put the average cost of a significant...