Protect Yourself From Identity Theft

Identity theft has been plaguing the Internet. People are concerned about how they can protect themselves from this threat. While some technologically adept ones could by themselves find means to do so, many would still depend on experts for advice. Plain internet users are always in danger of losing their identity. This results to numerous possibilities of problems that could be avoided only if they knew how to protect themselves.

Darrell West, vice president and director of both Governance Studies and the Center for Technology Innovation in Washington, is an expert in this field. He has given advice to people about how they can protect themselves in the digital world. He has also written articles on subjects concerning political, policy and legal challenges raised by digital technology.

He has detailed some of the logical ways to maintain online protection. The best according to him is “choosing non-obvious passwords” and using different passwords for different accounts. One should not use his or her partner’s name, date of birth, hometown, and other obvious personal information. Clearly, these data are now online, contained in social networking or other public sites. Data miners could simply do some tricks and they could steal one’s identity.

As to the choice of websites, West recommends that one should read first the site’s online privacy policy. Try to discover whether or how that website will employ information. Be particular with how cookies will be used for tracking visitors and what the company does with information. Find out whether the company sells information to other vendors. One should see a very strong policy that protects consumer interests for the site to be trusted.

Consumers can also protect themselves against companies that gather information on users’ browsing history. Many sites track internet browsing history by the use of cookies. The best thing to do is not to accept cookies when prompted. Another way to do this is for the user to go into the tool history of his or her internet browser and delete cookie tracking. As much as possible, one should use the most recent version of an internet browser.

With regards to internet privacy laws, West recommends that legislators should update the rules which are no longer applicable or are outdated. Some laws were written before the advent of the internet, even before that of social media and other new digital platforms. It would be easier for law enforcement to police the digital world and guard people against identity theft with updated laws.

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More Color, Less Privacy

Now you can set aside privacy and share photos with friends and even with strangers. The newest photo-sharing network Color developed by Bill Nguyen is here! After just two weeks of exposure, it promises to capture a fairly good market share. Nguyen is the former owner of a music-streaming company Lala that he sold to Apple in 2009 for around $80 million.

Color is a social networking app intended for iPhone and Android devices. It lets you share your pictures with any person within 150 feet. One would find this photo-sharing application very similar to other mobile apps like Instagram or PicPiz. The unique advantage of Color is its proximity-based sharing functionality. Observers say that it holds a far greater potential.

Two persons need only to be near each other and use the same application in order to enjoy. Color automatically records the frequency of these “friendship” events. The more frequent you hang up with a person, the higher his contact details appear on your list. The reverse happens when you hang out with him less often. Take note that it doesn’t matter whether you know these people you get close to most often. As long as they are within the 150 meter area of influence, Color will treat them as friends.

In spite of the big potential of this new app to create a new group of users, some are scared. As it has been said earlier, Color does not present any privacy settings. All photos that are uploaded are completely unrestricted, shared with all other user’s phones within 150 feet. Although the company has asked users to respect individual privacy, the danger of abuse is not impossible.

A sizeable amount of investment totaling $41 million has been inputted by Sequoia Capital, m Bain Capital and Silicon Valley Bank. This large funding from such companies, considering that the app is very new, is a sign that Color has an enormous marketing potential. Logically, advertisers would pour in and become the biggest source of revenues for the company.

The likelihood for Color to attain popularity in a short period is not remote; in fact that could be out of the question. Its potential to create an “elastic network” facilitates the user’s chances of finding more friends from strangers. Color has won the race in presenting a choice to those users who find complexity in using the different older social networking applications.

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The "Pirates" Party - Privacy and Transparency

The Massachusetts Election Division has granted approval to the Massachusetts Pirate Party as a political designation. This gives the go signal for its members to finally take their place in the state.
The long-awaited time for voters to register as “Pirate” has come at last. Way back in 2006, it could be recalled that the United States Pirate Party was organized. It also took a long time for it to be officially recognized by some states.

With the party having been given its legal status, it can already start working toward its vision and mission. The party is known as one having its own set of ideals and tried to live up to these. It aims to “increase government transparency, promote personal privacy, reinforce the spread of knowledge through copyright reform, and abolish patents.

The party strives to make major reforms in the area of personal privacy. It said that government should not use of the 9/11 incident to increase its surveillance and control over citizens. The PATRIOT ACT, wiretapping, surveillance cameras are only some of the government’s ways of curtailing privacy of people. Also, in order to get more work out of their employees, corporations increase their spying activities.

The party also is trying to look at the area of government transparency. The party believes that citizens should have more control of their democratic destiny. This can be achieved if people have knowledge about what government does. Government has reduced its commitment to abiding by open meeting laws. It has also increased closed door deals that favor mostly corporations. Furthermore, it enters into deals involving public information being sold to private interests. These are injurious to democracy and privacy.

The Massachusetts Pirate Party has criticized government for not giving people the opportunity to live up to the old ideals. These ideals are those of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. With government expanding the powers of corporations, they have already overpowered the people. The party says that all efforts should be put in so that these ideals should be lived once more and be real for all.

As announced by James O’Keefe, the party’s organizer, the party is in the process of training activists. Once finished, they will work for organizing and building local chapters. The first move is killing the Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act (COICA). Government should not be empowered to “take down any web domain found to host copyrighted material without permission”. Next, it will be looking at legislations that it should support and should oppose. There is so much hope that the party will find its bright future in Massachusetts.

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Making Privacy More Private

Secretaries at the University of Iowa suspect that there was violation against their privacy. A supervisor attempted to use a hidden baby monitor to find out whether secretaries talked too much. Medical privacy law considers such action illegal, but supervisor Pam Snider said that she had the basis for doing so. The secretaries at the urology department presented their grievance with their union regarding privacy violation.

Supervisor Snider said that she received complaint from another worker about too much talk. She decided to use the baby monitor as her way of finding out if the claim was true. She secretly placed the gadget in the secretaries’ work area without their knowledge. On Monday morning of the following week, a worker discovered the hidden device.

Not long after the discovery, employees heard of the incident and top University of Iowa officials wasted no time to call a meeting. They felt sorry at the supervisor’s “attempted use of a hidden baby monitor to determine whether secretaries were talking too much”. However, they stated that “the device did not pick up any conversations to violate medical privacy laws”.

During the meeting, University officials announced that internal investigations are going on. Previously, they assured employees that no conversations were transmitted before the gadget was discovered. They added that the device was right away removed when it was found at the Department of Urology clinic. Furthermore, no time was wasted by officials so that corrective steps could be done.

A statement was promptly issued by UI Vice President for Medical Affairs Jean Robillard and Associate Vice President for Health Care Human Resources Jana Wessels. They wrote about how they felt sorry for the “unfortunate situation”. They acknowledged that the action by the supervisor was contrary to their organization’s values. Neither was it part of what they uphold as good supervisory practice. The almost 10,000 employees received a copy of Robillard and Wessel’s written statements. To reach out to a wider audience, the statements were also later released to The Associated Press.

Union president John Stellmach of AFSCME 12 acted as the workers’ representative and spokesperson. He said that statements issued by the management were in disagreement with reports from the employees. He firmly believed that conversations were intercepted. He also claimed that the device was not removed instantly after it was found. With the pictures as proof, it can be surmised that officials are trying to sweep the issue under the rug.

The union claimed that Snider at one time told employees that the device was not yet completely installed. Before setting up the receiver, she wanted to find out first where the chatting problem is coming from. Secretaries are firm not to withdraw their complaint. UI Vice President for Strategic Communication Tysen Kendig said that inquiry is continuing. However, he said that there is no proof yet of any infringement of the medical privacy law known as HIPAA. The union stands firm in their complaint since “any conversations overheard could have included confidential patient information”.

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Facebook Should Drop Its Plan

With Facebook’s pronouncement of their plan last January, users are worried and threatened as to their online safety. The company has just made open that it plans to permit third-party developers to gain access to users’ information. It was made clear that Facebook would only limit their permission to home addresses and phone numbers of users. At first it would show that there is nothing to be bothered about “letting loose” of such information. Others would not even lift a finger over the issue.

Many groups and some individuals have raised fears, asking Facebook to discontinue its plan. Some even wrote private letters to CEO Mark Zuckerberg advising him to shelve it. The subject seems to be so critical that it has started a huge movement rejecting the plan. Even those users who know less about identity theft have also expressed their alarm. Behavioral tracking is becoming more and more widespread. Many data marketing companies have accumulated much money out of data that they have secretly gathered. However, with Facebook’s arrangement of “freely” giving out user data, these companies do not have to “hide” their covert activities. On the other side, users will be open and defenseless targets of people who could harm them.

It may be good information to recognize what could be done with a user’s phone number and home address. Anybody with ample knowledge on data mining techniques would know that these two hold more than that information. These would open to other user information such as date of birth, e-mail address, or even estimated income. An identity theft could mine practically all other data he would need for his or her hidden agenda. The thief could apply for a loan or credit card in the name of the unsuspicious Facebook user.

New technologies have enabled families and friends all over the world to be in contact. One after the other, growth of these technologies has also made it easier to share data and information. Alongside with these, people have become not careful in uploading their personal data without thinking of the consequences. Then technology that allowed third parties to secretly “steal” data over the internet became fully developed. This gave rise to a dilemma that users have to fight against, or just to live with – the problem of privacy.

So much personal information has been made available into the hands of big companies and third parties. Facebook holds tens of millions of this data. Pushing through with its plan would not only put in danger their direct clients. It would include their customers’ friends and families whose data are also “attached”. To prevent such disaster and to protect its users, Facebook should undo its plan.

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Full-Body Scan Or Pat-Down?

Some airports in the U.S. are now using Automated Imaging Technology or AIT. Also called full-body scanner, it is here where passengers have to go through before boarding. In addition to the usual pat-down, the use of this device spares passengers from “body contact” with the airport security officer. Some argue that AIT is “better” compared with the pat-down, but privacy advocate groups think otherwise.

An advocacy group approached the Washington Court of Appeals judges. They object to how the technology invades the privacy of passengers. They called the use of full-body scanners as “unreasonable search” and in violation of a passenger’s civil rights. These machines are now being used as first line of defense at some airport security checkpoints.

A passenger’s naked image is shown as he or she passes through the machine. This is the main point of objection of the group. They imply that while passengers are spared from body contact, they are subjected to a more invasive technology. The EPIC considers the policy “in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution”. Aside from the foregoing, it also violates “laws protecting privacy and religious freedom”.

The government in defense of the use of this new technology responded that systems are in place to protect the privacy of passengers. It explained that passengers’ identity is never shown to the “viewers” who are generally agents at airports. Government says this makes the search reasonable and “minimally invasive”. However, the truth to this contention is yet to be ascertained.

EPIC has also advised the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to postpone the use of such technology. According to TSA, almost 98 percent of passengers go through full-body scanning without any problem. Only about 2 percent of passengers would choose pat-down instead. Atty. Marc Rotenberg of EPIC said it is likely that passengers do not know that they still have the pat-down as their option.

Even the judges themselves also expressed apprehension on the way TSA has been given the power to use the technology. One is the effect of the body scanner on individual passengers. It is possible that it is too late to discover its damaging effects on passengers. There should have been public consultation for inputs before it went into primary use. Its use should only be selective especially when the level of security threat is too low to warrant.

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How Private Should Privacy Be?

There is an odd connection between missing children cases and tax returns. This was found by Washington Federal treasury officials. Out of the more than 1,700 cases they examined, more than 1/3 of the children had been declared on tax returns. They were declared by relatives that are suspects for their abduction. Many domestic cases of child abduction remain unsolved and children are yet to be found.

The partners Sen. Amy Klobuchar and missing children’s advocate Patty Wetterling knock at law enforcement groups. They said tax returns of suspected abductors hold data that might lead to the solution of the cases. They suggest that, law enforcement agencies should be permitted to gain access at the tax return data of these “suspects”. Granting this flexibility might help in locating missing children across the country.

Klobuchar argued that the state should give a leeway on the privacy of those tax return records. They contain data that could potentially lead to the solution of these cases. These should be made available. Klobuchar is a former Hennepin County attorney who describes that there is no sense in overprotecting tax information data. The state would protect privacy as it should also exhaust all possible means in trying to find out where the kids are.

Divulging tax information to law enforcers would create more problems. Of the many privacy laws, those that revolve around taxes are one of the strongest in the US. Breaking the privacy of tax information data would also invite other compelling interests. Those of health care information and other government services are good examples.

Wetterling has lost a son an 11-year old son named Jacob. He was abducted neat their St. Joseph home in 1989. He is still one of the missing children. The missing child supporter said that they don’t “care about jurisdictional boundaries”. As parents they are only interested in getting their child back. In support to Klobuchar’s bill, Wetterling said this in a statement during the congressional panel hearing.

The senator noted that IRS allows disclosure of tax information data in some situations such as overdue student loans. This is part of a list of exceptions in the tax involving privacy. She further added that missing children shouldn’t be excluded from the list. It is clear that there should be a balance between protecting privacy rights and finding missing children. This is the real case.

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Beware Of Being Unaware

Yasir Afifi was dismayed when he discovered that he has been under surveillance for quite a long time. Believing that he did not do anything wrong, he filed a lawsuit against some FBI agents. Afifi found a GPS device on his car when he brought the vehicle to a mechanic. The 20-year old American-born student of Egyptian descent was surprised why he was put under spying eyes.

The mechanic was about to change oil when he found the device. Using magnets, it was securely placed between the right rear wheel and exhaust. Both of them could not identify what it was so they posted its image online. Instead of receiving responses or comments identifying the device, another sad thing happened. While he was driving two days later, agents who were wearing bullet-proof vests pulled him over. They demanded that he return the device.

Afifi was assisted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations in filing the lawsuit. He claimed that there was violation of his civil rights because the FBI agents did it without warrant. His lawyers surmised that his Middle East roots and frequent travels there might have triggered such action. He has two brothers in Egypt whom he supports. His father was a well-known Islamic-American community leader who died last year.

An FBI spokesperson decided to keep the details of the lawsuit and how the agency kept watch of Afifi. According to him, the FBI works under well-established Department of Justice and FBI guidelines. It should implement the most appropriate investigative steps or techniques as provided by law. It goes without saying that guidelines have been set to protect civil and constitutional rights.

Afifi is pursuing a course in business marketing at Mission College while at the same time working as computer salesman. He announced at a news conference that agents did not give clear answers as to the reason why he was watched. He did not deny that he makes frequent phone calls overseas. This could be the reason for such FBI action, but he insisted he did not break the law.

Privacy violation issues center on how the monitoring was conducted. Washington appeals court ruled out that the gathering of GPS data from individuals is considered a “search” hence it requires a warrant. The Obama administration in defense to FBI’s action said the court’s decision was “vague and unworkable”. Further it argued that government could no longer use GPS as a valuable tool in surveillance if the court would not reverse its ruling.

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The "Privacy Policy" Race

You might have tried to read the “Privacy Policy” of a popular networking site like Facebook. In case that you were able to read the small fonts and the thousands of words, were you able to comprehend? Here’s the hard truth: Privacy policies are never easy to understand. Facebook admitted this truth and now has a “better” way of disclosing its privacy policy to its customers. This is done with the hope of making its privacy policy easier to understand.

For several years, Facebook and Google have been rivals in presenting “better” versions of privacy policies. Up to now, no winner has been declared. Particularly, these two companies want to make privacy policies easier to use. This means “easy to understand, more visual and interactive, and more relevant to users’ concerns”.

What does Facebook actually mean by “presenting something different”? Facebook has opened the result for user’s comments. Instead of the term “Privacy Policy” it used “Data Use Policy”. This shift might have been the result of the protests by privacy advocates. They said that the term “Privacy Policy” is ambiguous because this generally illustrates how and when data is shared.

The new design places Facebook at a higher level in terms of visual appeal. Instead of a litany of texts, the “Data Use Policy” is presented into several pages. This improves the page’s readability compared with the older version. However, with the sections and subsections in the page, navigation is sacrificed. A reader has to come across linked pages that make spontaneous reading difficult.

This difficulty will not be addressed by just deleting some words per page. Comprehension is another key aspect to think about. Facebook admits that in essence the “Data Use Policy” is still the “Privacy Policy”. There is not really new about individual privacy policy contents. Critics assert that privacy in Facebook should not be less than unidentified use.

Google at present allows three modes of use: unidentified, pseudonymous, and identified. Facebook allows only one - identified. It requires the user to provide correct personal information. A user could become unidentified, which is also doubtful, if he or she would turn off all Platform applications. However, this would limit his or her usage without the games, applications or Websites.

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"For Better Online Privacy"... Again?

Amidst the thorny issue on online privacy, technology giants Microsoft and Facebook continue to call for stronger consumer protection. They are up to improve their support and also to clarify their stand on the never ending debate concerning this issue. This time, they have introduced new approaches to boost web privacy.

Microsoft has just endorsed the concept of its do-not-track tool to its Web browsing software. Basically, this would allow users to get around those unwanted online behavior monitoring and tracking. Using this tool, the user can stay away from those targeted advertisements. This tool would be integrated in its Internet Explorer browser, as shown in the technical paper that was presented.

Facebook also presented its draft of a new privacy policy. Having been watched for quite a time, this revelation unveiled its strategy on handling information and advertisements. These are contained under headings such as “your information and how it is used” and “how advertising works”.

Online tracking technologies are becoming more and more intrusive. At the same time, tech companies continue to grapple with online privacy concerns. There are continuing attempts at simplifying privacy policies. Also, there are numerous proposals to improve online privacy submitted to the Federal Trade Commission. The disparity seems to put the tech in a situation which demands them to choose between consumers and advertisers.

Microsoft has prepared an online anti-tracking tool which would be included in the upcoming Internet Explorer 9. This do-not-track feature was revealed by a Microsoft spokeswoman. She further said that the company hopes to gain broad industry support for this new privacy tool. This is part of a suite of privacy tools developed by Microsoft. This would allow users to create their own lists of companies that they would not block from tracking them.

Following Microsoft’s move is Facebook Incorporated. According to its privacy and product counsel Edward Palmieri, the company has a new draft of start-up privacy policy. He said Facebook would always be true to its promise to its consumers. This would not exclude consumers from experiencing Facebook the way it is designed, even up to its privacy policies.

Facebook’s customers can expect for a better privacy policy which addresses both users’ and regulators’ concerns about privacy. The company is trying to consolidate its privacy settings into a control panel. This will make it easier for users to adjust the settings according to how their information would be shared.

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