I was interviewed today by Global News regarding a well-known online U.S. retailer selling an adult movie starring accused murderer Luka Rocco Magnotta. Magnotta is currently facing charges of first-degree murder, committing an indignity to human remains, publishing obscene material, distributing indecent material through the mail and harassing Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other members […] Read more
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued in May 2014 a groundbreaking decision for online privacy rights in Google Inc. v. Agencia Espanola de Proteccion de Datos under which European Union citizens have the right to require the erasure of inadequate, irrelevant or outdated information from search engines. This decision further concluded that […] Read more
Home Depot Inc. recently suffered a security breach under which 56 million credit cards may have been compromised in a five-month attack on its payment terminals. Yesterday, an article was discussing the fact that the risks of hacking were clear to computer experts inside Home Depot, that Home Depot relied on outdated software to protect its network […] Read more
In response to concerns about widespread Internet surveillance by police and law enforcement agencies, Telus Corp released yesterday its 2013 transparency report which reveals that it has received more than 100,000 requests for customer data from the government and law enforcement agencies in 2013. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada issued a Statement in April […] Read more
A Montreal female police officer Stefanie Trudeau also known as Matricule 728 (or Agent number 728), earned infamy during the Quebec 2012 student protests. She was also caught on video (which went viral), violently arresting a man drinking beer outside his apartment for which she is currently facing one count of assault. AD4 Distribution Canada, […] Read more
Solove published an interesting piece today entitled: “Why Do Lawsuits for Data Breaches Continue Even Though the Law Is Against Plaintiffs?” He explains that while the U.S. law has been far from kind to plaintiffs in data breaches (most courts dismiss claims for lack of harm), lawsuits keep coming. We have a similar situation in […] Read more
The WSP reports that most mobile apps don’t respect users’ privacy. The Global Privacy Enforcement Network (GPEN) undertook last May a second privacy sweep demonstrating the ongoing commitment of privacy enforcement authorities to work together to promote privacy protection around the world. It is reported that some 26 privacy enforcement authorities in 19 countries participated […] Read more
The Economist published a great piece on behavioral advertising : “Getting to know you: Everything people do online is avidly followed by advertisers and third-party trackers”. I blogged yesterday about the fact that the article raises an interesting point: industry players often take the position that since they do not know the users’ names, what they are collecting […] Read more
The Economist published a great piece on behavioral advertising today: “Getting to know you: Everything people do online is avidly followed by advertisers and third-party trackers”. The article discusses the fact that gathering information about users and grouping them into sellable “segments” has become important for the $120 billion online advertising economy. The article raises an […] Read more
In the U.S., Verizon has recently been slapped with a $7.4 million fine by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for a privacy violation, the largest fine the FCC has ever imposed for a privacy violation. What did Verizon do to deserve this fine? It failed to provide the choice of opting out of its […] Read more