The revelations that the US National Security Agency (NSA) has been deploying a software tool (PRISM) that enables federal agencies to engage in the online equivalent of phone tapping have generated a…
How long ago did we acquire the right to privacy? When was it formalised? In this country it would be only in the year 2000, the year in which the Human Rights Act came into force; it incorporated the…
The past week has seen some extraordinary allegations that the US National Security Agency (NSA) was intercepting all online communications. It is also alleged that the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters…
Recent news of widespread phone and internet surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA) has raised serious questions over the ethical and legal obligations private companies face to protect the…
The US National Security Agency (NSA) has direct access to information on the servers of major American internet companies, according to reports published in the Guardian and the Washington Post. The NSA…
In May, the US Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records from reporters of the Associated Press (AP), a multinational non-profit news agency. AP’s chief executive Gary Pruitt…
We know that as we browse the internet, we leave behind a trail. Search results reflect our browsing history; usernames and passwords are remembered on long-forgotten websites; and personalised adverts…
The recent publication of a leaked video demonstrating American security firm Raytheon’s social media mining tool RIOT (Rapid Information Overlay Technology) has rightly incensed individuals and online…
Initial responses to Facebook’s newly announced Graph Search (a name only a software engineer could love) appear to be split into two main camps: those who have celebrated the level of nuanced detail that…
Telstra’s first attempt to introduce a cyber-safety service for mobile customers in June was a flop of significant proportions. Customers and concerned members of the public reacted strongly to the collection…
We all know the basics: when you sign up for a Google account you provide valuable personal information that allows hardworking people at the company to build a profile of you. This will include your age…
Recent cases of online abuse against Charlotte Dawson and NRL player Robbie Farah have attracted considerable media attention and triggered public debate about how to respond to this issue. But how big…
In the “age of the social graph”, it is possible to profile people by tracking their relationships with friends and associates rather than by looking at the content of their communications. Debate about…
With each passing day commercial interests seem to find new ways to harness the tools on which the web was built. Policy initiatives such as the US’s now-defunct SOPA and in-progress CISPA now involve…
IDEAS AND OWNERSHIP: The concept of protecting ideas and innovation by legal means dates back to antiquity. But many of our existing laws are under strain, their suitability and ultimate purpose called…
We all know Google has a history of privacy-related misdemeanors but a report in the Wall Street Journal last week suggests the search giant hasn’t learn from its mistakes. The report, about the findings…
Regulation of our intimate lives has always been a thorny issue. The anti-sodomy laws of the past and the same-sex marriage issue today illustrate times when policymakers can get it very, very wrong. Legislation…
Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, hit back at reports yesterday that the company’s iPhones track the movements of its 100 million users. The charge was that Apple was storing a database of this information, to which…