According to the Hawaii Reporter, Gov. Linda Lingle has signed SB3092, Relating to Social Security Number. The new law “[m]andates that only the last four digits of an individual’s social security number shall be listed on judgments, orders, or decrees endorsed and recorded in the bureau of conveyances or land court.” The measure is designed to protect individuals against identity theft, as criminals often search through publicly available court records for sensitive personal information, such as Social Security Numbers. Read more »

Cathay Pacific Airways is objecting to a 2007 ruling by the Hong Kong Privacy Commissioner that the airline must end its policy of requiring employees with a high number of absences to hand over their medical records. The Privacy Commissioner said the company acted “unfairly” by requiring employees to either release their data or face disciplinary action. Read more »

Minnesota’s City Pages has a story on FBI agents working as part of the city’s Joint Terrorism Task Force seeking informants to infiltrate “vegan potlucks” and spy on possible Republican National Convention protesters, once again raising the specter of COINTELPRO. The FBI has a history of using informants to gain data on suspected protesters and also of linking up with state or local police to do so. In some cases, law enforcement agents’ actions go beyond mere data-gathering. Read more »

According to Der Spiegel, Deutsche Telekom may have broken German data privacy laws when the company tried to ferret out which employees leaked information to the media. The magazine said it obtained an internal fax revealing that the company had reviewed the phone call records of some of its directors and executives. “The German phone company said in a statement on Saturday that call data comprising time, duration and names of participants was abused in 2005 and possibly in 2006,” reports Thompson Financial News. The company used its own millions of call records to investigate the leaks. German prosecutors are reviewing the case.

The case is reminiscent of Hewlett-Packard’s 2006 phone-record spying scandal. Read more »

Google says that it will begin automatically blurring the faces of individuals who are caught on the company’s “Street View” photos. Note that only individuals’ faces will be obscured. Their clothing and other details will still be vividly clear, which would allow for easy identification by acquaintances. 

About a year ago, Google launched Street View, where thousands of street-level photos of various U.S. cities were taken by Google operatives and then linked to Google Maps and Google Earth searches. Instantly, there were questions about the privacy of individuals photographed sunbathing, leaving strip clubs, or at crime scenes. Google did not get permission from the people in the photos. At first, Google said that people who wanted their images removed would have to jump through a huge number of hoops. Read more »

The Canadian Internet Registration Authority has announced changes to domain registration data. Currently, the names, postal and e-mail addresses, and phone numbers of the owners of domains are publicly available under the WHOIS database. Beginning on June 10, that will change in Canada, as WHOIS registrant data for individuals will be made private by default (for corporations, their WHOIS data will be public by default). There are other changes, as well. Privacy and security Read more »