The Wall Street Journal reports on security screening at airports, asking if Transportation Security Administration agents have violated privacy and civil liberties.

The Transportation Security Administration has moved beyond just checking for weapons and explosives. It’s now training airport screeners to spot anything suspicious, and then honoring them when searches lead to arrests for crimes like drug possession and credit-card fraud.

But two court cases in the past month question whether TSA searches—which the agency says have broadened to allow screeners to use more judgment—have been going too far.

A federal judge in June threw out seizure of three fake passports from a traveler, saying that TSA screeners violated his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure. Congress authorizes TSA to search travelers for weapons and explosives; beyond that, the agency is overstepping its bounds, U.S. District Court Judge Algenon L. Marbley said. [...] (more…)

The Herald reports that Australia’s Privacy Commissioner has warned Newcastle bars and clubs that scan the IDs of their customers that they must abide by the country’s of privacy laws.

ID scanning was covered under the Privacy Act and pubs had to ensure secure databases and that personal information was destroyed quickly, Privacy Commissioner Karen Curtis said.

The Cambridge, Diggers clubs at Wallsend and Mayfield (formerly Ex Services Club) and Fannys of Newcastle nightclub use the devices.

Information is kept by the venues for between 24 hours and two weeks.

The eventual goal is to link all the Newcastle late-night venues to try to identify and restrict troublemakers.

Objectors have accused the pubs and clubs of Big Brother-style antics, citing conspiracy theories of Newcastle taking gradual steps towards becoming a police state.

Found via PogoWasRight.org

On May 21, 2009, the Department of Homeland Security’s Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee sent to Secretary Napolitano and Chief Privacy Officer Callahan a White Paper on DHS Information Sharing and Access Agreements (pdf).

As DHS continues to consolidate its operations, it is taking steps to implement the Information Sharing Environment required under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA) and the supporting One DHS policy addressing the need for improved information sharing. [...] IRTPA and the One DHS policy could potentially lead to widespread sharing of personal data, not only within DHS, but also between DHS and other US Federal agencies, as well as between DHS and other non-Federal government agencies, including those of other countries. [...] (more…)

The New York Times reports on new voluntary self-regulatory guidelines (pdf) on targeted behavioral advertising from a consortium of groups in the behavioral advertising industry. These voluntary guidelines come after Congress held hearings and the Federal Trade Commission published a report on the issue.

In an effort to fend off federal regulation, major trade groups in the advertising industry have announced stricter guidelines on how their members use and collect online data. [...]

The report, “Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising,” reflects several of the commission’s suggestions from February. The principles are meant to go into effect in 2010, affecting the more than 5,000 companies that belong to the sponsoring organizations, including Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Disney and Verizon. [...]

Some privacy advocates have been pushing for more stringent rules, saying, for instance, that consumers must explicitly approve all data collection. [...] (more…)

The Washington Post has a story on the privacy of newborn children’s DNA, noting that sometimes the medical data is collected and retained without parents’ knowledge or consent. The data collection is done when children are born in hospitals. “Hospitals prick the heels of more than 4 million babies born each year in the United States to collect a few drops of blood under state programs requiring that all newborns be screened for dozens of genetic disorders.”

A group of parents [is] challenging Minnesota’s practice of storing babies’ blood samples and allowing researchers to study them without their permission. The confrontation, and a similar one in Texas, has focused attention on the practice at a time when there is increasing interest in using millions of these collected “blood spots” to study diseases.

Michigan, for example, is moving millions of samples from a state warehouse in Lansing to freezers in a new “neonatal biobank” in Detroit in the hopes of helping make the economically downtrodden city a center for biomedical research. The National Institutes of Health, meanwhile, is funding a $13.5 million, five-year project aimed at creating a “virtual repository” of blood samples from around the country. (more…)

A reporter for the Daily Mirror in the United Kingdom filed requests for data under the country’s freedom of information laws to 46 organizations and received a mountain of data. The organizations “included Government agencies, schools and universities, hospitals, dentists and GP surgeries and firms [the reporter] used.” He said, “Stacked over two feet high and weighing 12kg (nearly two stone), this pile of more than 3,000 sheets of paper contains every private detail of my life in my 35 years on the planet.”

He was amazed by the amount of personal information that was gathered and “stored on dozens of databases around the country which can be accessed by thousands of people”:

In it you’ll discover what I buy at the supermarket, what type of movies I like to watch and what music I’ve downloaded. (more…)