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.

The Korea Times reports on the Korean Ministry of Public Administration and Security expanding the list of companies regulated by the country’s Information and Communications Network Law.

The number of companies affected by the law will expand to 220,000 starting next month, the ministry said, with refineries, real estate brokers, marriage agencies, job information centers, movie theaters and video rental stores among the new additions.

These businesses will be subject to fines or criminal charges when found to have disclosed the personal information of their customers illegally or without consent, ministry officials said. (more…)

At Computerworld, Jay Cline has an opinion column about how multinational corporations need to discuss privacy with their employees to ensure data security.

Currently, momentum is building among Western multinationals to seek approval from the European Union for their binding corporate rules (BCR) on privacy. Once they have that approval in hand, these companies are rolling out training on the new rules around the world. But when they do so, they often find that when it comes to the topic of privacy, Westerners and the rest of the world are often talking at cross purposes.

Quite simply, the concept of individual privacy rights doesn’t translate into the collectivist cultures where over half the people in the world live. A combination of language problems, foreign concepts and privacy values that aren’t shared means PowerPoint presentations produced in New York are falling on deaf ears in Shanghai, Mumbai and Johannesburg. (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…)

The Globe and Mail reports that students at the University of British Columbia, “discovered intact hard drives containing secret international security data and personal information at a digital dumping ground in Ghana.”

[The students' teacher, Peter Klein], a producer for the PBS television program Frontline and an Emmy Award winning journalist, said the drives included information about U.S. Homeland Security and Pentagon defence contracts as well as social security numbers, credit card numbers, and family photos. [...]

The findings are part of a project by Mr. Klein’s graduate students investigating electronic waste, or e-waste. The team also travelled to Guiyu, China, and India, piecing together the afterlife of discarded computers, drives and parts. [...]

While there’s no way to know if the data has been used to commit crimes, Mr. Klein said that criminal gang members have been seen combing the debris.

Two years ago, Congress argued about overhauling the nation’s immigration laws, but failed to pass comprehensive immigration law reform. Now, the Washington Post reports that Senate Democrats are again looking to change federal immigration laws. Instead of just creating an error-filled national database of Americans’ employment eligibility, this time legislators are seeking to require “that all U.S. workers verify their identity through fingerprints or an eye scan.” I would like to emphasize that they would gather biometric data from “all U.S. workers”; not just undocumented workers.

Speaking on the eve of a White House summit with congressional leaders on immigration, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) said a national system to verify work documents is necessary because Congress has failed to crack down on unscrupulous employers and illegal immigrants with fake documents.

“I’m sure the civil libertarians will object to some kind of biometric card — although . . . there’ll be all kinds of protections — but we’re going to have to do it. It’s the only way,” Schumer said. [...]

A senior White House official said Obama is open to all of Schumer’s proposals, including his ID plan, saying that “he wants to listen, he wants to talk. All of it is on the table.”

There are numerous privacy and civil liberty problems that are fundamental in the creation of a national database of fingerprints and eye scans for all U.S. workers, a database that places the burden on the individual to prove that he or she is allowed to work in this country. How quickly will this database go from being strictly to prove employment eligibility to being used by police departments to gather fingerprints while circumventing the warrant process and Fourth Amendment rights of search and seizure? Who else could have access to your fingerprint and iris scans? The United States already has discussed sharing fingerprint and other biometric data of suspects with European countries. It’s a small step to opening up a national employee biometrics database to other countries. (more…)