Der Spiegel reports on a proposed law in Germany concerning social-networking sites and job applicants — the legislation also considers the privacy rights of employees in the workplace. We’ve discussed before how data from social-networking sites (such as MySpace, Facebook or Bebo) are being used in the United States to gather evidence in criminal trials, against employees and applicants to jobs, and high school students as well as applicants to colleges and graduate schools.

Der Spiegel reports, “According to a 2009 survey commissioned by the website CareerBuilder, some 45 percent of employers use social networking sites to research job candidates. And some 35 percent of those employers had rejected candidates based on what they found there, such as inappropriate photos, insulting comments about previous employers or boasts about their drug use.” However, there is good news for social-networking site users in Germany:

According to reports in the Monday editions of the Die Welt and Süddeutsche Zeitung newspapers, Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière has drafted a new law on data privacy for employees which will radically restrict the information bosses can legally collect. The draft law, which is the result of months of negotiations between the different parties in Germany’s coalition government, is set to be approved by the German cabinet on Wednesday, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Read more »

Gizmodo reports on privacy problems with a new program in Leon, Mexico, which will place iris scanners in public to track people as they go about their daily lives. (Gizmodo’s analyzing a Fast Company Fast Company.) Supporters of the iris scanning systems compare them to “digital scarlet letters,” which would distinguish criminals from the innocent.

Imagine a public eye-scanner that can identify 50 people per minute, in motion. Now imagine the government installed these scanner systems all across an entire city. Or don’t imagine it, because it’s already happening, right now.

Leon, Mexico, is doing exactly that, installing real-time iris scanners from biometrics research and development firm Global Rainmakers Inc. These retinal scanners don’t require people to stop and put their eyes in front of a camera. They work in real time, as people walk [...] Read more »

The Toronto Star reports on a new KPMG International survey (2 MB pdf) about Canadians’ attitudes toward privacy and security:

KPMG International’s annual Consumers and Convergence survey, released Wednesday, found that about two-thirds, or 63 per cent, of Canadians are concerned about privacy when using a mobile device. More than half, 58 per cent, are worried about security.

That’s not far off other respondents around the world. However, Canadians are also less likely to use mobile devices for buying goods or services and banking, KPMG said in a release.

Only 19 per cent of Canadians feel comfortable using their mobile phone for financial transactions, compared to 34 per cent of global respondents, the survey found. [...] Read more »

The Wall Street Journal reports on privacy questions in Germany surrounding online services giant Google:

As companies such as Google and Facebook Inc. expand their reach, many Germans, scarred by a history of authoritarianism, say they are increasingly fearful of losing control of their personal information. With polls showing a majority of Germans opposed to having images of their homes included in Street View, which provides Internet users street-level views of public buildings and private residences, politicians have been scrambling to act, with some even calling for new legislation to curb the service.

Google has taken pains to assuage German concerns, allowing people to opt out of the service before it goes live. So far, however, such overtures seem to have failed to quell many Germans’ fears. [...]

Germany has been the flashpoint in the debate over U.S. technology companies’ handling of online data privacy. Google created a stir in May when it said it had inadvertently been collecting snippets of private data sent by consumers over wireless networks for years while compiling photos for its Street View service. Read more »

The New York Times reports on questions about the security of Web sites, which could allow for surveillance of or eavesdropping on the activities of Internet users:

Computer security researchers are raising alarms about vulnerabilities in some of the Web’s most secure corners: the banking, e-commerce and other sites that use encryption to communicate with their users.

Those sites, which are typically identified by a closed lock displayed somewhere in the Web browser, rely on a third-party organization to issue a certificate that guarantees to a user’s Web browser that the sites are authentic. But as the number of such third-party “certificate authorities” has proliferated into hundreds spread across the world, it has become increasingly difficult to trust that those who issue the certificates are not misusing them to eavesdrop on the activities of Internet users, the security experts say. [...] Read more »

Recap: Research in Motion (RIM) faced the threat that its BlackBerry smartphones would be banned in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia because of security concerns. The New York Times reported that RIM and Saudi Arabia have reached a deal concerning the cellphones, but Reuters reported problems remained for RIM in India.

Now, the Wall Street Journal reports on RIM’s negotiations with India over surveillance of the BlackBerry messaging service, which RIM promises customers is a “secure” e-mail system. The concessions reportedly suggested by RIM in these negotiations with India raise substantial questions about the privacy of BlackBerry users’ data.

In a series of discussions that intensified this summer, RIM offered to provide crucial information that would help the Indian government track down messages sent via the company’s popular and encrypted corporate email service, according to those familiar with the confidential talks and to minutes of meetings reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. [...]

Governments are pressuring RIM to comply with their demands for information in part because unlike other smartphone vendors, it operates its own network of servers, the biggest of which is in Canada, outside their monitoring reach and jurisdiction. Read more »