Do computer “unlawful access” laws exempt improperly accessing a spouse’s account? Short answer: No. This case got considerable media attention and outrage when it was first reported. A man accessed his wife’s email without her consent. They were separated. He was charged with violating the Michigan’s computer unlawful access law, MCL 752.795, which is similar […]
There’s a good editorial in the NY Post today about the big data grab the Education Department is facilitating with student data. I blogged about this issue a short while ago at the Huffington Post.
Here’s a list of notable privacy books published in 2011.
The 9th Circuit has decided a pair of cases involving the NSA Surveillance Program. In Jewel v. NSA, the 9th Circuit concluded that plaintiffs had standing to raise constitutional challenges against NSA telephone surveillance:
The New York Times may have set a new record for sending an accidental email. There are tales of email being sent outorganization-wide, but nothing on the scale of what the New York Times just did. An email meant for 300 people was sent to 8 million. Oops!
Jeff Jarvis has this humorous piece about the FTC vs. Santa:
In October, personal financial data — including social security numbers, loan repayment histories and bank-routing numbers – of thousands of college students was exposed on the Department of Education’s (ED) direct loan website. For seven minutes, anyone surfing the direct loan website could find personal information about students who had borrowed from the Department of […]
Over at the Huffington Post, I have a short piece about the growing problems with student data. Here’s the opening:
Increasingly, states and school districts are struggling over how to deal with teachers who communicate with students online via social network websites. One foolish way to address the issue is via strict bans, such as a law passed in Missouri earlier this year that attempted to ban teachers from friending students on social network websites. […]
My article, The PII Problem: Privacy and a New Concept of Personally Identifiable Information (with Professor Paul Schwartz), is now out in print. You can download the final published version from SSRN. Here’s the abstract: