By Daniel J. Solove
The law regulating government surveillance and information gathering is in dire need of reform. This law, which consists of the Fourth Amendment and several statutes, was created largely in the 1970s and 1980s and has become woefully outdated. The result is that law enforcement officials and intelligence agencies can readily find ways to sidestep oversight and protections when engaging in surveillance and data collection.
By Daniel J. Solove
It seems as though every week brings news of another batch of data breaches . . . and they’re getting bigger. Target. Home Depot. Sony. Anthem. The list goes on and on.
The costs of many of these breaches are devastatingly large. And yet most data breaches are readily preventable. After reviewing more than 1,000 data breaches from 2014, the Online Trust Alliance (OTA) found that more than 90% of them could have been avoided.
By Daniel J. Solove and Paul M. Schwartz
This post is co-authored with Professor Paul M. Schwartz.
This post is part of a post series where we round up some of the interesting news and resources we’re finding.
For a PDF version of this post, and for archived issues of previous posts, click here.
By Daniel J. Solove
Recently, Anthem, one of the largest health insurance providers, suffered a massive data breach involving personal data on up to 80 million people. According to Anthem, the data breached includes “names, dates of birth, member ID/ social security numbers, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and employment information.”
By Daniel J. Solove
I produce computer-based privacy and data security training, so I’m often in the hunt for stock photos. One of the hardest things in the world to do is to find a stock photo of a hacker that doesn’t look absolutely ridiculous.
I’ve gone through hundreds of hacker stock photos, and I’ve discovered some that are so absurdly funny that they are true classics and deserve to be celebrated in a hall of fame. So I bought some of these gems to share them with you — because if there’s any sense of justice in the universe, when so much thought, creativity, and effort goes into a stock photo, it deserves to be sold.
by Daniel J. Solove
People create some very bad passwords. In the list of the most popular passwords of 2014, all of them are terrible. Just look at the top 10:
by Daniel J. Solove
This post is co-authored with Professor Paul M. Schwartz.
This post is part of a post series where we round up some of the interesting news and resources we’re finding. For a PDF version of this post, and for archived issues of previous posts, click here.
We became quite busy after the last update, so we’re a bit backlogged. We are catching up on developments late last year and we have a lot of material. We will release the next issue soon, as there is too much material to fit into this issue.
For a PDF version of this post, click here.
by Daniel J. Solove
“Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
— Privacy
I am growing weary of hearing news of the end of privacy or the death of privacy. Like news of the apocalypse, it seems as though declarations of the looming end of privacy are endless.
by Daniel J. Solove
Since 2000, I have taught a law school course in information privacy law. When I started teaching, I could count the number of law schools that had such a course on one hand.
Today, by my rough estimate, I believe that the course is offered in about 40-50 law schools.
There were quite a number of books published about privacy and security issues last year, and I would like to highlight a few notable ones. A few books came out in late 2014 and have an early 2015 publication date. I’m including them here. The books are in no particular order.