PRIVACY + SECURITY BLOG

News, Developments, and Insights

high-tech technology background with eyes on computer display

Public Records and Identity Theft

Daniel Solove     @daniel-solove.bsky.social
Founder of TeachPrivacy
March 8, 2006

Public Records and Identity Theft

There are new details to report about the famous Hamilton County public records website. Several years ago, the clerk of courts of Hamilton County, Ohio placed a wide range of public records online. Many of the records had extensive personal information about individuals, including Social Security Numbers and home addresses. The Hamilton County website garnered a lot of attention. The NY Times ran a story about it in 2002 called Dirty Laundry, Online for All to See (Sept. 5, 2002) at G1, by Jennifer 8. Lee:

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Total Information Awareness Strikes Back

Daniel Solove     @daniel-solove.bsky.social
Founder of TeachPrivacy
February 27, 2006

Total Information Awareness Logo

Government surveillance and data mining programs, it seems, never die. They just get renamed. So it has been with the much maligned airline screening program, which was originally called “CAPPS II.” It was canned, and a new program was started called “Secure Flight.” Recently I blogged about Secure Flight being canned, and I predicted that it would soon be reincarnated. That hasn’t happened just yet . . . but wait . . . it will. It’s a pattern.

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The Career Consequences of a Notorious Reputation

Daniel Solove     @daniel-solove.bsky.social
Founder of TeachPrivacy
February 21, 2006

Stained Reputation

The Wall Street Journal today had an article about the now famous email exchange I blogged about a few days ago where Dianna Abdala, a recent law school graduate turned down a job offer from an attorney, William Korman. The article discusses the fact that in some circumstances, people who are getting notorious reputations for being particularly rude or inappropriate aren’t suffering any career damage:

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Take Your Case to the Supreme Court and Get a Website

Daniel Solove     @daniel-solove.bsky.social
Founder of TeachPrivacy
February 21, 2006

Postcard Supreme Court

So you’re one of the lucky few, whose case has made it to the U.S. Supreme Court. Indeed, your odds of getting your case to the Supreme Court are no better than winning Powerball these days. Your next step: create a website. You can parlay your luck at getting chosen by the Supreme Court and become a legal celebrity.

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Why You Should Teach Information Privacy Law

Daniel Solove     @daniel-solove.bsky.social
Founder of TeachPrivacy
February 7, 2006

Information Privacy Law

Since now is the time that many new law professors are being hired, I thought I’d re-post an earlier post about teaching information privacy law. When new law professors are hired, there is often a lot of flexibility in what courses they can teach. While the law school will typically want a newly-hired professor to teach one or two “core” courses (first year courses or required courses), other courses are often highly negotiable. So if you want to teach a particular course, sometimes all you have to do is ask for it.

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A Translation of Gonzales’s Answers at the NSA Surveillance Hearings

Daniel Solove     @daniel-solove.bsky.social
Founder of TeachPrivacy
February 6, 2006

NSA Surveillance

The NSA surveillance hearings began today with the testimony of Attorney General Gonzales. To save you the time to read through the extensive transcript (here and here), I thought I’d translate some of Gonzales’s remarks for you:

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Update on the Kansas Teen Sex Medical Records Case

Daniel Solove     @daniel-solove.bsky.social
Founder of TeachPrivacy
February 4, 2006

Kansas

A few days ago, I blogged about a case in Kansas where the Attorney General interpreted a law prohibiting sex with minors under the age of 16 as requiring doctors to report any sexual activity by people under 16 to the state authorities. Recently, the Kansas Supreme Court issued an opinion, Alpha Medical Clinic v. Anderson, strongly limiting the Attorney General’s reporting requirement. Relying in significant part on Whalen v. Roe, 429 U.S. 589 (1977) (discussed in depth in my earlier post), the Kansas Supreme Court reasoned:

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Privacy of Internet Search Records

Daniel Solove     @daniel-solove.bsky.social
Founder of TeachPrivacy
February 4, 2006

Privacy of Internet Search Records

Here are some recent interesting links about the privacy of Internet search records:

Check out Patriot Search for a laugh. It’s a new search engine where your results are reported directly to the government: “Our mission is to provide the best possible search engine to you while at the same time, making sure the government is informed should you search for something obscure, illegal, or unpatriotic.” [Thanks to Scott Forbes for the link.]

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