Financial Times: "EU eyes big fines for privacy breaches"

An interesting piece on the FT website, about the upcoming review of the DP directive.

5% of turnover is a substantial fine...

Businesses breaching European Union privacy rules will face fines of up to 5 per cent of their global turnover under sweeping proposals to be unveiled next month.

In the first significant update of data protection legislation since 1995, companies found to have mishandled any personal data they hold – be it of their customers, suppliers or their own employees – will face the highest levels of fines, which could extend to billions of euros for large multinationals.

EU Seeks to Simplify Cross-border Data Protection Compliance

At a conference in Paris organized by the International Association of Privacy Professionals, Viviane Reding has suggested that companies can set their own privacy rules, as long as they do not contradict with one national data protection authority.

See full text here

'Unenforceable' right to be forgotten should not be included in new EU data laws, ICO says

Revisions to EU data protection laws should not give individuals a general 'right to be forgotten', the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has said.

Giving individuals the right to force organisations to delete the personal information they store them about would be misleading, unenforceable and have "implications" for free speech, the UK's data protection watchdog said.


Interesting !  also there is text which says that:

The European Commission recently announced that it plans to publish formal proposed changes to the EU Data Protection Directive by the end of January. EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding has said that a qualified 'right to be forgotten' would be included in the proposals.

For full text see here

Web standards body proposes universal 'do not track' system

The body responsible for making sure components of the world wide web work together has published plans to help create a universal 'do not track' mechanism in web browsers that would give users control of their privacy settings across all sites.
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W3C said it hopes its DNT standards will be in operation from the middle of next year and that they will provide an "exceedingly straightforward" way for internet users to control their privacy.

for full text see here.

F.T.C. Said to Be Near Facebook Privacy Deal

After Google's 20y of external privacy audit, now it's time for Facebook.

Interesting stuff, although not more than common sense.

Under the agreement, Facebook would agree to privacy audits for 20 years, one of the people said. It would also prohibit Facebook from making public a piece of information that a user had originally shared privately on the site without express permission, the person said. The

I am wondering if there is need for a settlement to enforce what would be probably implicit in EU regulations?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/11/technology/facebook-is-said-to-be-near-ftc-settlement-on-privacy.html

Have a nice weekend,
Salva

An overview of the different cybercrime laws

Hi,

while googling for something different I've found this overview of the different laws (world wide) related to cybercrime. This may be useful for the ones of you dealing with the cybercrime theme now (or soon).

regards,
Salva

http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/taiex/dyn/create_speech.jsp?num=16431

Police must justify use of communication interception technology, lawyer says

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) has bought technology that will allow it to intercept and shut-off communications without the help of telecoms companies, according to media reports.

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Police and other law enforcement bodies have the power to intercept communications under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) subject to approval by the Home Secretary.

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Under the Human Rights Act individuals are guaranteed the right to privacy surrounding their communications other than if a public authority, such as the police, believe it necessary to interfere with that right "in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others".

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Full report here

Having these equipments owned by the Police would allow them to perform surveillance on any telephone they may consider (the tel. number) belongs to a suspect... !