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The beauty of this is:
each individual has to choose between Free Speech or Privacy.

Anyone who chooses to exercise Free Speech becomes 0wned by whomever wants to profile&dossier 'em, and anyone who chooses to exercise Privacy has the right to not say anything.

I wonder, in this Majority Rule ( and all others must Obey & Conform & Belong ) world, whether "free speech" will win, or whether "privacy" will win...

... keeping-in-mind that no individual has as much capability to make a meaning known ( or to do-so as a means of suppressing competing meaning ) as does a marketing-department, and
.. also that Total Information Awareness programs, whether called STASI or Satan, or any other label
( humour is: "satan" means Accuser, and TIA + Patriot-II exists so that authority can accuse without having to have correct information, and without you having the right to see the basis for your accusation, and without you having the right to defend yourself in level-playing-field and without anyone, anywhere having the right to know you've been accused/convicted/disappeared.. read the link. )
.. depends entirely on no-one having valid privacy...

Perfectly Brilliant.

Then what-about that new( last few years ) habit of location-tracking all students, all the time they're in the school, using RFID-style ID-Cards?

"Oh, you're being asked to leave the school."
ah, Why?
Because you are associating with Felonious Monks:
... on this occasion you were within 1 metre of This person for more than 20 minutes, and we've decided/determined they are a vandal.
... on this occasion you were within 1 metre of This person for more than 20 minutes, who is a known sympathizer with commie 'individual-rights' politicos.
... on this occasion you were within 1 metre of that teacher for more than 20 minutes ( outside of your scheduled classtime: you weren't obeying OUR schedule's implications ), who 14 years ago spoke-out against Totalitarianism's Information/Awareness programs ( STASI, Hitler, Stalin, et al ), and...
... that pattern means you are a threat.

Leave.
If you oppose or fight this, that is terrorism, and will be dealt-with as such.
If you try to bring-in others, that is terrorism, and will be dealt-with as such.
The CIA/Homeland Security have your file, and correctness isn't a right, AND you haven't any right to know what's in your file, let-alone any right to correct anything in any dossier that is on you.

End Of Discussion."

Oh, but That Wouldn't Actually Happen! Oh, No!
http://www.privacyinternational.org/activities/stu pidsecurity/ Here's a trumpet, from an authoritarian strumpet:
Classroom management: Our technology must be able to enhance the management of students, teachers and resources. We need to provide attendance and location tracking, grading system, event management, transportation, public announcements, bulletin boards, electronic discussion groups and distance learning.

Here's a non-RF version:
Attendance - Students register by swiping their personalised ID card through a reader unit, within the classroom, under staff supervision. The period commences when the teacher swipes his/her card. Any student arriving late will swipe as they enter the classroom and at the end of the period only the teacher swipes which automatically logs out all students. This procedure is repeated for each teaching period. Students will be encouraged to record temporary absence from the class by swiping out and in again upon their return.
... this from http://www.sydneysmith.hull.sch.uk/swipe.html.

Ahhnnnddd... here's an article depicting a current instantiation of the Totalitarian Utopia we my be beneficiaries of, if all goes well:
Armies of security guards, IDs with digital tracking codes, monitoring cameras, a ban on pentel pens, students made to sign a waiver not to enlist in anti-administration groups. Campus repression, militant groups say, is back again in Metro Manila's schools and all because national security and police authorities tag these campuses as breeding ground of terrorists. http://www.bulatlat.com/news/2-40/2-40-highrisk.ht ml

At lest your not in Australia and winning this.

Privacy International give their Big Brother awards for contributions to the destruction of privacy. Shouldn't the FSF or someone make awards for the contribution to closing software.

Most Annoyingly Stupid Award

Wrong... It should be awarded to this guy, when explaining the security in Iraq.

</joke>

There are separate Big Brother awards for the US. The 2003 awards for the US will be announced in April. (Link)

seek and ye shall find....

Privacy and Human Rights 2002

You'll be wanting part 3, link right at the bottom.

The page was slow to load when I reached it, so I guess it will be slashdoted anytime soon.

1. Google's immortal cookie:
Google was the first search engine to use a cookie that expires in 2038. This was at a time when federal websites were prohibited from using persistent cookies altogether. Now it's years later, and immortal cookies are commonplace among search engines; Google set the standard because no one bothered to challenge them. This cookie places a unique ID number on your hard disk. Anytime you land on a Google page, you get a Google cookie if you don't already have one. If you have one, they read and record your unique ID number.

2. Google records everything they can:
For all searches they record the cookie ID, your Internet IP address, the time and date, your search terms, and your browser configuration. Increasingly, Google is customizing results based on your IP number. This is referred to in the industry as "IP delivery based on geolocation."

3. Google retains all data indefinitely:
Google has no data retention policies. There is evidence that they are able to easily access all the user information they collect and save.

4. Google won't say why they need this data:
Inquiries to Google about their privacy policies are ignored. When the New York Times (2002-11-28) asked Sergey Brin about whether Google ever gets subpoenaed for this information, he had no comment.

5. Google hires spooks:
Matt Cutts, a key Google engineer, used to work for the National Security Agency. Google wants to hire more people with security clearances, so that they can peddle their corporate assets to the spooks in Washington.

6. Google's toolbar is spyware:
With the advanced features enabled, Google's free toolbar for Explorer phones home with every page you surf. Yes, it reads your cookie too, and sends along the last search terms you used in the toolbar. Their privacy policy confesses this, but that's only because Alexa lost a class-action lawsuit when their toolbar did the same thing, and their privacy policy failed to explain this. Worse yet, Google's toolbar updates to new versions quietly, and without asking. This means that if you have the toolbar installed, Google essentially has complete access to your hard disk every time you phone home. Most software vendors, and even Microsoft, ask if you'd like an updated version. But not Google.

7. Google's cache copy is illegal:
Judging from Ninth Circuit precedent on the application of U.S. copyright laws to the Internet, Google's cache copy appears to be illegal. The only way a webmaster can avoid having his site cached on Google is to put a "noarchive" meta in the header of every page on his site. Surfers like the cache, but webmasters don't. Many webmasters have deleted questionable material from their sites, only to discover later that the problem pages live merrily on in Google's cache. The cache copy should be "opt-in" for webmasters, not "opt-out."

8. Google is not your friend:
Young, stupid script kiddies and many bloggers still think Google is "way kool," so by now Google enjoys a 75 percent monopoly for all external referrals to most websites. No webmaster can avoid seeking Google's approval these days, assuming he wants to increase traffic to his site. If he tries to take advantage of some of the known weaknesses in Google's semi-secret algorithms, he may find himself penalized by Google, and his traffic disappears. There are no detailed, published standards issued by Google, and there is no appeal process for penalized sites. Google is completely unaccountable. Most of the time they don't even answer email from webmasters.

9. Google is a privacy time bomb:
With 150 million searches per day, most from outside the U.S., Google amounts to a privacy disaster waiting to happen. Those newly-commissioned data-mining bureaucrats in Washington can only dream about the sort of slick efficiency that Google has already achieved. Google deserves your nomination for corporate Big Brother of the Year.

What if countries refuse? -- and I can't really see the rest of the world adding biometrics to their passports just becuase the US tells them to.

The UK are intending to introduce biometric id cards - there's already been consultation (so called) about it. The US biometric thing was sited by David Blunkett as a reason for us needing them ... Details here

I don't think Stand can be considered independent, they are decidedly against such legislation, although this doesn't diminish the value of thousands of people using them to formally state their abhorrence for the proposal.

When I wrote to my MP (Labour, current governing party) at the start of the consultation I was told "The entitlement card was just another version of the preoccupation of some civil servants (usually in the Home Office) with the idea." and "I really do not hear of any serious move down this road at UK level." Not that I really believe him, but maybe they realise they have a difficult time ahead.

Privacy International have just requested an investigation into the maladministration of the current consultation process on ID cards that has just ended so its not over yet, and certainly not on the basis of a survey by a company who wants to make money out of it. It is outrageously easy to get the results you want by tuning the questions you ask. This will not be trusted.

As a historical aside, the last UK ID cards were abandoned in 1953. At the time the Lord High Chief Justice stated that "it is obvious that the police now, as a matter of routine, demand the production of national registration identity cards whenever they stop or interrogate a motorist for any cause....This Act was passed for security purposes and not for the purposes for which, apparently it is now sought to be used...."

"The Home Office's consultation on its ID (aka Entitlement) Card proposals closes today, amidst complaints from privacy campaigners that the government has broken its own rules in canvassing opinions on its controversial plans. Human rights group Privacy International has lodged a complaint on the consultation process with the Parliamentary Ombudsman, due to several alleged breaches of the Government's own code of practice. "

Maybe they just want another way to monitor the public in the UK.

...for a Big Brother Award bestowed during this year's Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference.

Some of you may find this amusing. I discovered it at the bottom of the CFP 2002 notes. My personal favorite is John Ashcroft for Worst Public Official.

In other news, the Department of Redundancy Department has found Roger Clarke guilty of abusing title tags.

This seems like as good a place as any to congratulate RealNetworks for winning a Big Brother award.

Political News from Wired News - Cybercrime Treaty Finally Ready. After four years of haggling over the language, several countries including the United States will sign a cybercrime treaty.

WildernessCoast.org - Cybercrime Treaty Bibliography -- By Date. A wide collection of links that talk about the Cybercrime Treaty Same info sorted by title.

Council of Europe - Convention on Cybercrime.

The Convention on Cybercrime has been adopted by the Committee of Ministers during its 109th Session, on 8 November 2001 and will be opened for signature, in Budapest, on 23 November 2001.

The Convention will be the first international treaty on crimes committed via the Internet and other computer networks, dealing particularly with infringements of copyright, computer-related fraud, child pornography and violations of network security. It also contains a series of powers and procedures such as the search of computer networks and interception.

Its main objective, set out in the preamble, is to pursue a common criminal policy aimed at the protection of society against cybercrime, especially by adopting appropriate legislation and fostering international co-operation.

The Convention is the product of four years of work by Council of Europe experts, but also by the United States, Canada, Japan and other countries which are not members of the organisation.

It will be supplemented by an additional protocol making any publication of racist and xenophobic propaganda via computer networks a criminal offence.

[ ... ]

But Fred Eisner, a consultant for the Dutch government and private companies, said the draft made unfair demands on Internet service providers by asking them to track Web users' online movements.

"This draft convention lacks balance," Eisner told the assembly. "The convention explicitly gives much more power to law enforcement agencies and it has no system of checks and balances."

Bruce McConnell, president of McConnell International, a Washington-based consulting firm, said the treaty should be more forceful in protecting the privacy of Web users who are already worried about being spied on.

"There is concern that the powers of surveillance ... are not balanced by comparable protections for individuals' privacy," he said.

Maybe you trust the law-enforcement chiefs in D.C. to do the right thing. But here's the catch. The same new powers given to the United States will also handed over to Bulgaria, Romania, Azerbaijan, and other Council of Europe nations that-although officially democratic now-don't have a strong traditions of checks and balances on police power.

Do you want investigators rummaging around your clients' computer systems on warrants issued by former Soviet bloc nations?

That's the prospect that has pushed AT&T Corporation and other high-technology companies into feverishly trying to stop or at least soften the treaty. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Information Technology Association of America also oppose it.

Stewart Baker is one of the chief lobbyists for the treaty opponents. As a former general counsel of the National Security Agency and recipient of the Department of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service, he's got street cred on these issues in corporate America.

What worries Baker and his colleagues? Consider the following hypothetical: A Los Angeles screenwriter corresponds by e-mail with a neo-Nazi in Germany while researching a script. Shortly after, he finds federal agents examining the files on his home computer. The agents also visit America Online Inc. to retrieve records of the screenwriter's AOL usage.

The agents are fulfilling a warrant issued by German authorities allowing them to search for Nazi propaganda. Such material is unlawful in Germany but not in the U.S. They framed their warrant in terms of "suspected terrorist activity."

LAW.com (requires cookies) - International Treaty on Cybercrime Poses Burden on High-Tech Companies.

Maybe you're a civil libertarian, and maybe you're not. Maybe you worry about how the United States exercises its vast investigative and prosecutorial powers, and maybe you don't.

But if you counsel U.S. corporations on computer-related issues, you should be concerned about a new proposed treaty known as the "Convention on Cybercrime." The Council of Europe, a 43-nation public body created to promote democracy and the rule of law, is nominally drafting the treaty. Curiously, however, the primary architect is the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation are using a foreign forum to create an international law-enforcement regime that favors the interests of the feds over those of ordinary citizens and businesses. Their goal is to make it easier to get evidence from abroad and to extradite and prosecute foreign nationals for certain kinds of crimes.

Maybe you trust the law-enforcement chiefs in D.C. to do the right thing. But here's the catch. The same new powers given to the United States will also be handed over to Bulgaria, Romania, Azerbaijan, and other Council of Europe nations that -- although officially democratic now -- don't have a strong tradition of checks and balances on police power.

[ ... ]

Stewart Baker, a partner at Washington, D.C.'s Steptoe & Johnson, is one of the chief lobbyists for the treaty's opponents. As a former general counsel of the National Security Agency and recipient of the U.S. Department of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service, he's got street credentials on these issues in corporate America.

Slashdot | Implications Of The International Cybercrime Treaty.

SiliconValley.com part of San Jose Mercury News - Pioneer cybercrime pact tightens privacy rules.

MS-NBC - Pioneer cybercrime pact tightens privacy rules. PARIS, May 25 -- Stiff criticism from the EU and pressure groups has prompted drafters of the world's first treaty against cybercrime to tighten provisions protecting privacy online, the final text showed Friday.

[ ... ]

Against EU objections, it also limits the right of a country to reject a request from abroad to store and hand over data in potential crime cases if the requesting country thinks it could be misused.

The text says states should make sure that systems operators or other people who know how to use a certain system can be ordered to cooperate in any such a cyberprobe.

PARIS (Reuters) - Stiff criticism from the EU and pressure groups has prompted drafters of the world's first treaty against cybercrime to tighten provisions protecting privacy online, the final text showed on Friday.

The Council of Europe, a 43-state human rights watchdog, has amended the text to ensure police respect privacy rights when they follow digital trails to fight online crimes such as hacking, spreading viruses, using stolen credit card numbers or defrauding banks.

''The guarantees in the treaty have been reinforced,'' Peter Csonka, deputy head of the economic crime division at the Council's headquarters in Strasbourg, told Reuters after the Council posted the final text -- version 27 -- on its Web site.

But the treaty, which has aroused heated debate in cyberspace since its draft text became public last year, ignored calls by Internet service providers (ISPs) for fewer costly requirements on preserving data that could be linked to a crime.

It still accorded police wide powers to chase suspected cybercriminals -- powers some critics say go beyond what is legal in some Council member states or in observer countries like the United States, Canada and Japan due to sign the treaty.

ZDNet - Internet founder worried over EU cybercrime plans.

BRUSSELS --Vint Cerf, a founding father of today's Internet, said on Thursday that European Union plans for new rules to fight crime on the Web risked clashing with existing EU privacy regulations.

Cerf, who helped develop the Internet in the early 70s shortly after graduating from Stanford University and now works for WorldCom, said more secure network systems were an immediate priority for the successful development of the ubiquitous Web.

He told Reuters in an interview that Internet traffic should be retained only for billing purposes and was too cumbersome to be stored for police investigations.

Changes to a controversial treaty on cybercrime have done nothing to improve it, say civil liberty campaigners.

Next week, the Council of Europe will vote on the treaty, which has been redrafted 26 times before reaching its final version late in May.

The most recent changes were made to take into account the fears of civil liberty and privacy campaigners. But cyber-rights groups say the latest changes are purely cosmetic and have not diluted what they describe as its most pernicious sections.

The groups say that, if adopted in its current form, the treaty could lead to changes in legislation that would stifle rights to privacy and do little to curb the activities of law enforcement agencies.

[ ... ]

In December 2000, 23 organisations, banding together under the banner of the Global Internet Liberty Campaign (GILC), signed a letter condemning the 25th draft of the treaty as "appalling", and warned that it handed law enforcement agencies sweeping powers to snoop and could seriously erode online privacy.

Now, three civil liberty groups, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and Privacy International, have sent another letter to the Council of Europe outlining their "continuing concerns" over the wording of the treaty and saying that their fears have not been laid to rest.

The letter chastises the Council of Europe for refusing to open up the redrafting debates to non-governmental organisations and for, it says, ignoring the human rights and privacy concerns of organisations such as the GILC.

It goes on to say that the original criticisms still stand, and that the treaty does not pay enough attention to existing laws which safeguard human rights. It says the treaty's recommendations on protecting privacy are vague and do not go far enough.

IT industry gurus have branded the Council of Europe's Convention on Cybercrime 'foolish, unworkable and a legal con trick'.

The controversial treaty provides a blanket legislation to deal with all forms of internet crime from hacking to online pornography.

Caspar Bowden, director of internet think-tank FIPR, said: "The Convention is essentially a legal con trick, drafted in secret by a handful of nameless bureaucrats. It equates the internet - a network of private networks - with 'cyberspace', a metaphor from science fiction.

"By this sleight of hand, the internet is defined as a public space over which law enforcement should be granted unfettered powers of surveillance and extradition," he added.

International policy-makers this week ended a round of talks aimed at setting common rules affecting online trade and commerce, but they made little progress in bridging divisions that threaten to delay the pact.

In the works for nearly a decade, the Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments is still almost unknown outside international policy circles. Nevertheless, it could have broad implications for consumers and businesses by setting new rules for online copyrights, free speech and e-commerce--if it is approved.

Opposition to the treaty heated up Wednesday, when a two-week drafting session wrapped up with few concessions to critics, primarily from the United States, who say the pact threatens free speech and could force Internet service providers to become global content police.

"In a nutshell, it will strangle the Internet with a suffocating blanket of overlapping jurisdictional claims, expose every Web page publisher to liabilities for libel, defamation and other speech offenses from virtually any country, (and) effectively strip Internet service providers of protections from litigation over the content they carry," Jamie Love, director of Ralph Nader's Consumer Project on Technology (CPT), wrote in a report after the meeting.

The treaty is one of several efforts by the global community to grapple with a complicated legal issues on a borderless Web.

Four years ago, nations including the United States signed onto a World Intellectual Property Organization pact to protect copyright in the digital age. And several countries, including the United States, are hammering out the world's first cybercrime treaty, which would provide a standard for fighting online crime.

The Hague treaty differs from those efforts because it would not outline specific laws participants must follow. It's much broader, requiring participants to agree to enforce each others' laws on a variety of topics. As it stands, the treaty would require courts to enforce the commercial laws of the convention's 52 member nations, even if they prohibit actions that are legal under local laws.

BRUSSELS - The blueprint for a global code on Cyber-crime was agreed on in Strasbourg, France, Friday, paving the way for international rules governing online copyright infringement, online fraud, child pornography and hacking.

The 41 members of the Council of Europe (CoE), plus the U.S., Canada and Japan, signed on to a draft convention on cybercrime that is set to be rubber-stamped at ministerial level in September.

"Once adopted, the Convention will be the first international treaty on criminal offenses committed through the use of Internet and other computer networks," the Council of Europe said in a statement.

In September, the Council of Europe approved the Convention on cybercrime, a historic treatise that lays the foundation for legislation allowing for a greater sharing of information between countries to combat the rise of cybercrime.

The treatise isn't binding, but instead would have to be adopted into law by its 43 European member states and five outside countries including the United States, Canada and Japan.

The treaty is broad, covering crimes committed on the Internet such as fraud, child pornography and violations of computer network security. It also sets up global policing procedures for conducting computer searches, interception of e-mails, and extradition of criminal suspects.

More details on the CyberCrime Treaty can be found in the Privacy Digest archives dated September 26,2000, September 27,2000, October 09,2000, October 16,2000, October 18,2000, October 19,2000, October 25,2000, November 14,2000, November 20,2000, November 22,2000 and March 24,2001. This is not all the information at Privacy Digest and other sites so if you want to know more try a search

There is no constitutional amendment for "privacy" and although it's a nice thing to have, no society *ever* has had the level of privacy that some of you privacy fanatics want.

It is important to understand not only why privacy is important but also what you are entitled to under the law.
A few hints can be found here:
Privacy and Human Rights

Reports in The Observer reported on 30 September that an ID card will be introduced, which will be mandatory "to use public services, including schools and hospitals, under plans being drawn up by the Home Office" however Home Secretary David Blunkett and Lord Rooker said on 1 October that there are no plans to introduce legislation on ID cards this year or early next year. Surely this is going to create more questions that it raises? Good article about it over at Privacy International too

On the issue of manditory National ID Cards, a White House spokesperson has stated, "We are not even considering the idea." Great Britain has also ignored this liberal movement to restrict our civil liberties.

Here is a link.
Oh yeah, sorry about the title.

The Symbiotic Order

Neither ABCNews nor the Slashdot write-up seem to link to the actual Privacy International site or their 2001 US Big Brother Awards page.

Also, the ABCNews article and Slashdot write-up dwell entirely on the privacy violators, while the original site also mentions that

2 awards were also given to champions of privacy. The Brandeis Award is named after US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who described privacy as "the right to be left alone." The awards are given to those have done exemplary work to protect and champion privacy.

...and awards the Brandeis Award to...

• Evan Hendricks - 20 years of publishing the Privacy Times. Hendricks goes after companies that traffic in children's private data and tells Congress how important privacy is, since they don't seem to get it most of the time.
• Julie Brill - Vermont Attorney General's Office. Brill spearheaded Vermont's litigation against the tobacco companies, and she goes after banks you sell your private data, record companies that fix prices, and drug companies that try to stamp out generics.

These are the good guys (and girls). They deserve some recognition, too.

-M

You're smart; why haven't you learned Python yet? http://diveintopython.org

Neither ABCNews nor the Slashdot write-up seem to link to the actual Privacy International site or their 2001 US Big Brother Awards page.

Also, the ABCNews article and Slashdot write-up dwell entirely on the privacy violators, while the original site also mentions that

2 awards were also given to champions of privacy. The Brandeis Award is named after US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who described privacy as "the right to be left alone." The awards are given to those have done exemplary work to protect and champion privacy.

...and awards the Brandeis Award to...

• Evan Hendricks - 20 years of publishing the Privacy Times. Hendricks goes after companies that traffic in children's private data and tells Congress how important privacy is, since they don't seem to get it most of the time.
• Julie Brill - Vermont Attorney General's Office. Brill spearheaded Vermont's litigation against the tobacco companies, and she goes after banks you sell your private data, record companies that fix prices, and drug companies that try to stamp out generics.

These are the good guys (and girls). They deserve some recognition, too.

-M

You're smart; why haven't you learned Python yet? http://diveintopython.org

Lifetime Menace, Runners Up
IBM for years of selling computers to developing countries that are used to suppress populations and for lobbying against privacy laws and standards wordlwide

IBM awarded, partly, for selling computers to developing countries that are used to suppress populations? Doesn't every company in the US try to sell computers to as many other countries as it can? Should Linus get mentioned for a reward because the Chinese government (who don't give a damn about privacy) get to use Linux (and for free)?

As well as the news article this link probably should have been included in the story as well.

The Full Report is online at the NZ Privacy Commissioner's Page

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This report sets out the results of the Privacy Commissioner's examination of proposed amendments to the Crimes Act 1961. Supplementary Order Paper 85 makes two principal amendments to the Crimes Act which the Commissioner supports:

* broadening "crimes against personal privacy" by including the interception of non-oral private communications within the prohibition against intercepting private communications;
* creating a new offence of accessing a computer system without authorisation.

The expansion of laws against unauthorised interception of private communications to encompass communications such as faxes is an overdue and welcome reform. Similarly the criminalising of hacking into computers is beneficial to privacy. However, the bill does not simply criminalise such actions. It also provides exemptions and authorisations for state intrusions of the same type. This represents a significant risk to privacy and the Commissioner's recommendations seek to limit state intrusion and promote appropriate control and accountability when such intrusions are warranted.

Principal recommendations include:

* ensuring that new exemptions to the interception law cannot be made by delegated legislation;
* subjecting Internet service providers and telecommunications network operators to criminal sanctions if they retain, use or disclose private communications obtained during maintenance work;
* delaying exemptions from the new laws for the Government Communication Security Bureau until it is placed on a statutory footing and is subject to an interception warrant process;
* opposing the pernicious practice of police hacking into computer databases;
* calling for full and meaningful public reporting of any state practices involving intercepting non-oral communications and accessing computer systems.

There is also more information generally on NZ privacy up in the EPIC/PI Privacy and Human Rights 2000 Report.

-Dave

Privacy & Human Rights 2000. This survey, by "EPIC" and Privacy International, reviews the state of privacy in over fifty countries around the world. The survey examines a wide range of privacy issues including, data protection, telephone tapping, genetic databases, ID systems and freedom of information laws. The report finds that there is a worldwide regocnition of privacy as a fundamental human right. Many countries around the world are enacting comprehenisve data protection law to safeguard individual privacy increase. However at the same time, privacy is increasingly being undermined by technical advances and the demands of intelligence and law enforcement agencies for increase surveillance powers. There is a strong need for improved oversight and stricter enforcement of current laws to ensure that legal protections are not ignored as threats to personal privacy increase.

Privacy & Human Rights 2000. This survey, by "EPIC" and Privacy International, reviews the state of privacy in over fifty countries around the world. The survey examines a wide range of privacy issues including, data protection, telephone tapping, genetic databases, ID systems and freedom of information laws. The report finds that there is a worldwide regocnition of privacy as a fundamental human right. Many countries around the world are enacting comprehenisve data protection law to safeguard individual privacy increase. However at the same time, privacy is increasingly being undermined by technical advances and the demands of intelligence and law enforcement agencies for increase surveillance powers. There is a strong need for improved oversight and stricter enforcement of current laws to ensure that legal protections are not ignored as threats to personal privacy increase.

Microsoft was "awarded" the People's Choice Award by Privacy International, on April 8, 1999, for being the most frequent nominee presented by the public for intrusive practices and invasion of privacy.