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Connecticut Governor Seeks to Protect Personal Data Online
Technical Writing Geek alerts us to a report that Connecticut governor Jodi Rell has begun to develop legislation to create an "opt-out" registry to prevent the distribution of personal information on the internet. The registry would be analogous to the "Do Not Call" list. This comes after Rell received many complaints about the availability of personal data from directory assistance sites such as WhitePages and 411.com. While Rell understands that the "sites are breaking no law by gathering and disseminating this information," the legislation will add to the work she has done to re-evaluate the disposition of private data. Where do we draw the line between free speech and privacy in the information age? From the Journal Inquirer:
"'Privacy concerns are constantly evolving,' Rell said. 'We must not only keep up with them but do our best to stay ahead of the curve.' Rell said she will ask state agencies to review private information about residents that the state collects, manages, and distributes."
"Technical Writing Geek alerts us to a report that Connecticut governor Jodi Rell has begun to develop legislation to create an "opt-out" registry to prevent the distribution of personal information on the internet. "
Good thing there's no such thing as "virtual" property then.
Since "now law is broken" by companies for publishing out private information, we can plead the same by publishing the company's members information online.
Every single stockholder, boardmember, CEO, lawyer, employee contact information (including public and private numbers and addresses) should be published online 411.com by us.
Once the mighty CEOs and CFOs see their private and unlisted numbers plus email IDs online, am sure the congress and senate would go overnight to enact a law preventing that from happening.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
I wish just once that one of these politicians would have the balls to make it opt-in, with written consent required and none of that "hidden deep within a contract" crud. Perhaps requiring a public notary to stamp it too might be beneficial.
I know for sure that I'd sleep well if these opt-out lowlifes lost their jobs.
There are only 2 ways to protect data: One NEVER provide it. Two NEVER RECORD it. All other promises are just ways of one day releasing it ! See http://teaminfinity.com/robo_DATA_secure_hsals
The Future is already here, just unevenly distributed... THE ROBOTIC WAGELESS ECONOMY NOW! http://RoboEco.com/slash
I was just finishing my 18th century guillotine. Care to join the beta test program?
Once that opt-out list is complete, how much do you think spammers and scammers will pay for it? Oh, wait -- you're going to give access to anyone running a directory or investigative website? What could possibly go wrong?
'Do not track me when I travel the Internet' will work as well 'dont rob me I am carrying a million dollars'
At the bottom of the
Now we've got people registering domains to redirect to myminicity, wtf?
generally, if you own the press you can print what you want,~~
with a few caveats, however, and as these are well established there is no need for discussion
1. you should not publish slander
2. you should not infringe other folk's copyrights
3. you should not involve in a conspiracy to commit crime
Is my personal information copyright protected? I see no reason why it shouldn't be and in a day and age where we have more hackers than Hollywood had stage robbers there are good reasons why we should protect everyone's personal data by law.
Another Government run list that is completely ineffective. Ever hear of the do not call list? Ask people how well that's working out. I guess understanding a problem before attempting to solve it has gone out of style.
...she'd stop the laptops with state taxpayer financial data from being plucked from employee cars. (They claim they need all the data resident on every laptop whose operator is working on a given datatset.) Here in CT that's the bigger issue for her and the lege, To this more recent one, I can recall people being horrified years ago that we could find their phone listing in whitepages, their address on mapquest and an aerial photo on terraserver. Of course all of this was public information, now it's just easier for the "datarazzi" to get it in bulk. We've been on the DNC list and reg'd with DMA's pref service for years, and they still get thru. National opt-in with some teeth in it would be nice.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
In Sweden we have laws against publishing personal information of citizens. To publish even the equivalent of the social security number you must have the consent of the citizen in question. Unfortunately within license agreements the paragraph covering consent of publishing of personal information is buried deep within the text.
We need to prevent the distribution of personal information on the Interweb so lets create a DATABASE of all the people who don't want their personal information accessible.
generally when we provide personal information to a provider such as Ma Bell it is with permission and with an expectation of confidentiallity
now with the phone company we have had to ask for our number to be un-listed and many of us have done this for years as it has been necessary to prevent the ditzies from mis-using the information.
the mis-use of information will most likely result in a marked tightening of privacy law. information that is currently a matter of public record may have to be moved to secure areas and made available only after permission has been obtained
the sooner the better
Do not call is one thing. That's people actively annoying you. But that's different from people not being able to FIND you. So what I want to know (unless I'm blind and didn't see it in the article) is what exactly they intend to restrict. Phone numbers and names should available. They always were in phone books, and the internet is really no different. When I get a call I don't recognize, I want to look it up. It's annoyed me for years that cell phones usually aren't listed in whitepages.com reverse lookups.
Now, I can understand the restriction of some data - at some point, it probably does get too much. But I'm not sure where that point is, and I sure as heck know that it isn't "name+phone#=bad." I want people to be able to find my number online when they need to, and I want to find others. Saying "well it'd be your option" isn't accurate, because it'd be other peoples option as to whether or not I'd find theirs.
-Daniel
When I worked at the CT Department of Education, I lobbyed desperately for a centralized, secure data repository for student data. The analysts would constantly send student lists on disks via snail(or by a "secure" zip file), print paper lists of student data and take them offsite, and even put copies of this data on their personal computers to take home. I was passionate about keeping the demographic data of Connecticuts students secure and grew frustrated with the roadblocks.
We even got a Federal Grant with Governor Rell's help to contract out the project (we in no way had the resources to build it). As far as I can tell, the data are still in a SQL 2005 database, replicated multiple times, with access given to multiple undocumented users.
No business rules are in place other than the 1 overworked DBA there granting "read only" to anyone who requests it. There is a team there working very hard to make the data secure, but they are small and unsupported. Perhaps Madam Rell's efforts would be better directed at her own IT infrastructure...
--Always, I mean never..., No I mean always check your references.--
I'm not quite sure what the "playnamethatparty" tag is supposed to be getting at but I'll name Governor Rell's party. She's a Republican. I would say a very moderate one, to the point that she could easily be mistaken for a Democrat at times.
Add a unique test entry to the opt-out list, so that the databases could be checked for it's existence. This could be both 1) when someone uses a service and has opted out (to check the system is right) and 2) to check people aren't pulling from the opt-out list. There might be legal basis of a violation in some circumstances. just an idea
This all comes down to whether the law sees this data as "YOUR data", or "data ABOUT YOU". I think the law should be written that says it is your data. Thus anyone that wants to use it has to get your permission to use it. If there is any kind of "Intellectual Property" that really exists, it is your personal information.
I've been a big proponent of an individual's right to privacy and I commend Jodi Rell for doing something to protect my identity, but this isn't going to work and here's why... Technology. With gadgets like RFID tags, GPS, webcams mounted on every public ediface, two way video phone chat, 4 megapixel video straight to youtube, etc... companies (and the government) are going to know where you are, where you came from, what you're eating who you slept with last night and whether or not you are getting enough riboflaven in your wheatabix. Imagine if we allow everyone to plug into this global information network so that your wife can check up on you while you're at work and you can spy on your dog when you're on vacation. Not only will my age and hair color be available on the web, but you'd probably be able to tell my longitude and latitude. What are you going to do about that Jodi Rell? As I am not going to stand in the way of technology I am ready to put the chip in my brain and succumb. At least I'll have as much privacy as everyone else, which is none.
California governor seeks to keep skynet offline
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.