Privacy

All of your personal banking and credit card information, your birthdate and your social security data are worth about $21 on the Internet, according to a study released today. And much of that data may have been stolen from government offices, says the report by computer security firm Symantec Corp. Symantec says thousands of Internet chatrooms and websites openly sell credit card and personal information for the purpose of identity theft -- and are doing plenty of business.

A security flaw in Passport Canada's website has allowed easy access to the personal information - including social insurance numbers, dates of birth and driver's licence numbers - of people applying for new passports.

The breach was discovered last week by an Ontario man completing his own passport application. He found he could easily view the applications of others by altering one character in the Internet address displayed by his Web browser.

Seeking to keep the peace in its popular online hangout, Facebook has overhauled a new advertising system that sparked privacy complaints by turning its users into marketing tools for other companies.

Under the changes outlined late Thursday, Facebook's 55 million users will be given greater control over whether they want to participate in a three-week-old program that circulates potentially sensitive information about their online purchases and other activities.

A Computer Associates security researcher is sounding the alarm that Facebook's controversial Beacon online ad system goes much further than anyone has imagined in tracking people's Web activities outside the popular social networking site.

Beacon will report back to Facebook on members' activities on third-party sites that participate in Beacon even if the users are logged off from Facebook and have declined having their activities broadcast to their Facebook friends.

The state of Massachusetts is warning 150,000 members of its Prescription Advantage insurance program that their personal information may have been snatched by an identity thief. Local authorities arrested a lone identity thief in August who had been using information taken from the program in an attempted identity theft scheme, said Alison Goodwin, a spokeswoman for the state's Executive Office of Health and Human Services.

As the cyber world unveils websites that let you live a 'second life', fake identities and identity thefts are fast emerging a menace giving spurt to hate mails and even serious crimes.

Identity theft remains unrecognised by many Indians, but many may already be becoming targets even without realising it, experts say.

Companies could be infringing privacy if they dig up information about job applicants from social networking websites, an internet expert has warned.

John Carr, chairman of the UK Children's Charities' Coalition on Internet Safety, believes that employers and education officials could be crossing the line when they look up information about applicants on the web.

"There are lots of rumours about young job applicants being screened on Google or even university tutors looking at people applying for further education," he said.

A security breach affecting an unknown number of Canadian citizens came to light last week in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador when a consultant for the Provincial Public Health Laboratory took a laptop containing patient health information home.

The consultant was contacted by a person who identified himself as a representative of a computer security company and who claimed that he was able to access to data on the laptop through the consultant's home Internet connection.

The Motion Picture of Association of America is urging some of the nation's largest universities to deploy custom software designed to pinpoint students who may be using the schools' networks to illegally download pirated movies. A closer look at the MPAA's software, however, raises some serious privacy and security concerns for both the entertainment industry and the schools that choose to deploy the technology.

A significant error at AIB bank earlier this month led it to send 15,000 notifications to its customers containing the private bank account details of other individuals. A total of 11,000 AIB customers are affected by the move, writes John Downes

Last night, it also emerged that some of the bank account details sent to AIB customers in recent days relate not just to AIB accounts, but also reveal the names and bank account details of customers with other banks.