Privacy

In a recent piece on Microsoft's Windows Vista, our Bill Lindner warned users that "Big Brother" might just be watching you.

If you're a resident of New York City, that threat just moved from your computer to the busy, dingy streets outside.

What this essentially means is that the city itself will be installing both license plate readers and cameras across the crowded areas of Lower Manhattan. The project is called the "Lower Manhattan Security Initiative", a bit tamer than London, England's similar "ring of steel".

A highly sophisticated spying operation that tapped into the mobile phones of Greece's prime minister and other top government officials has highlighted weaknesses in telecommunications systems that still use decades-old computer code, according to a report by two computer scientists.

The spying case, in which the calls of around 100 people were secretly tapped, remains unsolved and is still being investigated. Also complicating the case is the questionable suicide in March 2005 of a top engineer at Vodafone Group PLC in Greece who was in charge of network planning.

Here’s something scary: Millions of personal files on consumers are stored on laptop computers routinely left in areas accessible to thieves.

Forget hackers that bypass sophisticated security systems. Identity thieves are simply walking off with laptops containing lots of juicy private and financial information.

Ask Linda J. of Lenexa. In May, she received a letter from a former employer stating cryptically: “We are contacting you about a potential problem involving possible identity theft.”

Fidelity National Information Services Inc. admitted this week that Certegy Check Services Inc., a Fidelity subsidiary that provides check processing services, was "victimized" by a database administrator who stole and sold bank and credit card data on up to 2.3 million customers.

A criminal investigation into the apparent hacking and misuse of electronic admissions records at the University of California Davis School of Veterinary Medicine has been launched by university police.

The university determined June 15 that its computer-security safeguards had been breached and someone had gained access to the personal information of an estimated 1,120 vet school applicants for the 2007-2008 school year, including 131 students who already had been accepted, according to the university.

A new NHS computer will carry all your most intimate medical details. Will it be safe from snoopers? Your doctor doesn't think so:

Amid the furore over waiting lists, budget cuts and filthy hospital wards, the NHS's revolutionary £12 billion technology system looked like a guaranteed patient-pleaser.

The new IT system means you will be able to choose - via a new computer system - exactly where and when you have medical treatment.

Most people missed the announcement about how Google wants to burrow inside your brain and capture your most intimate thoughts. That's because it never happened.

But Google, the world leader in Web search services, is the focus of mounting paranoia over the scope of its powers as it expands into new advertising formats from online video to radio and TV, while creating dozens of new Internet services.

Schools are to get the go-ahead to fingerprint pupils as young as five, in new measures to be approved by the Government.

Ministers will issue guidance telling schools they have the right to collect biometric data and install fingerprint scanners.

But the decision has angered opposition MPs who say collecting fingerprints from children will be a gift to identity thieves.

Here's something to add to privacy concerns: some worry that the inclusion of biometric data on an RFID-enabled identification document actually increases the risk of identity theft than RFID alone. In fact, the concern applies to any method of encoding biometric data that can be read from a card without the individual's express permission. The other technologies identified as "security risks" were 2D symbols and magnetic stripes, both of which are cited as possible technologies for use on future US ID cards.

Faced with concerns of online privacy concerns in Europe, Google has promised to cut the length of time it holds onto identifying information about people's Internet searches.

The decision is a change in policy for Google which says it will recognize the need to respect laws of the countries in which it does business.

Google announced in March a policy to edit data to render users anonymous after 18 to 24 months but European lawyers warned that Google would still be flaunting European regulations.