Privacy

About 6,000 current and former University of Virginia (UVa) faculty members are being notified that their names, Social Security numbers and birth dates may have been stolen by computer hackers between May 2005 and April 19 of this year.

In an announcement on Friday, the Charlottesville-based college said the security breach was discovered in an unidentified computer program. The statement said that no credit card, bank account or salary information was accessed, and no data involving students or nonfaculty employees was accessed.

Some federal employees are smarting over their smart-card treatment.

In a bunker beneath London's bustling Piccadilly Circus, guards monitoring a grid of closed-circuit televisions spot something unusual. A suspicious package has been left behind amid the crush of tourists.

Moments later, a Hare Krishna picks up the abandoned cooler, which is filled with religious documents _ not a bomb.

Civil libertarians warn of the damage to personal privacy. But polls show broad public acceptance, even if the cameras more often capture a couple in loving embrace than a terrorist about to wreak havoc.

IT staff routinely snoop on users, riffling through their e-mails and personal files, a newly released survey has found.

One IT administrator laughingly said: "Why does it surprise you that so many of us snoop around your files, wouldn't you, if you had secret access to anything you can get your hands on?"

Few ordinary users realize that one in three of their IT work colleagues are snooping through company systems, peeking at confidential information such as your private files, wage data, personal e-mails, and HR background, using admin privileges.

An independent panel of the European Union (EU) has launched a probe into whether U.S.-based Google Inc.'s Internet search engine violates EU privacy rules, local media reported Saturday.

In a letter to Google, the panel, made up of representatives from EU member nations, demanded clarification about the company's practice of storing and retaining personal information taken from users for up to two years, said a spokesman for the European Commission.

Google wants to accumulate so much personal information about its users. Google’s chief executive, Eric Schmidt, said the company is setting out to create the most comprehensive database of personal information ever assembled, one with the ability to tell people how to run their lives. But wait, is giving Google personal information more beneficial or more of a risk?

Schmidt envisaged a day when Google would be able to advise its users on everything from their career moves to how they should spend their free time, based on the collected queries they tap into Google.com.

Several recent high-profile cases have brought to the surface a disturbing trend in the Indian corporate world: industrial espionage.

The targets are mostly multinational companies, but at times even large Indian firms become victims. The culprits are mostly foreign companies and smaller local firms trying to gain an edge on their competitors.

The nightmare begins early in the morning with an innocuous-looking e-mail on your mobile phone instructing you to check a specific Web site for information about repairing your credit score.

RED FACED Aussie telco Virgin Mobile has admitted exposing its customers' personal details including their name, address, date of birth and phone number on its website.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the outfit offered customers a free domestic return flight on Virgin Blue if they bought a handset on a plan from the operator.

All punters had to do was register their details on the Virgin Mobile website, wait for an SMS containing a six character "free flight SMS code" and then enter that code on the Virgin Mobile website.

A CD containing personal information about thousands of Alcatel-Lucent SA employees and their dependents has been lost or stolen, the company said on Thursday.

The disk contains the names, addresses, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and salary information for U.S. employees who worked for Lucent prior to its merger with Alcatel SA, as well as Lucent retirees and dependents of both groups, the company said.