Recipe for privacy abuse

As Congress prepares to reconvene in a lame-duck session after Tuesday's election, one of the largest pieces of legislation on the Senate's agenda is the controversial and deadlocked Homeland Security Act, which the House passed Sept. 9.

A little-known amendment in the Senate version of the bill makes it much easier for ISPs to disclose e-mail communications without being served with a warrant, which had been prohibited before the Patriot Act of 2001.

Critics such as Lee Tien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation consider the amendment a "recipe for privacy abuse."

According to a press release from Senator Orrin Hatch's (R-Utah) office, his amendment intends to provide "greater flexibility to communications providers and law enforcement when necessary to prevent and protect against devastating cyber attacks."

6:25:04 PM     

Healthcare Privacy

Posting a tiny privacy statement on the wall of a doctor's surgery - hidden between "No Smoking" and "You don't have to be crazy to work here . . ." - is no longer acceptable, thanks to strict new privacy legislation.

Australia's health practitioners operate under far stricter federal privacy laws than any other industry, and in Victoria they face the harshest privacy regime in Australia and their NSW counterparts are awaiting similar changes, both of which will work in conjunction with federal law.

Among other things, compliance requires the compilation of a detailed privacy statement.

To help practitioners navigate the privacy minefield, litigating lawyer Alan Stapleton established i-Privacy and developed ORA - an online privacy audit used to generate customised privacy statements.

Practitioners complete four online sessions, comprising of more than 300 questions concerning their management of patient privacy and health information. Each question has online resources to assist the user, plus a series of suggested answers.

6:23:44 PM