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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 13 2013 @ 03:24 PM EDT |
| Ottawa restricts use of data collected through government
websites
The story is worth reading in full, as there are a lot more
aspects to this than I am addressing here. In short though, the Government of
Canada has come up with a set of privacy ("tracking") guidelines for its own web
sites. There has been no significant public outcry demanding this, It is simply
a measure that they decided to take after the Privacy Commissioner became aware
that government web sites were doing web analytics just like private businesses
do.
The federal government is restricting how closely it
watches Canadians online.
New rules are now in place governing the use
of data that's gathered when Canadians visit government websites, the first
comprehensive guidelines since Ottawa went online nearly 20 years
ago.
(...) Among other things, the new rules for tracking visits to
government websites prohibit the government from profiling an individual's
online activity by tracking their computer's internet protocol
address.
Any use of the IP address to measure website traffic must also
make sure the address is rendered anonymous.
This is good
as it shows a pro-active to the problem. It also raised the very important point
that while people have been concerned about advertisers "tracking" them, not
many people have been asking themselves what happens when you go to a government
web site.
Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart has been
raising concerns about data mining for the last few years, but mostly with a
focus on the private sector.
It wasn't until a government department
contacted her office looking for advice that she realized the extent of the
government's own efforts in the field.
However, various
government departments have set up "social media" channels such as Twitter. The
new rules don't apply to those as those services don't actually belong to the
government.
The new rules on analytics, however, don't
apply to social media sites.
"The Standard on Privacy and Web Analytics
was created to protect the privacy of Canadians when they visit Government of
Canada websites," Treasury Board spokesman Pierre-Alain Bujold said in an
email.
"Third-party social media services (e.g. Twitter) are hosted by
third-party providers and not the government of Canada."
That doesn't
mean that the government has carte blanche to mine Canadians' social media
profiles for details, necessarily.
Bujold cited the Privacy Act, which
states "no personal information shall be collected by a government institution
unless it relates directly to an operating program or activity of the
institution."
The proof of the pudding will be in the
eating, but a this point this looks like a good development and it is something
that people in other countries should think about.
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 13 2013 @ 04:26 PM EDT |
"One of the blogs hosted on Blogger bears the name "London Muslim". The
appellant, Mr Tamiz, complains that eight specific comments posted on the London
Muslim blog between 28 and 30 April 2011 were defamatory of him"
..
"The main issues in the appeal, taking them in the order in which
they were considered by the judge below, are (1) whether there is an arguable
case that Google Inc was a publisher of the comments, (2) whether, if it was a
publisher, it would have an unassailable defence under section 1 of the 1996
Act, (3) whether any potential liability was so trivial as not to justify the
maintenance of the proceedings, and (4) whether Google Inc would have a defence,
if otherwise necessary, under regulation 19 of the 2002 Regulations." link[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Alan(UK) on Wednesday, March 13 2013 @ 06:34 PM EDT |
I have a Windows 7 machine at work. Why does it take my SVG file created with
Inkscape, strips off the .svg file extension, replaces it with a IE icon, then
opens it in IE - despite the fact that I have Inkscape installed, despite the
fact that IE is incapable of rendering the SVG images, and despite the fact that
Firefox, not IE, is my default browser?
And while we are at it. Why does it take *my* copyright image from *my* camera
and create a derivative work which it then writes to *my* camera, thus
destroying *my* original when all I did was to ask it to display the image the
right way up?
Why do I not have all these problems with my Linux machine - it just works?
---
Microsoft is nailing up its own coffin from the inside.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 13 2013 @ 08:19 PM EDT |
I've seen this signature in another forum.
NOTICE: Due to
Presidential Executive Orders, the National Security Agency may have read this
without warrant, warning, or notification. They do this without any judicial or
legislative oversight. You have no privacy, no recourse nor protection, save to
call for the impeachment and removal of the current President.
(Jack
Duggan)
Seems very appropriate... :-)
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| Authored by: PJ on Wednesday, March 13 2013 @ 08:36 PM EDT |
Say, that sounds great. I wish I had one
sometimes.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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