French court rules IP addresses are not personal data

In something of a departure from a trend in some European countries towards considering IP addresses to be personally identifiable information, a French appeals court last week determined that an IP address could not be used…

Italian ruling against Google highlights US – EU divide on privacy

The recent ruling in an Italian court against three Google executives finding them criminally liable for violated Italian privacy law by allowing a video to be posted on YouTube predecessor Google Video has been widely criticized…

If allegations are true, Pa. school district is on the wrong side of a lot of privacy rules

With a lawsuit filed in federal court last week , school officials in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania are on the defensive over the alleged illegal use of remotely activated webcams in laptop computers issued to students. It…

The cybersecurity ball(s) are in the Senate’s court

Now that the House nearly unanimously passed its Cybersecurity Enhancement Act earlier this month, some attention has turned to the plethora of similar draft legislation in the Senate with speculation over which of the bills is…

Debate over anonymous comment posting on school news site raises familiar First Amendment issues

In a story first reported by the Roanoke Times and picked up by the Washington Post in today’s edition, Virginia Tech’s student newspaper is at odds with the University Commission on Student Affairs over its practice…

Will complying with requirements in 201 CMR 17 give any tips to healthcare entities?

With the rapidly approaching March 1 deadline when Massachusetts’ new personal data protection law (201 CMR 17) finally goes into effect, one of many requirements facing organizations covered by the law is the need to encrypt…

Facebook sued over December change in privacy practices

In a post earlier this week, we noted that generally speaking, anyone in the U.S. wanting to take legal action over the privacy practices of social networking sites like Facebook would have to do so within…