Prosecution of Maryland motorcyclist who recorded his traffic stop hinges on “reasonable expectation of privacy”

As reported in today’s Washington Post, a Maryland motorcyclist who used his helmet-mounted video camera to record the state trooper who stopped him and ticketed him for speeding, and then posted the video on YouTube, now…

Privacy settings do matter: subpoenas quashed for disclosure of social networking data

In a recent federal district court ruling noted and summarized by the always-astute privacy team at law firm Hunton & Williams, an individual user of Facebook, MySpace, and other less well known online communities, who is…

Senators propose law banning pre-paid cell phones

In a move ostensibly intended to aid anti-terrorism efforts, Senators Charles Schumer and John Cornyn issued a joint press release two weeks ago announcing proposed legislation that would essentially end the anonymity of pre-paid cell phones…

Privacy breach lawsuits repeatedly dismissed where harm cannot be proven

A recent ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is the latest in a series of cases where individuals whose personal information was involved in a data breach were unable to successfully pursuit causes of…

Alleged health data disclosure via Facebook raises legal and policy issues

Reports of potential breaches of patient privacy at Tri-City Medical Center in Oceanside, California have garnered the HIPAA-related attention you would expect, but are also raising questions about the availability and use of social networking sites…

Oregon complaint against Google Street View amended based on 2008 patent application

As Google continues to accede to demands from several European countries and U.S. courts to turn over copies of data it collected over unsecured wireless networks during its Street View program operations, plaintiffs in a class…

Update on Google Street View data collection: Congress asking for answers

While investigations on many aspects of Google’s wireless data collection practices are ongoing in the U.S. and many other European countries (most recently including the Czech Republic), the first major legal action against the company has…