Nomadic laptops can expect the rubber glove treatment

There's been a bit of a buzz lately about laptop inspections by the Department of Homeland Security (Crossing the border? Consider the possibility of laptop searches, Hands off my laptop, Your papers and laptops, please?, US Customs confiscating laptops). Today, the Washington Post is reporting on recently disclosed policies used by the DHS to take and inspect laptops:

Travelers' Laptops May Be Detained At Border (washingtonpost.com)

... The policies state that officers may "detain" laptops "for a reasonable period of time" to "review and analyze information." This may take place "absent individualized suspicion."

The policies cover "any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form," including hard drives, flash drives, cell phones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes. They also cover "all papers and other written documentation," including books, pamphlets and "written materials commonly referred to as 'pocket trash' or 'pocket litter.' "

Reasonable measures must be taken to protect business information and attorney-client privileged material, the policies say, but there is no specific mention of the handling of personal data such as medical and financial records.

When a review is completed and no probable cause exists to keep the information, any copies of the data must be destroyed. Copies sent to non-federal entities must be returned to DHS. But the documents specify that there is no limitation on authorities keeping written notes or reports about the materials.

"They're saying they can rifle through all the information in a traveler's laptop without having a smidgen of evidence that the traveler is breaking the law," said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology. Notably, he said, the policies "don't establish any criteria for whose computer can be searched." ...

If you want to take a look at the policy itself, it's here.

Thanks to Rob Hyndman for the tipoff.

Privacy protections disappear with a judge's order

More commentary on the Viacom v. Google/YouTube case, this time from MIT's Technology review:

Technology Review: Privacy protections disappear with a judge's order

Privacy protections disappear with a judge's order

By Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) _ Credit card companies know what you've bought. Phone companies know whom you've called. Electronic toll services know where you've gone. Internet search companies know what you've sought.

It might be reassuring, then, that companies have largely pledged to safeguard these repositories of data about you.

But a recent federal court ruling ordering the disclosure of YouTube viewership records underscores the reality that even the most benevolent company can only do so much to guard your digital life: All their protections can vanish with one stroke of a judge's pen.

"Companies have a tremendous amount of very sensitive data on their customers, and while a company itself may treat that responsibly ... if the court orders it be turned over, there's not a lot that the company that holds the data can do," said Jennifer Urban, a law professor at the University of Southern California.

In the past, court orders and subpoenas have generally been targeted at records on specific individuals. With YouTube, it's far more sweeping, covering all users regardless of whether they have anything to do with the copyright infringement that Viacom Inc., in a $1 billion lawsuit, accuses Google Inc.'s popular video-sharing site of enabling.

It's a scenario privacy activists have long warned about.

"What we're seeing is (that) the theoretical is becoming real world," said Lauren Weinstein, a veteran computer scientist. "The more data you've got, the more data that's going to be there as an attractive kind of treasure chest (for) outside parties."

U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton dismissed privacy arguments as speculative.

Last week, Stanton authorized full access to the YouTube logs -- which few users even realize exist -- after Viacom and other copyright holders argued that they needed the data to prove that their copyright-protected videos for such programs as Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" are more heavily watched than amateur clips.

"This decision makes it absolutely clear that everywhere we go online, we leave tracks, and every piece of information we access online leaves some sort of record," Urban said. "As consumers, we should all be aware of the fact that this sensitive information is being collected about us."

Mark Rasch, a former Justice Department official who is now with FTI Consulting Inc., said the ruling could open the floodgates for additional disclosures.

Though lawyers have known to seek such data for years, Rasch said, judges initially hesitant about authorizing their release may look to Stanton's ruling for affirmation, even though U.S. District Court rulings do not officially set precedence.

The YouTube database includes information on when each video gets played. Attached to each entry is each viewer's unique login ID and the Internet Protocol, or IP, address for that viewer's computer -- identifiers that, while seemingly anonymous, can often be traced to specific individuals, or at least their employers or hometowns.

Elsewhere, search engines such as Google and Yahoo Inc. keep more than a year of records on your search requests, from which one can learn of your diseases, fetishes and innermost thoughts. E-mail services are another source of personal records, as are electronic health repositories and Web-based word processing, spreadsheets and calendars.

One can reassemble your whereabouts based on where you've used credit cards, made cell phone calls or paid tolls or subway fares electronically. One can track your spending habits through loyalty cards that many retail chains offer in exchange for discounts.

Though companies do have legitimate reasons for keeping data -- they can help improve services or protect parties in billing disputes, for instance -- there's disagreement on how long a company truly needs the information.

The shorter the retention, the less tempting it is for lawyers to turn to the keepers of data in lawsuits, privacy activists say.

With some exceptions in banking, health care and other regulated industries, requests are routinely granted.

Service providers regularly comply with subpoenas seeking the identities of users who write negatively about specific companies, at most warning them first so they can challenge the disclosure themselves. The music and movie industries also have been aggressive about tracking individual users suspected of illegally downloading their works.

Law enforcement authorities also turn to the records to help solve crimes.

The U.S. Justice Department had previously subpoenaed the major search engines for lists of search requests made by their users as part of a case involving online pornography. Yahoo, Microsoft Corp.'s MSN and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL all complied with parts of the legal demand, but Google fought it and ultimately got the requirement narrowed.

In the YouTube case, Viacom largely got the data it wanted.

Google has said it would work with Viacom on trying to ensure anonymity, and Viacom has pledged not to use the data to identify individual users to sue. The YouTube logs will also likely be subject to a confidentiality order.

But privacy advocates warn that there's no guarantee that future litigants will be as restrained or that data released to lawyers won't inadvertently become public -- through their inclusion as an attachment in a court filing, for instance.

And retailers, government agencies and others are regularly announcing that personal information, stored without adequate safeguards, is being stolen by hackers or lost with laptops or portable storage drives.

"You just never know," said Steve Jones, an Internet expert at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "There are some circumstances under which what seems to be private information is going to be shared with a third party, and the court says it's OK to do that."

Copyright Technology Review 2008.

Keep your friends close, but your laptop closer ... Especially in airports

According to a recent study conducted by the Ponemon Institute, 10,000 laptops are lost/stolen each week in US airports. While the commentary on this study talks about confidential business information, I am confident that the majoriy of these laptops also contain personal information. See: PC World - Business Center: Laptops Lost Like Hot Cakes at US Airports.

"Clear" may put customer information up for sale

Clear, the for profit company that did pre-screening of travelers so they could breeze through security, recently went out of business. Now there's a suggestion that the personal information they've compiled may be put up for sale. According to the release (below), it would be to a company that would provide a similar business and would be approved by the Transportation Security Administration.

Out of business, Clear may sell customer data ITworld

by Robert McMillan

June 26, 2009, 08:18 AM — IDG News Service — Three days after ceasing operations, owners of the Clear airport security screening service acknowledged that their database of sensitive customer information may end up in someone else's hands, but only if it goes to a similar provider, authorized by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration.

Until this week, the Clear service had given customers a way to skip long security lines in certain airports. For a $199 annual fee, air travelers could be pre-screened for flight and then use Clear's security checkpoints instead of the TSA's. Clear was run by New York's Verified Identity Pass, which also shut down on Monday.

Customers had to provide personal information, including credit card numbers, fingerprints and iris scans in order to participate in the program. After Clear abruptly shut its doors -- it has not yet declared bankruptcy -- some worried that this data could fall into the wrong hands.

"They had your social security information, credit information, where you lived, employment history, fingerprint information," said Clear customer David Maynor, who is chief technical officer with Errata Security in Atlanta. "They should be the only ones who have access to that information."

Maynor wants Clear to delete his information, but that isn't happening, the company said in a note posted to its Web site Thursday.

Clear's IT partner, Lockheed Martin, is working with the company "to ensure an orderly shutdown as the program closes," Clear said. But in a section of the note entitled, "Will personally identifiable information be sold?" Clear acknowledged that it could be used by someone else, presumably if Clear's assets were sold. "If the information is not used for a Registered Traveler program, it will be deleted," Clear said.

Boasting more than 260,000 customers, Clear was the largest private company authorized to provide airport security services, under a TSA program called Registered Traveler. Other providers, who may now be interested in purchasing Clear's assets, include Flo and Preferred Traveler.

Until Clear's demise, Registered Traveler companies operated in about 20 airports nationwide. Once a traveller has registered with any one of these companies, he is given a travel card that can be used for security screening by any company in the Registered Traveler program.

Last year the TSA temporarily yanked Clear's Registered Traveler status after the company lost an unencrypted laptop containing data on 33,000 customers at San Francisco International Airport. A few days later, Clear was allowed back into the program after the laptop mysteriously reappeared and the TSA determined that Clear was properly encrypting data.

Although it appears to be retaining information on its central databases, Clear said it has erased PC hard drives at its airport screening kiosks, and it is wiping employee computers as well, using what it calls a "triple wipe process." This technique, used by the U.S. Department of Defense, is considered to be a reliable way of erasing data.

"Clear is communicating with TSA, airport and airline sponsors, and subcontractors, to ensure that the security of the information and systems is maintained throughout the closure process," the company said.

Customers will be notified via e-mail when their information is deleted.

That wasn't good enough for Maynor. "How about the opposite? Where if they sell my information, they send me an e-mail," he said.

Alberta Commissioner fed up with unencrypted laptops

I can just imagine Frank Work's expression of exaperation in uttering the quote attributed to him in the following media release:

Level of security on stolen laptops simply not acceptable, says Commissioner

June 24, 2009

Level of security on stolen laptops simply not acceptable, says Commissioner

Information and Privacy Commissioner Frank Work is perplexed with news that two laptops containing health information stolen from Alberta Health Services (AHS) were not encrypted. “This is shocking for me...I don’t know what we have to do to drive this message home” says the Commissioner. “The standard in Alberta for storing personal or health information on portable devices is encryption. I can’t accept anything less. This is highly sensitive information and an issue of public trust. How can the public have faith in public bodies if they can’t provide security for personal information?”

Two laptops with health information of more than 300,000 people were stolen earlier this month. Information on the laptops included names, birth dates, personal health numbers and lab test results for communicable and reportable diseases.

The Commissioner says AHS did have layers of protection on those laptops, but the final layer simply was not there, and while the risk might be low, there is still a risk, “A person with motivation and sufficient skills could still access the information. Risk remains without properly implemented encryption. The measures they had in place are better than nothing, but not good enough.”

Works says, “Encryption technology is readily available, and if you are going to store personal information on a portable device, you had better make sure that encrypting that information is a priority, a part of your business model, and an everyday occurrence, like making sure the door is locked before you leave home.”

The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner has launched an investigation into this matter. Work says, “We will be working very closely with AHS to make sure they understand their obligations and to ensure that steps are taken to prevent this from happening again”.

I pity the (next) fool who loses an unencrypted laptop in Alberta.

Pedophile fears as student profiles, pictures go in Queensland education database

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Parents' groups are up in arms in Australia after it was revealed that an intranet database of all students in Queensland State is being implemented that will be available to all employees of the education system. The database will include a vast range of information:

The intranet database, dubbed OneSchool, will profile each of the state's 480,000 public school students enrolled from Prep to Year 12.

Photographs, personal details, career aspirations, off-campus activities and student performance records are being collected from all 1251 state schools.

Parents fear that it will become a catalog for pedophiles while the Eduation Minister for the State says inclusion will be mandatory.

However Civil Liberties Council vice-president Terry O'Gorman yesterday said parents should be concerned, warning the OneSchool system could put students' privacy at risk.

Mr O'Gorman called for the system to be restricted so principals and teachers could access data only on their own students, with non-teaching staff excluded and no access for home computers or laptops.

"Why should anyone other than the teacher of a particular student and the principal of that school have a right to know what a child's academic performance is, behavioural status is or what their life aims are?" he said.

"It just puzzles me as to how it can have any possible benefit to centralise that information, whereas it has a clear privacy downside."

See: Pedophile fears as student profiles, pictures go on net The Courier-Mail. Via Australian educational authority forcing kids into invasive database - Boing Boing.

Privacy Commissioner tables annual PIPEDA report

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada tabled her annual report to Parliament on the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act for 2007 on June 3, 2008.

The report is here: Annual Report to Parliament 2007 Report on the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act - Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

Here is the accompanying media release:

Lack of basic privacy and security measures causing major data breaches, Privacy Commissioner says

Tabling of Privacy Commissioner of Canada's 2007 Annual Report on the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act

Ottawa, June 3, 2008 — Too many data breaches are occurring because companies have ignored some of the most basic steps to protect personal information, says the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Jennifer Stoddart.

The Commissioner’s 2007 Annual Report on the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) was tabled today in Parliament.

“Many companies need to do more to prevent inexcusable security breaches,” Commissioner Stoddart says. “Too often, we see personal information compromised because a company has failed to implement elementary security measures such as using encryption on laptops.”Voluntary privacy breach guidelines which the Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC) developed with business and consumer groups, and published last summer, appear to be prompting more organizations to report breaches.

The OPC has received 21 voluntary breach reports in the first five months of 2008. Last year, there were 34 voluntary reports of breaches to the OPC – up from a total of 20 reports in 2006.

Over the last few years, hundreds of thousands of Canadians have been affected by data breaches.

“Many organizations want to be good corporate citizens and do the right thing,” says Commissioner Stoddart. “While the increased number of reports is a positive sign, it’s clear we still aren’t hearing about every breach which could have a harmful impact on people.”

Financial institutions are reporting the largest number of breaches to the OPC. Some telecommunications, insurance and retail companies have also reported breaches.

The OPC is concerned that few small- and medium-sized enterprises are reporting breaches.

Examples of reported breaches include the theft of laptops containing unencrypted personal information, data tapes lost in transit, improperly discarded paper records, and misdirected faxes.

Information the OPC is collecting from the voluntary reports is helping to shed light on some of the common problems which are leading to breaches.

It is clear, for example, that unprotected laptops remain a huge issue which companies must address. Many breaches related to electronically stored data, often customer information stored on stolen laptop computers. Almost nine in 10 people whose data was compromised by a self-reported breach in 2007 were put at risk because their personal information was held in an electronic format that was either not secured or lacked adequate protection mechanisms such as firewalls and encryption.

Other breaches occurred because employees had not followed established company practices. Companies can address this problem by providing ongoing privacy training, yet a poll commissioned by the OPC last year found only a third of all businesses had trained staff about their responsibilities under Canada’s privacy laws.

The OPC strongly supports a plan by Industry Canada to introduce mandatory breach notification. Reporting requirements will encourage businesses to do more to reduce the risk of a data breach and ensure all organizations are playing by the same rules. They will also ensure Canadians are notified about serious breaches.

Industry Canada has prepared draft breach notification reporting rules and is now fine-tuning this model based on stakeholder input.

The current proposals suggest the federal government is generally headed in the right direction and that Canada will have a breach reporting regime which is both reasonable and flexible.

As the federal government completes its work on reporting requirements, the OPC continues to investigate a wide range of privacy complaints.

The OPC received 350 new PIPEDA complaints during 2007. Almost one third of complaints involved financial institutions. As in past years, other major sectors for complaints were telecommunications, insurance, sales and transportation. The annual report is available on the OPC website.

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada is mandated by Parliament to act as an ombudsman, advocate and guardian of privacy and the protection of personal information rights of Canadians.

To view the report:

Annual Report to Parliament 2007 — Report on the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (Adobe format)

Hands off my laptop

The Canadian Press and CanWest are reporting that the Canadian government is seriously considering implementing an Anti-counterfeiting law that would, among other things, permit ex parte searches for allegedly infringing materials. This raises the spectre of customs and border enforcement authorities searching laptops, ipods and other electronic devices.

Copyright deal could toughen rules governing info on iPods, computers

....The deal would create a international regulator that could turn border guards and other public security personnel into copyright police. The security officials would be charged with checking laptops, iPods and even cellular phones for content that "infringes" on copyright laws, such as ripped CDs and movies.

The guards would also be responsible for determining what is infringing content and what is not.

The agreement proposes any content that may have been copied from a DVD or digital video recorder would be open for scrutiny by officials -- even if the content was copied legally.

"If Hollywood could order intellectual property laws for Christmas what would they look like? This is pretty close," said David Fewer, staff counsel at the University of Ottawa's Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic. "The process on ACTA so far has been cloak and dagger. This certainly raises concerns." ...

In light of the private copying exception that is in the current Copyright Act, I can't imagine that a border guard has any ability to determine whether an MP3 is "infringing".

Laptop searches at airports infrequent, DHS privacy report says

Computerworld is reporting on the first report of the Department of Homeland Security Privacy Office since the changeover to the Obama administration. The report itself is interesting, but perhaps most interesting are the statistics related to the number of searches of laptops at border crossings. This has been a controversial practice since reports on it came to light some time ago. I was surprised to read that fewer than two thousand took place in the year under review, in light of the millions of people (and laptops) that have crossed the border during that time.

Here's Computerworld's coverage: Laptop searches at airports infrequent, DHS privacy report says.

Senators introduce bill to curb border crossing laptop searches

Two senators have introduced a bill to curb controversial laptop searches and seizures, limiting them to when there is a reasonable suspicion of illegal activity:

Techworld - Privacy groups praise bill curbing warrantless laptop searches

Feingold's bill spells out standards for search and seizures of electronic equipment belonging to US travelers at airports and other borders. The biggest condition is that such searches may be initiated only if the customs agent has "reasonable suspicion" that the traveler is carrying contraband or items otherwise prohibited in the country, or because the traveler is prohibited from entering the US. The equipment may be seized only if the DHS secretary, or a relevant federal or state law enforcement agency, obtains a probable-cause warrant on the belief that the equipment contains information that either violates a law, provides evidence of illegal activity or is foreign intelligence material.

Cross-border laptop searches: the view from Canada

I had the opportunity this morning to speak at the Ontario Bar Association's annual CLE extravaganza on the topic of cross border laptop searches. I was joined by David P Sanders of Williams Mullen in Washington, DC.

For those who may be interested, here is my presentation that was given at the session:

The ultimate conclusion is that Canadian border authorities have similar powers to search your laptop when you cross into Canada.

In case Google Documents isn't being helpful, here it is as a PDF: Border searches - OBA Institute - DFRASER.pdf.

The Canadian Privacy Law Blog is Five!

Five years ago, on January 2, 2004, a new age of privacy was creeping across Canada and this blog was born. The day before, at the stroke of midnight, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (Canada) had come fully into force. The Alberta and British Columbia Personal Information Protection Acts also became effective on the first day of 2004.

Since then, we have seen dramatic changes in privacy throughout the world: Identity theft is on the rise; there have been literally thousands of data breaches exposing the personal information of millions of people; governments are looking for easier access to personal information; video surveillance is more widespread; more personal information is generated digitally and aggregated in private hands.

And in the past year specifically, things have remained interesting on the privacy front. We've seen debate over changes to PIPEDA without anything definitive coming from the mandatory five year review. We've also seen arguments put forward to reform the public sector Privacy Act. Focus has also been drawn to the increasing practice of examining laptops at US border crossings. Litigation between Viacom and Google has raised awareness of log information that's often retained by internet companies. And Google has also been sued by a couple claiming their privacy has been violated by presenting pictures of their house in Google Street View. But in the last year, the one big privacy story that was supposed to have the largest impact on Canadians was the implementation of the National Do Not Call List. Whether it has, in fact, had an impact is the subject of debate.

I'd like to thank the many thousands of readers of the blog for visiting this site and thanks to those who have contacted me with comments, compliments, suggestions and links to interesting news. It's been a pleasure to write and I plan to keep it going as long as there's interesting privacy news to report.

Birthday cake graphic used under a creative commons license from K. Pierce.