EFF Sues AT&T Collaborating with Illegal Domestic Spying Program

The EFF is going after AT&T, accusing them of violating the law and privacy of their customers, according to an article on their website.

In their lawsuit, EFF says that AT&T is continuing their spying, and the lawsuit is attempting to stop this.

The lawsuit says that AT&T gave access to over 300 terabytes of cutomer database files to the NSA.

VoIP Phone Tapping?

According to an aticle in the Washington Post , the FCC's plans may pose a threat to your privacy and security.

In the article, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC),the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation ,say they will fight the FCC's plan to expand the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) of 1994. It filed a brief this week with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Wal-Mart & Costco Consider Fingerprint Scanning

An article in CNNMoney.com reports that both Wal-Mart and Costco are considering using fingerprint scanning.

Your fingerprint would then be linked to your credit card.

With the Patriot Act in place, the government could then request Wal-Mart and Costco's records, which of course, would include your fingerprint.

New Jersey Schools Now Using Iris Scanning

"When a parent arrives to pick up their child at one of three grade schools in the Freehold Borough School District, they'll need to look into a camera that will take a digital image of their iris. That photo will establish positive identification to gain entrance into the school."

This, according to an article in TechWeb.

This program is funded by the U.S. Department of Justice.

"The system takes a digital photograph of the iris, the color portion of the eye, each time a parent, teach or administrative and school employee gains access to the school. "The algorithm can map out up to 242 unique points in the iris," Bolling said. "A good fingerprint patch is anywhere from seven to 22 points."

"The idea is to improve school safety for the children," said Phil Meara, superintendent, Freehold Borough School District"

Verizon To Begin Tracking Children

According to this article in Red Herring, Verizon plans to roll out their child tracking service in May.

Banks To Use Fingerprints and RFID To Track You

Isn't that convenient?

For the banks, that is.

Read the article here

Yahoo Hands Over Search Data To Feds

A TechWeb article says that Yahoo handed over search data to government attorneys, but that no personal information was handed out.

According to the article, a Yahoo spokeswoman stated "In our opinion, this is not a privacy issue," "We complied on a limited basis and did not provide any personally identifiable information."

Bush Administration Going After Google Records

According to an article in The Mercury News , the Bush administration asked a federal judge to turn over it's database records.

According to the article, Nicole Wong, an associate general counsel for Google, said the company will fight the government's effort ``vigorously.''

My Auto Insurance Company Wants To Know More

My auto insurance company (during a policy renewal interview) asked me some probing personal questions today that have nothing to do with auto insurance.

One of the questions was "do you have any medical conditions", and the interviewer ran through a laundry list of medical conditions.

What do medical questions have to do with auto insurance? I asked the interviewer that same question. She told me that they needed to know these answers, just in case you "passed out while behind the wheel" -- of course they want to know those answers. They want to know if you have a medical condition, so that they can use your own answers to deny you any future claims in the event you have an accident.

The other question was "do you have any children under the age of fifteen"?

I asked the interviewer why they were asking that question. She told me "we track children" I'm not making this up! Her complete quote was "We track children under fifteen years of age for the purpose of rating"

When asked, she couldn't explain to me what she meant by "rating"

She did explain that "they track children year by year, as they grow older."

The implications of this type of interviewing should be obvious. In addition to privacy issues, there is the issue of security. Do you want to tell a virtual stranger how many children you have, and how old they are? I intend to further investigate this and try to determine just what purpose the insurance company has for these type of questions. I'd also like to know if they are sharing the data with other companies, or with the government.