Author Archives: Andy Green
More Companies under Red Flag Rule for ID Theft Protection
In 2004, Congress amended the 1970s-era Fair Credit Report Act (FRCA) to address the growing problem of identity theft. Under these adjustments to the FCRA, the FTC (along with other regulatory agencies) was asked to develop rules for preventing some … Continue reading
Will Big Data Give Each of Us a Pop-Tarts Moment?
One of the under-appreciated points about Big Data is that as consumers we also act as producers. In each transaction, we contribute bits of analyzable data to the corporate information stockpile. Data hungry companies then draw non-obvious connections by mining … Continue reading
Posted in Big Data, Data Ownership
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Health Care Breaches: Top Sources of Dark Medical Data
One of the goals of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009 was to spur adoption of electronic record keeping for what has been a paper-intensive sector of the economy. Realizing that the transition … Continue reading
What IT Departments Can Learn From the FBI
What do the FBI and your IT department have in common? They both have to worry about data theft; specifically, the theft of intellectual property (IP). While your organization strives to keep IP out of the hands of the competition, … Continue reading
Posted in Data Ownership, Data Protection
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The Internet Delete Button
Compliance Update: EU Data Protection Regulations Postponed Again Over the past few months, I’ve mentioned that the EU’s Data Protection Directive is in the process of a major revision. The most controversial change to the DPD is the “Right to … Continue reading
The Top 6 Exploits Used by Government Hackers
Yes, hackers can be spies. Stay calm, all the same rules still apply. Along with the rest of America, I read the headlines last week about the Chinese military hacking into US defense contractors’ computer systems. Though the words “cyber attack” take … Continue reading
Posted in Data Protection
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Path’s Debacle Sheds Light on Children’s Privacy Online
Over the last few years, the FTC has issued a string of complaints against social media companies for not living up to their advertised privacy terms. If you don’t honor online privacy while publicly saying you do, you’re guilty of violating some … Continue reading
Personally Identifiable Information Hides in Dark Data
To my mind, HIPAA has the most sophisticated view of PII of all the US laws on the books. Their working definition encompasses vanilla identifiers: social security and credit card numbers, and all the other usual suspects. With the additional … Continue reading
The State of the Breach
By coincidence, Verizon’s Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) for 2012 was released this week along with the results of our Privacy Survey. So it’s a good time for a quick tour of the state of the breach. In reviewing this … Continue reading