While the phrase “there’s no privacy online” holds true in many respects, it’s always worth remembering that there’s a great deal of internet freedoms we currently enjoy that could be put at risk by cack-handed, or downright malicious, legislation.
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The UK is currently facing one of the biggest threats to its online freedoms. The looming Communications Capabilities Development Programme gives law enforcement unprecedented powers when it comes to accessing citizens’ online data. So we thought it might be fun to take a look back at which UK politicians have posed the biggest threat to online privacy and internet freedoms.
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As 2012 draws to a close we take a look back at what we think will be the top five threats to online privacy over the coming year. Think we’ve missed something out? Let us know in the comments below.
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US federal regulators have tightened legislation designed to safeguard children’s online privacy. The new laws are designed to give parents more control over what types of data is collected online, and reflect the growing importance and spread of smartphone technology.
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Data breaches suffered by private companies and public institutions increased by more than 40% year-on-year in 2012, with over 160 million people having their personal information compromised, according to a new study. The auditing company KPMG says there was a total of 835 separate incidences of data breaches this year and deliberate ‘hacking’ of companies accounted for 67% of the data loss.
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The USA’s controversial Patriot Act has just got, well, a lot more controversial. A recent study by The University of Amsterdam says US government agencies can secretly request US-based cloud storage companies to hand over data they have on foreign citizens.
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The UK’s home secretary, Theresa May, has made her most outrageous defense of the Communications Capabilites Development Programme yet, saying that anyone who opposes the bill - which allows police to monitor email communications and web browsing - is siding with “criminals, terrorists and paedophiles”.
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Two interesting online privacy-related surveys were published earlier this week. One was conducted in Europe by data management company TRUSTe and the other in Canada by the Canadian Advertising Standards industry regulator. Although the two surveys covered slightly different topics, the way they were reported in the press suggested that Europeans are more concerned about online privacy and tracking than Canadians.
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