Privacy in Belgium

Fidelity National reports theft of 2.3 million consumer records in USA

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - A check authorizing company said Tuesday that credit, bank account and other personal information on 2.3 million consumers had been stolen, but none of the data were used for identity theft or other financial fraud.

The report from Fidelity National Information Services unit Certegy Check Services Inc. was the latest case of data theft that has troubled corporations, the federal government and universities.

Source: http://www.siliconvalley.com

Our comment: the data were stolen by an employee and sold to marketing companies who did not know they were syolen, and used them "only" for marketing. One more reason for maketing companies to sign contracts with list brokers in order that both responsibilities will be covered.

Canadian privacy commissionners against no fly list

A list of nearly 2000 individuals, banned for flying raised concerns from the canadian privacy commissionnners who consider that this list could be problematic vis-à-vis data privcay regulation and issued a statement urging this regulation to be changed.

Our comment: Once more the battle between data privacy and security. The war is far from ending...

POLICY PAPERS ON DIRECT MARKETING

EU VARIOUS POLICY PAPERS ON DIRECT MARKETING

Policy papers

OFFICIAL POLICY PAPERS

Policy Papers from National Data Protection Authorities and the article 29 Working Party concerning videosurveillance

Europe

Europe

The member states National Data Protection Commissioners (name adresses, website etc.)

EU data protection website

EUROPE

The EU commission data protection website

Belgium

BELGIUM

The Belgian data privacy authority website in French and Dutch

Belgian data privacy commission

The Belgian Data Privacy  commission new web site will be launched on July 25 2007.

Our Comment: A few days to wait, for interesting new features

Privacy ranking of Internet companies

Privacy international published in June 2007 an interesting study that classifies the Internet companies based on their privacy behaviour. The title of their study is self explanatory: "a race to the bottom"

Our comment: this study underlines the way some companies use visitors and consumer data. In order to be objective don't forget to look at the statement issed by some of those companies.

GOOGLE - EU FIGHT OVER DATA PRIVACY

Google was subject to pressure from the EU authorities to modify its privacy policies. The Article 27 Working Party (the EU data protection watchdog) issued a letter to Google on the 30/5/2007 critisizing the way Google was collecting data, based on its resolution on privacy protection and search engines dated november 26, 2006. Google considered that they have to keep user data for 24 months due to Data retention Directive. As far as the EU authorities consider that this directive is not applicable for search engines, Google, which is criticized by Privacy International that placed google at the bottom of its ranking of the worst privacy behaviour,  finally decided to reduce data retention to 18 months but if any country legislation requires a longuer period Google will adapt its privacy policy.

Our Comment: This Google story undermines the complexity of the data privacy regulation in an international environment, based on a mix of national laws that are sometimes contradictory. This is not the end of the story, stay tuned...