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DigitalLawUK News Summary 17 May 2013

DigitalLawUK — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:39:44 +0000

Increased solar activity could wipe your data storage facility…

Would your Data System survive a Coronal Mass Ejection? | Sally Bercow pleads innocence over Lord McAlpine Twitter storm | Its not just the UK where jail can follow a tweet: Twitter activists jailed in Bahrain for insulting King | Do you trust the Financial Conduct Authority with your personal data? | ICO says business not ready for EU data protection reforms |

After a short break the new summary returns today with a Bang, literally the largest explosions in the solar system…..

The Sun has unleashed four colossal bursts of radiation in 48 hours. On Tuesday, it released the biggest solar flare of 2013 so far, an intense burst associated with a huge eruption of particles. When these eruptions reach Earth, they can interfere with satellites and communications systems on the ground. Flares are associated with huge eruptions of matter from the Sun’s atmosphere – known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs). These CMEs can be even more disruptive because they are capable of sending billions of tonnes of charged gas and other particles into space. When powerful eruptions reach Earth, the charged matter can blow out transformers in power grids as well as tripping electronics on satellites. The so-called Carrington Event of 1-2 September 1859 shorted telegraph wires, starting fires in North America and Europe, and caused bright aurorae (northern and southern lights) to be seen in Cuba and Hawaii. What sort of damage would it cause if it happened now? We are overdue another such “event”

Sally Bercow, the speaker’s wife, has claimed she was merely asking an innocent question about Lord McAlpine on Twitter during a media frenzy over a Newsnight programme that wrongly linked him to sexual abuse in Wales. During the first stage of a libel trial over a tweet she sent last year, her barrister told the high court that it should be regarded as a random thought with no defamatory meaning. She is being sued for libel by the former Conservative party treasurer after tweeting: “Why is Lord McAlpine trending? *Innocent face*” on 4 November last year, two days after the Newsnight programme was broadcast.

A court in Bahrain has sentenced six activists to a year in jail for insulting King Hamad in messages posted on Twitter. They were convicted for what the Bahraini public prosecutor called the “misuse of freedom of expression”. The sentences come as the government and courts continue their crackdown on protest and dissent. Pro-democracy protests, both peaceful and violent, have rocked the Gulf island kingdom since February 2011. One of those convicted was lawyer Mahdi al-Basri, who was held responsible for “offensive” tweets attacking King Hamad and the ruling al-Khalifa family. Mr al-Basri did not send the tweets himself, but served as a lawyer for a community account that posted the material.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), partially taken over from the FSA, is to collect the personal information from mortgage applications for use by its policy risk and research division to monitor the lending of banks. This raises serious Data Protection act questions and we are also asked to trust another body Phoenixed out of the FSA who failed to monitor banking practices that lead to the near complete collapse of the UK’s banking industry. The plan under the Mortgage Market Review (MMR) will be to capture all the information supplied on a mortgage application, which if you have ever filled one out you will know contains pretty much everything about your personal, employment, income, spending, assets and credit details. Under the Data protection act if you collect personal data the duties include:

Only recording information required to complete the requested transaction
The Information must be accurate and not of opinion
The information must be kept securely and not used for another purpose unless requested to do so.

If this comes into force under new MMR rules in April 2014 customers will have no option as the Lenders will simply claim they have to pass on your data as it is a requirement to complete your requested transaction

Many businesses don’t understand what will be expected of them to comply with the EU’s reforms of data protection laws, according to a report by the Information Commissioners Office (ICO). Consultancy firm London Economics, which surveyed 560 UK businesses on behalf of the ICO in January, found that 40% of companies do not understand any of the 10 main provisions being proposed. Moreover, most respondents (82%) are in the dark over how much they currently spend on data protection, and 87% could not estimate the likely costs of the EU’s draft proposals to their business. The EU is proposing to replace the current 18 year-old patchwork approach to data protection legislation with a single law on data handling, with which every member state would have to comply. This could have a significant effect on how companies of all sizes handle information on their customers. The report says that the proposals could cost small and midsized businesses an average of £76,000 annually, which translates to £47 billion per year to UK business as a whole.

BBC News – US politicians quiz Google on Glass privacy

Sally Bercow pleads innocence over Lord McAlpine Twitter storm | Politics | The Guardian

Do you trust the Financial Conduct Authority with your personal data?

EU launches data protection campaign | Click Lancashire

FCA regulator to collect and share mortgage borrowers’ personal data – Telegraph

Its not just the UK where jail can follow a tweet: Twitter activists jailed in Bahrain for insulting King

BBC News – MPs challenge Google over UK tax reporting

ICO says business not ready for EU data protection reforms | News | TechRadar

Would your Data System survive a Coronal Mass Ejection? BBC News – Four colossal Sun flares in 48 hours

DigitalLawUK Daily News Summary 1 May 2013

DigitalLawUK — Wed, 01 May 2013 15:04:21 +0000

Lions Tours hopes to avoid Social Media faux pas

Lions players given social media warning |ICO to target private investigators in data protection probe |Bond-style Secure Messenger: app that can wipe sent messages from receiver’s phone to help UK spies | Is UK doing enough to protect itself from cyber attack?

See the Presentations and PDFs from yesterday’s 4 hour super – seminar on Data Protection, Social Media & The Law HERE

British and Irish Lions tour manager Andy Irvine has confirmed there will be a social media protocol for players to follow on this summer’s Australia tour. Players will not be prevented from using the likes of Twitter or Facebook, but Irvine is well aware of the possible hazards. ”Social media these days you can make a mistake and it can be around the world in seconds. We do have a protocol we will be following,” Irvine said. ”It’s not as if we are headmasters and telling kids what to do. There will be an opportunity for the players to look at it (protocol) and accept it and understand it. ”It takes years to build up a good reputation, but you can lose it in seconds. We are alert to that.

Data protection experts are to look into the activities of private investigators in a bid to work out whether they are breaching strict laws on the protection of confidential information. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has announced it is to carry out an examination of those in the industry and remove any elements that may contravene the Data Protection Act. Information commissioner Christopher Graham said: “By shining a light into the darkest corners of the private investigation industry we are aiming to root out any criminal elements that continue to cause public concern and blight [its] professional reputation.”

British spies could be offered a James Bond-style smartphone app after a UK company devised what it believes to be the world’s first totally secure messaging service.

The secret technology uses complex ciphers to send heavily encrypted messages from one iPhone to another without passing through any central servers – and is being offered straight off the shelf for £3.99.

Designers are so convinced by its levels of security that they have challenged hackers to crack its codes and have offered a £10,000 prize to anyone who can intercept a message.

It is hoped the app, designed by the British firm Redact, based in Geneva, could become the latest asset in the world of espionage.

In 2010 the British government designated the protection of computer networks as one of the country’s most important national security priorities. In its Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) it pledged, “the National Cyber Security Programme will be supported by £650m of new investment over the next four years”. What exactly has this investment bought, three years on? Speaking on and off the record to insiders – from the government, intelligence agencies and security industry – it is apparent that the achievements in defending the UK from this threat have disappointed many. Much of the available funding may actually have been directed at improving the UK’s ability to target other countries’ computer secrets. Some point out that even if everything had gone to plan, an investment averaging £162.5m per year over four years could only have a limited effect on such a huge problem. Security experts estimate that there are about 50 million cyber attacks a year in the UK, a number which they say is growing rapidly all of the time, and they put the damage to the UK economy at up to £27bn last year

The EC Data Protection Proposals Will Be Costly And Complex

Charity Finance Group publishes guide to data protection for charities

Google Pays $189,000 Fine to German DPA For Unlawfully Collecting, Storing Wi-Fi Data | Bloomberg BNA

David Cleary: Twitter, Account Hacks and All, Still the News Source of Choice for Many

Regulators to Discuss Twitter Hoax Tuesday – MoneyBeat – WSJ

BBC – Is UK doing enough to protect itself from cyber attack?

Bond-style Secure Messenger: app that can wipe sent messages from receiver’s phone to help UK spies – Independent

The Future arrives with Google Glass: First images taken on Glass appear on Twitter – The Independent

BBC News – Twitter warns news organisations over hacking amid Syrian attacks

Google is listening & watching! First, Glass. Next, Google Now, a voice-control service – Independent

Lions players given social media warning – Independent.ie

IOSCO to discuss social media influence on capital markets – Business Line

ICO to target private investigators in data protection probe |BCS – The Chartered Institute for IT

Infosecurity – Smart meters – benefit or information security threat?

DigitalLawUK News Update 23 April 2013

DigitalLawUK — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 14:29:36 +0000

The Dept of Education could face huge fines for not responding to FOI Requests

Gove could face legal action over his dept’s failure to answer 85% of FOI requests on time | Are new data protection proposals for a ‘right to be forgotten’ workable? |Google fined over illegal wi-fi data capture in Germany | Scottish officials spend £400k on FoI legal advice

Legal action against the Education Secretary, Michael Gove, has not been ruled out by the data protection watchdog following serious failures by the Department for Education to improve its record in answering Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.

The prospect of a legal battle, which would be likely to involve a number of close Gove aides, will do little for the morale of his government department, widely regarded as being under siege following a raft of controversial reforms demanded by Mr Gove.

Among the unanswered FOIs are requests that Mr Gove publish both official and private exchanges of emails, text messages and transcripts of phone calls sent between two of his close advisers and officials in 10 Downing Street.

The protected exchanges, if made public, could prove highly damaging for Mr Gove as some are believed to contain stark criticism of policies backed by the Prime Minister, David Cameron.

Have you ever fancied doing a digital disappearing act? Well look no further. European Commission proposals to update data protection lawacross Europe, include a proposal for a “right to be forgotten”. As a basic concept it is snappy and memorable. It suggests that at the press of a button we can apply a digital eraser to our past. However, will this right live up to the hype? Possibly not. In particular, there are genuine concerns that this legal right will fail to deliver on the expectations it creates and will present significant challenges for businesses that have to comply. Rather than a right to be forgotten, we may end up with nothing more than a right to be frustrated. This appears to be a view shared by the UK Ministry of Justice. In a statement the MOJ said: “The title raises unrealistic and unfair expectations of the proposals… the reasonable steps required by the draft regulation would promise much but deliver little.” In principle, the right to be forgotten would mean people could get their personal information removed from primary websites and any other sites that link to, or republish, this information. The right could apply in cases where, for example, information is being held for longer than needed by a business or where a person withdraws their consent to the continued publication of this material.

Following a $7 million settlement last month related to a long-standing Street View Wi-Fi case involving privacy concerns in the U.S., Google (NASDAQ: GOOG ) has now been fined in Germany by regulators for the same thing. The Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information fined the search giant approximately $190,000 for “illegal” recording of Wi-Fi networks, according to a statement issued today. The data collection occurred between 2008 and 2010 when Google captured personal data on wireless networks within range of its Street View vehicles that took pictures of surrounding areas. Google cooperated with regulators during the investigation, according to the commissioner, and turned over its data for inspection. Regulators found a large amount of personal data, and Google was instructed to delete its illegally collected data.

PUBLIC authorities in Scotland have paid lawyers more than £400,000 to help dodge freedom of information requests. More than 60 Scottish authorities have paid legal firms thousands of pounds for advice on how to apply exemptions within the FoI Act and on reviews and appeals to the Scottish Information Commissioner (SIC). Private advice was also taken despite officials having access to free information from the SIC.

BBC News – Google boss defends UK tax record to BBC

BBC News – Google fined over illegal wi-fi data capture in Germany

BBC News – Russian BadNews bug found in Android app store

Scottish officials spend £400k on FoI legal advice | Deadline News

Small businesses fear red tape in EU cyber directive – The Independent

Council defends redacted payments (From The Northern Echo)

European Commission says Institute of Fundraising’s data fears are unfounded

BBC News – Does technology hinder or help toddlers’ learning?

Gove could face legal action over his dept’s failure to answer 85% of FOI requests on time – The Independent

Google chairman Eric Schmidt warns of ‘the dark side of the digital revolution’ | BGR

Google Fined in Germany Over Street View Collection of Personal Data (GOOG)

Are new data protection proposals for a ‘right to be forgotten’ workable? | Guardian Professional

DigitalLawUK News 22 April 2013

DigitalLawUK — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:16:46 +0000

Samsung did the online equivalent of pointing and laughing at its competitor and could face a $850K fine

Samsung being investigated for hiring students in Taiwan to make fun of HTC online | Paris Brown: Kent Tweet row girl will not be prosecuted |Telegraph editor Tony Gallagher – less than 1/3 of newsroom output makes it into print edition | Twitter does drive sales, says Deloitte study

The DigitalLawUK Examiner is out today – Take a look here

According to the AFP, an investigation has been launched in Taiwan against Samsung. The claim states that Samsung hired students to make fun of HTC on the internet. When Samsung Taiwan was asked to explain their actions, the company said they weren’t even aware that an investigation is taking place. Curiously, Samsung did post a status update on their Taiwanese Facebook page that says they regret “any inconvenience and confusion” concerning their latest online campaigns.

The former Kent youth police and crime commissioner will not face prosecution over comments she made on Twitter, police have said. Paris Brown, 17, who quit the £15,000-a-year post on 9 April, was interviewed under caution on 14 April over comments she posted before her appointment. Kent Police said it did not believe the comments, in context, were grossly offensive on an objective assessment. Her lawyers claimed that the investigation was “disproportionate”. Kent Police received more than 50 complaints from members of the public about the online posts, which could be considered racist and homophobic. In a statement, the force said: “We have spoken to the CPS about our findings and given them our view that this case does not pass the evidential threshold for prosecution.

Newsrooms are producing content in far greater volumes and in new formats, turning digital designers and developers into the new “superstars” of the newsroom, The Daily Telegraph editor Tony Gallagher told the Shift 2013 conference in London on Tuesday. He says: “There is a high premium paid for designers and developers who can package your content digitally.” And how has Gallagher’s role changed? He says the editor job is essentially the same, except he now has to “value multimedia as much as words”.

So in an average day The Telegraph now produces:

– 600 articles

– 40 substantial videos

– 25 picture galleries

– 25 concurrently updated blog and an average of five live news blogs across news and sport.

– Gallagher says barely a third of the output of The Telegraph newsroom goes out in print.

The big question for many brands when it comes to social media is how does it affect the bottom line? Twitter provided an answer to that question yesterday as it released a study showing how tweets drive sales. The study by Deloitte, which was launched at the Twitter4Brands event at the Tate Modern on London’s Southbank, showed that tweets not only generate valuable word-of-mouth effects that impacts consumer demand, but positive tweets about a brand directly drive sales. In some cases, the impact on sales for brands can be quite dramatic, which was borne out by EA Games, whose European community manager Alistair Reid who spoke at the event. Overall, the study found that a 30% increase in positive tweets is four times more effective in driving sales than a 30% increase in traditional above-the-line advertising, and the effect is most pronounced when it comes to sports games.

Police forces spying on our phone calls and emails 250,000 times a year – Telegraph

U.S. Launches Charm Offensive in Brussels Over EU Data-Protection Rules – Real Time Brussels – WSJ

US:EU Data – Keeping a Safe Harbor

BBC News – Paris Brown: Kent Tweet row girl will not be prosecuted

Twitter does drive sales, says Deloitte study [infographic] | The Wall Blog

US: Should security trump privacy in wake of Boston bombings? – Politics – CBC News

US: Silicon Valley companies quietly try to kill Internet privacy bill – San Jose Mercury News

Boston probe underscores differing views on privacy between U.S., Europe -delcotimes.com

AFP: Samsung being investigated for hiring students in Taiwan to make fun of HTC online

From the Archives – 1992 view of “The Executive Computer” – Accurate predictions for now – NY Times

US smartphone sales — iPhone grows, Apple flatlines – Benedict Evans

Telegraph editor Tony Gallagher – less than 1/3 of newsroom output makes it into print edition | TheMediaBriefing

DigitalLawUK News 19 April 2013

DigitalLawUK — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 09:09:42 +0000

Ofcom fines TalkTalk AGAIN – a whopping £750k over ‘abandoned calls’ gaffe | Icelandic ‘anti-incest’ app aims to stop families getting too close | University recruitment: one fifth of students say social media doesn’t work | Why US Small Businesses Are Losing On Social Media

Ofcom has once again fined telco TalkTalk, after the company swamped potential customers with silent calls. It now has to pay £750,000 for failing to comply with UK law. The ISP was hit with a massive £3m penalty from the communications watchdog in 2011 for wrongly billing tens of thousands of customers for services they never received and then failing to fix the cockup.

In Iceland, with its measly island population of just 320,000, shared ancestry between its inhabitants is far more common, leading to far higher chance of confusing familial relations. So much so, that developers have produced an app that encourages users to “bump in the app before you bump in the bed”. Anti-virus software developer Friðrik Skúlason had earlier produced an online database to allow Icelanders to trace their heritage online, before three app developers took the information and made a specific anti-incest feature on their Book of Icelanders Android app.

Universities still have a way to go to ensure that their social mediapresence is seen as a credible source of information for prospective students. Our research, conducted with online student community The Student Room, surveyed over 300 potential and current students about what information sources or channels influenced their choice of university. We found that although 65% of students use social media channels several times a day, students rated universities’ social media presence as less influential and less trustworthy than more traditional sources such as prospectuses or open days. Prospective students are keen to engage with their university through social media channels, with one fifth of students saying that universities don’t make enough use of social media in recruitment, which meant they currently didn’t expect or look for information there. What’s more, many of the students we surveyed were clueless that their chosen university even had a Twitter or Facebook account – showing that there is a need for universities to ensure their social media presence is clearly signposted to attract the widest audience.

A new report from online business community Manta shows that, desperate to increase sales numbers in 2013, American small business owners are turning up on the social web in droves. The trouble is, no matter how much time they spend, they’re simply not seeing a return on investment. Social media use is trending upward according to the survey of more than 1,235 small business owners, no surprise given the attention paid to the various social platforms by big businesses and media outlets. Nearly 50% have increased time spent on social media this year and nearly 55% say they’re using platforms like Twitter and Facebook as a primary tool for either acquiring new customers of generating sales leads. It all sounds promising until this head-scratching result: despite their dedication and belief that social media is the Hail Mary of small business owners everywhere, more than 60% of small business owners say they haven’t seen any return on investment from their engagement online. None.

E-reader sales hold up against new tablets – BelfastTelegraph.co.uk

Ofcom fines TalkTalk AGAIN – a whopping £750k over ‘abandoned calls’ gaffe • The Register

Icelandic ‘anti-incest’ app aims to stop families getting too close – Europe – World – The Independent

Daniel Newman: Executives Using Social Media — A Waste of Time?

Why US Small Businesses Are Losing On Social Media – Forbes

US: Ohio State monitors athletes’ Twitter, Facebook – Campus – The Lantern – Ohio State University

University recruitment: one fifth of students say social media doesn’t work | Guardian

DigitalLawUK News Summary 18 April 2013

DigitalLawUK — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 08:58:25 +0000

SMEs most at risk from hackers

Hackers focus on SMEs | Social networking on desktops may have peaked in 2012 |Web users spent a quarter of their time online on social networks in 2012 |Google Glass: An end to Privacy as first customers get £1,000 electronic specs

SMEs are three times more likely to be targeted by cybercriminal attacks than in 2011 according to the latest Internet Security Threat Report from Symantec. There was a 42 per cent surge in targeted attacks – operations focusing on a specific target or victim as opposed to a large group of people or employees – and small businesses are the focus of 31 per cent of such incidents, up from just over 10 per cent in 2011.

Perhaps there is such a thing as too much Facebook. In 2012, U.S. consumers on personal computers spent about 27 percent of their Internet time with social networking sites and forums, or 16 minutes for every hour, according to data from Experian Marketing Services.Though that’s an alarming finding for some, the figure, which doesn’t reflect mobile browsing, is actually down 3 percentage points from the previous year. In 2011, social networking in the U.S. peaked at 30 percent of all time spent online, according to Experian.A report published by Experian shows that internet users in the US, UK and Australia spend on average 16 minutes of every hour spent online on updating their status and their accounts on social networks or forums on their desktop computers. In comparison, nine minutes is spent on entertainment websites and only 10 per cent (or six minutes) on shopping. Of the three countries, UK internet users are the most engaged online shoppers according to the research, spending proportionally more time on shopping websites compared to the US or Australia. Experian says in December 2012, around 370 million hours were spent buying things online in the UK, a quarter more than the monthly average.

Now that Google Glasses have been released to a select group as part of the Beta testing, viral videos have begun popping up online that show what it is like to film a video wearing the device. The glasses were released to the first group of developers outside the company on Wednesday and the excited testers uploaded footage to YouTube that they captured wearing the devices. Clips show Google Glass wearers doing an array of activities, including sitting in front of a computer playing a video game, driving a go kart and completing a plastic ball puzzle.
Web users spent a quarter of their time online on social networks in 2012 | ITProPortal.com

Social networking on desktops may have peaked in 2012, Experian finds | CNET News

Google Glass: An end to Privacy as first customers get £1,000 electronic specs | Mail Online

Hackers focus on SMEs – Technology Industry News | The Irish Times

WhatsApp CEO Says It Is ‘Bigger Than Twitter’

John Lewis in broadband push – Telegraph

LG: UK phone market is most tricky in the world | News | TechRadar

Microsoft continues patent licensing push with Foxconn parent deal – IT News from V3.co.uk

DigitalLawUK News Summary 16 April 2013

DigitalLawUK — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 16:53:08 +0000

SME’s are at risk from hackers due to the lower security levels they tend to have….

Report finds small businesses battered by cybercrime | Dispute over allegedly libellous Lord McAlpine tweet by Sally Bercow at High Court | 71% of Facebook Users Engage in ‘Self-Censorship |Facebook hits back at privacy worries with new initiative

Cybercriminals are increasingly targeting small businesses due to their less sophisticated defenses, according to a new report from Symantec. Companies with 250 employees or less absorbed 18 percent of targeted cyberattacks in 2011, but the figure jumped to 31 percent in 2012, Symantec said in its Internet Security Threat Report 2013, released on Tuesday. ”While it can be argued that the rewards of attacking a small business are less than what can be gained from a large enterprise, this is more than compensated by the fact that many small companies are typically less careful in their cyberdefenses,” the report said.

Organizations between 251 employees to 2,500 were targeted 19 percent of the time, with companies with more than 2,500 employees making up the remaining 50 percent, Symantec said. The company said it detected a 42 percent increase overall in cyberattacks in 2012 compared to 2011.Employees in research and development and sales functions are prime targets for hackers, and Symantec said it saw a large increase in attacks directed at those roles. “This suggests that attackers are casting a wider net and targeting less senior positions below the executive level in order to gain access to companies,” the report said.

Only a “moron” would not have linked Lord McAlpine to false claims that he was a paedophile, following a tweet by Sally Bercow, the High Court heard, as the peer claimed victory in the first stage of a libel battle.

A court hearing will decide whether Bercow’s tweet in November last year – “Why is Lord McAlpine trending? *innocent face*” – was defamatory, Mr Justice Tugendhat ruled. If Lord McAlpine is successful, a further hearing will decide the level of damages.

Mrs Bercow, the Speaker’s wife, was one of several high-profile figures who mentioned Lord McAlpine’s name on Twitter, wrongly linking him to claims of child abuse at the Bryn Estyn boys’ home in North Wales.

The peer was falsely accused after a Newsnight investigation accused “a leading Conservative politician from the Thatcher years” of sexually abusing boys at the home in the Seventies and Eighties.

Lord McAlpine’s QC, Sir Edward Garnier, told the hearing that Mrs Bercow’s Twitter following of almost 60,000 was bigger than the readership of some local newspapers.

“We are not talking about some kitchen table blogger addressing perhaps herself and one other person,” he said.

Sir Edward told the court that, in the context of the Newsnight broadcast and the media coverage, only “a moron in a hurry” or an “anchorite in a sealed cave” could not have known the meaning of the tweet.

Most Americans now know the feeling of typing something into a social media input box, thinking again, and deciding against posting whatever it was. But while it certainly seemed like a widespread phenomenon, no one had actually quantified the extent of this “self-censorship.” But now, new research based on a sample of 3.9 million Facebook users reveals precisely how widespread this activity is. Carnegie Mellon PhD student Sauvik Das and Facebook’s Adam Kramer measured how many people typed more than five characters into Facebook content-input boxes, but then did not post them. They term this “last-minute self-censorship.” The research was posted to Das’ website and will presented at the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence’s conference on Weblogs and Social Media in July. The numbers are impressively large. Fully one-third of all Facebook posts were self-censored, according to the method Das and Kramer devised, though they warn they probably captured a substantial number of false positives. 71 percent of all the users surveyed engaged in some self-censorship either on new posts or in comments, and the median self-censorer did so multiple times. Perhaps the most interesting part of the study was the demographic correlations with self-censorship. Men self-censored more often, particularly if they had large numbers of male friends. Interestingly, people with more diverse friend groups — measured by age, political affiliation, and gender — were less likely to self-censor.

Subject to a seemingly endless barrage of criticisms over how it collects and presents information, including concerns over its new Facebook Home for Android, it’s no wonder Facebook is considered a dubious character when it comes to privacy. But the social network has now announced that it will be working with the National Association of Attorneys General in the US in an effort to promote privacy awareness to younger users. Facebook will release videos that answer questions about privacy and demonstrate how to manage your profile so you can make it as secure as possible.

Dispute over allegedly libellous Lord McAlpine tweet by Sally Bercow at High Court – The Independent

Symantec report finds small businesses battered by cybercrime | ITworld

EU Accepts Google Antitrust Proposal – Information Week Government

BBC News – Clearer phone charges on the way, says Ofcom

71% of Facebook Users Engage in ‘Self-Censorship’ – Alexis C. Madrigal – The Atlantic

Facebook: advertisers find their products on page glorifying rape and domestic abuse | Mail Online

Facebook hits back at privacy worries with new initiative | TechRadar

Online privacy: nothing to fear | guardian.co.uk

Online privacy: Facebook, lawyers team up to educate kids, parents in US – The Times of India

DigitalLawUK News Summary 15 April 2013

DigitalLawUK — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:31:46 +0000

“Ello Ello, What’s going on here then?” Met investigates 75 officers over their social media use

Met police investigated 75 officers over Facebook and social networks misuse | Paris Brown furore: Whats in your social media history? | Friendships cut short on social media as people get ruder | Physicians advised not to ‘friend’ patients via social media

The Metropolitan police has investigated 75 officers for potentially misusing Facebook and other social networks in the past five years, a Freedom of Information request has revealed. Three officers and four police officials have been dismissed following disciplinary investigations since 2009. A further six officers and two staff resigned or retired after facing complaints about their misuse of social media. The figures emerged days after Britain’s first youth crime commissioner, Paris Brown, resigned from her £15,000-a-year post following a row over her past comments on Twitter. Of the 75 officers investigated by the Metropolitan police, 38 had complaints proven against them and 25 were cleared. A further six are still being investigated.

Splashed across the front pages, Paris Brown’s tweets certainly painted an unattractive picture. Gays were dismissed as “fags”, immigrants as “illegals” – and her craving for hash brownies sat uncomfortably with her new role as Britain’s first youth crime commissioner.

But after the dust settled this week, and 17-year-old Miss Brown had tearfully resigned her £15,000-a-year role, one thought stuck in the minds of those of us in the internet generation – could it happen to me too? Y

oung people who have been raised being candid about our lives online are now entering, or attempting to enter, the world of work. We’re told that the first thing a potential employer may do is trawl applicants’ social media. So I decided to get there first, to see what embarrassments are buried in my digital closet. And for the sake of thoroughness, I asked a private investigator to see what extra digital dirt he could dig on me. And, for some reason, I agreed to share it all here.

Rudeness and throwing insults are cutting online friendships short with a survey on Wednesday showing people are getting ruder on social media and two in five users have ended contact after a virtual altercation. As social media usage surges, the survey found so has incivility with 78 percent of 2,698 people reporting an increase in rudeness online with people having no qualms about being less polite virtually than in person. One in five people have reduced their face-to-face contact with someone they know in real life after an online run-in. Joseph Grenny, co-chairman of corporate training firm VitalSmarts that conducted the survey, said online rows now often spill into real life. The survey found two in five people blocking, unsubscribing or “unfriending” someone over a virtual argument.

LOS ANGELES, April 14 (UPI) – Physicians should not “friend” or contact patients through personal social media, or text for medical interactions, U.S. physician groups advise. The American College of Physicians and Federation of State Medical Boards encourages doctors to always “pause before posting” and not “friend” patients in policy paper “Online Medical Professionalism: Patient and Public Relationships,” published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. ”Digital communications and social media use continue to increase in popularity among the public and the medical profession,” Dr. Phyllis Guze, chairwoman of the Board of Regents, American College of Physicians, said in a statement. “This policy paper provides needed guidance on best practices to inform standards for the professional conduct of physicians online.”

Google lets you plan “digital afterlife” with ‘Inactive Account Manager’ tool – The Independent

Paris Brown furore: Whats in your social media history? – The Independent

Met police investigated 75 officers over Facebook and social networks misuse | guardian.co.uk

Data protection law is in danger of lagging behind technological change |guardian.co.uk

Why are you failing to meet your portable data security responsibilities? – SC Magazine UK

Head in the clouds – Actions to consider if you use the Cloud – SC Magazine UK

Friendships cut short on social media as people get ruder | ABS-CBN News

India: No home for privacy – The New Indian Express

James Fields: Knowledge helps Internet users protect their privacy |tennessean.com

Physicians advised not to ‘friend’ patients via social media, or text – UPI.com

AFP: Twitter account of Venezuelan acting president hacked

Turkish pianist gets suspended jail sentence for ‘denigrating religion’ on Twitter – The Washington Post

WordPress sites targeted in major attack | PC Pro

DigitalLawUK News Summary 12 April 2013

DigitalLawUK — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:36:27 +0000

Scarily young App Developers making £1000s every day….

Young App Creators Earning Thousands A Day |Google sued by Streetmap for “cynical manipulation” of search results |OFT investigates phone games with costly add-ons that have Kids incurring Bills of £1000s |UK’s data protection regulator ICO is ineffective, says UEA research

A university student has told Sky News he can make up to £2,000 per day developing apps in his spare time. Josh Gare is just one of a growing number of young app entrepreneurs making a splash in a field sparked by the popularity of mobile devices. The 20-year-old from Berkshire taught himself to write apps at the age of 16 after reading about the process. Some 2.5 million people around the world have now bought his various creations from Apple’s App Store, including the emoticons app Emoji. He admits it is difficult to compete in the market, but says it is still a lot easier compared to some other business areas. ”I’m competing with Apple, Apple’s apps, EA, these huge companies. But if I was to say, start up a fizzy drink company, I wouldn’t be able to compete with Coca-Cola,” he said. In March, British 17-year-old Nick D’Aloisio made global headlines after selling one of his apps to Yahoo! in a multimillion pound deal.

Google continues to find itself embroiled in a range of unsavoury legal dramas, with the latest development seeing the global search giant sued by UK-based cartography website Streetmap. Streetmap is one of 11 complainants in an EU probe investigating whether the Internet titan is abusing its dominant position in the European search field, where it enjoys a market share in excess of 90 per cent. The maps site is now also taking its grievance to Britain’s High Court (pictured, top), describing the move as a further necessary defensive action “complementary” to the current stirrings over in Brussels. For its part, Streetmap claims its popularity has been adversely affected by Google’s “anti-competitive conduct.”

Free iPad and smartphone games which can result in children running up hefty bills for their parents through expensive in-game features are to come under scrutiny from the Office of Fair Trading. More than a quarter of children aged between five and 15 now ownsmartphones according to Ofcom, and many more have access to their parents’ devices. A whole industry has grown up around apps for them. Many are based on popular characters including the Smurfs and Playmobil and while the initial game can be downloaded for free, players are offered a range of costly upgrades. Reports of children running up bills for hundreds of pounds by clicking through to this paid-for content are increasingly common, and in one case a parent reported being hit with charges of more than £3,000. ”We are concerned that children and their parents could be subject to unfair pressure to purchase when they are playing games they thought were free, but which can actually run up substantial costs,” said Cavendish Elithorn, the OFT’s senior director for goods and consumer.

In a paper to be presented today, Dr Karen Mc Cullagh traces the development of the watchdog, currently the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), since its inception almost 30 years ago, when a Conservative government enacted legislation establishing an independent regulator tasked with administering data protection law in the UK. There has been little research evaluating the effectiveness of the regulator since its inception. Dr Mc Cullagh’s study aims to address this by examining its development through four distinct phases, in order to assess the adequacy and effectiveness of the regulator to date, and predict its future potential. Dr Mc Cullagh, from UEA’s Law School, looked at: the period 1984-1998, when the Data Protection Registrar was first created and derived its powers from the Data Protection Act 1984; 1998-2010 when the Data Protection Registrar transformed into the (ICO) and gained enhanced powers under the Data Protection Act 1998; 2010 to the present, since the level of financial penalty the regulator could impose for serious breaches of the legislation was increased through the enactment of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008; and finally, the changes in proposed EU data protection regulation, which are tentatively scheduled to come into force in 2014. “My analysis of the regulator’s investigative and enforcement powers demonstrates that they have been, and continue to be, lamentably weak and ineffective,” said Dr Mc Cullagh. “Despite the much-lauded enhanced powers for regulators in the proposed EU data protection regulation, there is a real risk that the ICO will remain an ineffective regulator in the future if the UK government does not take measures to create an adequately funded and properly staffed regulatory office, with appropriate investigative and enforcement powers.”

Facebook’s Commercial push adds icons and links to status updates | Internet & Media – CNET News

Facebook’s message charge shows how to make money out of desperate fans | The Guardian

Young App Creators Earning Thousands A Day | Orange UK

Google has another go at allaying EU competition concerns

OFT investigates phone games with costly add-ons that have Kids incurring Bills of £1000s | The Guardian

India demands Data Secure Status from EU in India-EU free trade agreement – The Economic Times

EU watchdog: Data collection can’t fly under ‘user experience’ flag – ComputerworldUK.com

Midsize Insider: Data Protection at Risk with BYOD – ICO Guidance

Google sued by Streetmap for “cynical manipulation” of search results | ITProPortal.com

UK’s data protection regulator ICO is ineffective, says UEA research

DigitalLawUK News Summary 11 April 2013

DigitalLawUK — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 16:46:28 +0000

The BBC lost 195 laptops in 2012 alone at £1500 each…

BBC reports major losses of laptops and mobile devices | Popular Adult websites ‘host adverts with malware’| Pembrokeshire Council told to improve data protection BEFORE it disclosed child abuse files | Half of Justin Bieber’s Twitter followers are ‘fake’ | Hijacking airplanes with an Android phone

The BBC had 195 laptops stolen last year. Following a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by Veracode, it was revealed that the BBC has lost 785 tablets, laptops and mobiles in the last three years, including 399 laptop computers, 39 tablets and 347 mobile devices, which were reported either lost or stolen since 2010. The BBC response said that the average cost for each laptop is £1,500 and between £100-£300 per mobile, and approximately £1,500 per tablet device. This means that the cost of replacing the laptops for those last year alone was £292,500. Also last year, the BBC had 61 mobiles and 22 tablets stolen, and 57 mobiles, 11 laptops and four tablets lost. The BBC response said that the equipment is leased to the BBC, and therefore the cost covers the leasing service and support charges.

Top Adult websites – some of which are among the most-visited sites on the internet – are putting users’ computers at risk, according to a recent study. Researcher Conrad Longmore claims that advertisements displayed by the sites were found to contain malware programs, which install harmful files on users’ machines without their permission. Mr Longmore told the BBC that two popular sites– XHamster and PornHub – pose the greatest threat. While the sites themselves do not host any malware themselves, embedded adverts could cause problems for users. Mr Longmore said: “We call these malicious advertisements ‘malvertising’”. ”The way the ads are bought and sold across all websites is incredibly complex. ”Ads can often be repackaged and resold so that it is hard to tell where they originated from, and the criminals behind them go to great lengths to disguise what they are doing.”

A council under investigation for unlawfully disclosing child sex abuse files to a victim who was not entitled to see them was advised by the Information Commissioner’s Office to improve its data protection procedures as recently as last November, it has emerged. Last week we revealed how Pembrokeshire County Council had released highly sensitive reports about 10 child sex abuse victims to another victim. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is seeking to establish why the council gave around 400 pages of psychiatric reports about other victims to “Steven” after he sought disclosure of material relating solely to himself.

Justin Bieber’s title as “King of Twitter” has been brought into question after it was revealed almost half of his followers could be fake. In a report carried out by social media statistics company, SocialBakers, an estimated 16.7m of the singer’s 37m strong Twitter fan base was said to be composed of fake or empty accounts, with another 2.6m being inactive. The research demotes Bieber, 19, to second place after Lady Gaga in the rankings of highest number of Twitter followers. He overtook the singer earlier this year but the new statistics suggest the passing of the crown could have been premature. Lady Gaga, although having more “good” followers than Bieber, is still thought to have over 15m bogus fans herself.

An extremely well attended talk by Hugo Teso, a security consultant at n.runs AG in Germany, about the completely realistic scenario of plane hijacking via a simple Android app has galvanized the crowd attending the Hack In The Box Conference in Amsterdam today. Teso, who has been working in IT for the last eleven years and has been a trained commercial pilot for a year longer than that, has combined his two interests in order to bring to light the sorry state of security of aviation computer systems and communication protocols. By taking advantage of two new technologies for the discovery, information gathering and exploitation phases of the attack, and by creating an exploit framework (SIMON) and an Android app (PlaneSploit) that delivers attack messages to the airplanes’ Flight Management Systems (computer unit + control display unit), he demonstrated the terrifying ability to take complete control of aircrafts by making virtual planes “dance to his tune.”

Google submits formal concessions to EU in antitrust case | Reuters

BBC reports major losses of laptops and mobile devices – 195 laptops in 2012 alone – SC Magazine UK

Pembrokeshire Council told to improve data protection BEFORE it disclosed child abuse files-WalesOnline

Big data projects run EU data protection law risk | TechCentral.ie

BBC News – TVShack owner Richard O’Dwyer in video content project

BBC News – PC sales worldwide have tumbled, data from IDC shows

Facebook and Twitter in UK: Survey reveals social media habits – Yorkshire Evening Post

Half of Justin Bieber’s Twitter followers are ‘fake’ – Independent.ie

Hijacking airplanes with an Android phone