Blog Post

October 2013 – Pam Dixon is speaking at Biometrics 2013 in London with Dr. Joseph Atick and Dr. Emilio Mordini, Director, Centre for Science, Society and Citizenship, Italy.

The topic is Privacy at the Cross Road: A Debate on Frameworks.

As biometrics become part of our daily lives, the issue of privacy and the protection of personal identifiable information (PII) such as biometric data is beginning to take centre stage. This debate will review the pressing issues with respect to privacy and the role of the biometrics industry in it.

The audience will hear the views of prominent privacy experts that will explain what is at stake and why legal frameworks have been difficult to develop so far, and also from industry experts who will give the market perspective and the industry concern regarding the chilling effect of over-reaching privacy legislation.
Delegates will also be invited to play an active role in what promises to be an exciting dialogue on the future of privacy and the role of the biometrics industry in it.

How unique are you? We played with a data privacy tool today here at WPF that showed us if the combination of our birthdate and zip code made us statistically unique. The more unique you are, the more identifiable you are in a sea of supposedly “anonymous” data. This tool was developed by Dr. LaTanya Sweeney at Harvard’s Data Privacy Lab, and using it will tell you how easily you can be identified from records that may not even have your name on them.

Data breach — The state of California issues a first-ever statewide data breach report. In 2012, 2.5 million Californians had their data breached. Of those breached, the study found that The report found that “1.4 million Californians would have been protected if companies had encrypted data when moving or sending the data out of the company’s network.”

NTIA — The US Department of Commerce announced that the next NTIA Multistakeholder meeting will be July 25 in Washington, D.C. The final list of outstanding issues for stakeholders is here. Meeting information: Meeting 16 — July 25, 2013, 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. ET (Location: American Institute of Architects, 1735 New York Avenue NW, Washington,

CFP self regulation panel — At this year’s Computers’ Freedom, and Privacy conference, Pam Dixon will be on a panel discussing the NAI self-regulation and comparing the now NAI to the NAI of 2007, when WPF published a strong report discussing the profound issues with the NAI at that time.