Lecturer faced the sack for breaching privacy by telling parent how hard his son worked: related news

Lecturer faced the sack for 'breaching privacy' by telling parent how hard his son worked

If you have a complaint about the editorial content in this website which concerns inaccuracy or intrusion and the article directly affects you, then click here for more details

The lecturer who faces the sack for 'breaching privacy' by telling parent how hard her son worked

A university professor was threatened with the sack - after trying to reassure a mother about her son's performance on his degree course.

Understanding Privacy

privacyprof writes "Slashdot readers familiar with Professor Daniel J. Solove's essay, 'I've Got Nothing to Hide and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy,' might be interested in his new book, Understanding Privacy, which develops many of the ideas in that essay. As rapidly changing technology makes information increasingly available, there has been a great struggle to define privacy, with many conceding that the task is virtually impossible. The book argues there are multiple forms of privacy, related to one another by 'family resemblances'. It explains the framework for understanding privacy which was briefly discussed in the 'Nothing to Hide' essay. The book covers the framework in greater depth and explores how it applies to a wide array of privacy issues, such as data mining, surveillance, data security, and consumer privacy.

Aussie man sells life on eBay for 200,000

An Australian man has successfully sold his entire life on ebay, including his house, his car, his motorbike, his sofa, his good china, his nectar points, his job, his friends: everything. His unique auction won him a little short of £200,000.

Don't You Feel Safer Now That Google Added A Link To Its Privacy Policy?

One of the more idiotic accusations thrown at Google of late was this idea that it was somehow a problem that it didn't link directly to its privacy policy from its home page. It had a privacy policy. That privacy policy was easy to find. Almost no one actually reads its privacy policy -- but a bunch of privacy groups who surely had more important things to spend their time on got all upset that Google refused to link from its front page. It appears that Google has now given in and agreed to link to the privacy policy, oddly removing the word "Google" from its copyright notice and replacing it with a link to the privacy policy.

Amitabh Bachchan Speaks about his Family, Sarkar Raj, his Blogs and Things Close to his Heart on "Frankly Speaking with Arnab" on 8th June

Amitabh Bachchan Speaks about his Family, Sarkar Raj, his Blogs and Things Close to his Heart on “Frankly Speaking with Arnab� on 8th June

Google's Latest Silly Privacy Problem

Well now that Google's dealt with one ridiculous privacy complaint, it appears it has another to deal with. As Google is preparing to launch its "Street View" offerings in Europe (which let people see photos of the streets they search for on Google Maps), some privacy groups are complaining how its a violation of people's privacy. Apparently the fact that they were photographed out in public hasn't occurred to the privacy group. Even more to the point, as Google has pointed out in response, despite the fact that anyone caught in these photographs was in public, it's recently rolled out a system to automatically blur faces of people who end up in the Street View photos. Overall, the whole complaint seems to be much ado about nothing from privacy advocates who have much more important things to focus on.

Does Anyone Really Care Where Google Places Its Privacy Policy?

In the past, we've discovered that most people don't read a website's privacy policy, and many (incorrectly) assume that as long as a site has a privacy policy, then it means that the site will keep their info private -- even if the policy is to say the exact opposite. Basically, what this means is privacy policies are almost entirely meaningless. Yet, some still think they're important for show. Even more than that, they think that where you put the privacy policy matters. And that's put Google into a bit of a bind, as it tries to join the Network Advertising Initiative, a trade group that sets standards relating to how companies collect data for advertising purposes. The problem is that one of the NAI's principles is that the proper thing to do is put a link to your privacy policy on the homepage -- something that Google refuses to do.

Italian Privacy Advocates and Jurists Launch New Privacy Institute

PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A group of prominent Italian privacy advocates and jurists have launched the Italian Institute for Privacy (www.istitutoitalianoprivacy.it/en/), a public policy think tank focused on improving privacy protection in the digital age. This broad-based coalition of prominent Italians will focus its efforts on the protection of personal privacy online for citizens in

Italian Privacy Advocates and Jurists Launch New Privacy Institute

PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A group of prominent Italian privacy advocates and jurists have launched the Italian Institute for Privacy (www.istitutoitalianoprivacy.it/en/), a public policy think tank focused on improving privacy protection in the digital age. This broad-based coalition of prominent Italians will focus its efforts on the protection of personal privacy online for citizens in

Spike Lee, Grant Achatz, Anne Heche

A Chicago chef known for his ethereal cooking - as well as the tongue cancer that nearly ended his life - has been named America's top chef by the James Beard Foundation. The award marked a victory in a tumultuous year for Grant Achatz, who was diagnosed last July with cancer, underwent aggressive treatment to save his life and sense of taste, and by December was cancer free. Achatz told the crowd of food world elite gathered for the awards he credits lessons learned when he was 22 and working at The French Laundry in Yountville, California, with teaching him not just how to cook, but also how to survive. Achatz's cooking at his restaurant, Alinea, has helped to define the so-called molecular gastronomy movement. His ultramodern style has crafted menus that read like the shopping list of a culinary mad scientist, with items such as "black

Online Casino Pays Out Largest Ever Customer Win in Greece

May 16, 2008 (London, UK) – Last week, Sportingbet.com congratulated a lucky Greek customer on his €940,966 jackpot win by flying him and five of his friends and family to London to receive his winnings and celebrate his incredible good fortune. After toasting his win at Sportingbet’s London offices, the young office assistant and his entourage were taken to lunch after which he and his proud fiancé went on a shopping spree.

Online Casino Pays Out Largest Ever Customer Win in Greece

May 16, 2008 (London, UK) – Last week, Sportingbet.com congratulated a lucky Greek customer on his €940,966 jackpot win by flying him and five of his friends and family to London to receive his winnings and celebrate his incredible good fortune. After toasting his win at Sportingbet’s London offices, the young office assistant and his entourage were taken to lunch after which he and his proud fiancé went on a shopping spree.

Buso Renkin DVD

Like a certain pompadoured punk, Kazuki's tale begins with his death. He is killed while saving a girl from a monster behind his school, only to find that the girl didn't need his help at all. Tokiko is an alchemical warrior tough enough to make nails look wussy, and she ends up saving poor Kazuki's dead bacon by planting an alchemical weapon in the hole where his heart used to be. To his, and maybe two or three viewers', surprise, he awakes to find he has gained something. Unfortunately it isn't a pompadour, but rather the ability to summon a powerful lance capable of destroying homunculi like the one that killed him. Someone, it seems, is creating the human-gobbling nasties, and in order to protect his cute but obnoxious sister Mahiro and his not-so-cute but still obnoxious friends, he joins forces with Tokiko to fight Papillon, the per

Vaughan's Twenty20 reputation tumbles

Michael Vaughan's form was the talk of Lord's in the build-up to this Test. Short of runs in New Zealand, as well as for Yorkshire in the early season, the murmurings about his role would have risen an octave or two had he failed to cash in in this game. But a return to his favoured No. 3 position, coupled with a bright sunny day for batting, gave him the perfect platform to restate his credentials. This was his 18th Test century, and his sixth at Lord's. But, it is a measure of how favourable England batsmen now find the ground, no fewer than seven colleagues have made 13 hundreds here since Vaughan's last, against Bangladesh in 2005 - each of his current top-six colleagues, plus Marcus Trescothick and Matt Prior.

Bigadda designs MoBlog for Big B

Following the huge success of Amitabh Bachchan’s blog site which has fast become the most popular celebrity blog among users today, Bigadda has introduced MoBlog exclusively for the Big B. Considering that he blogs once or twice everyday, with MoBlog he can now keep his fans updated on his activity by the minute. He can micro-blog on his blog site – http://bigb.bigadda.com from anywhere and at any time. Big B’s fans, who leave thousands of comments on his blog site everyday, will now be updated even when their star is on the move while also helping Mr. Bachchan to keep his promise – “if you write to me… I will reply!” Using MoBlog, Big B puts across his thoughts in the form of micro posts, with a maximum character limit of 160 characters. Not only does this feature help him save on time, it also enables him to stay connected with his fan

Privacy Policies Only as Good as the People Enforcing Them

Techdirt is reporting that while we all know privacy policies may not matter much in the grand scheme of things, a recent study shows that it may be even worse than originally surmised. It seems that the real issue is with who has access to personal data and what they are able to do with it. "of course, it's not just the people reading the policies that don't seem to understand them -- it's those in charge of living up to and enforcing the policies. A new study surveyed a bunch of executives, including both marketing execs and those in charge of enforcing the privacy policy, and quickly discovered that marketers have a very different concept of 'privacy' than privacy officers. Not surprisingly, they don't see anything wrong with sharing all sorts of data that seems to horrify privacy officers.

Google Adds Privacy Policy Link

After a month of pressure from privacy groups, search engine Google has finally agreed to add a link on its homepage to the company's privacy policy. Google had resisted the addition of a privacy link, saying it did not want to clutter its homepage. "We're making a homepage change by adding a link to our privacy overview and policies," Marissa Mayer, vice president of Search Products & User Experience, said in a July 3 Google Blog post. "Google values our users' privacy first and foremost. Trust is the basis of everything we do, so we want you to be familiar and comfortable with the integrity and care we give your personal data."

Responding to Critics, Google Adds Privacy Link to Home Page

On June 3rd a group of privacy advocates, including California-based Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, the World Privacy Forum, Consumer Action, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Consumer Federation of California, and ACLU of Northern California - among others - sent a detailed letter to Google CEO CEO Eric Schmidt, charging that the lack of a privacy link on Google's home page was not just "alarming," but violated the California Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003.

Man to Auction His Life on Ebay

Alrighty then. Perth resident Ian Usher has decided to auction off his life after a 12-year relationship with his wife ended. The lucky winner will get his house, car, motorbike, clothes, a chance at his job, and even his friends. Good luck, mate!

IBM Introduces Optim Data Privacy Solutions

IBM announced open client and partner testing of the new IBM Optim Data Privacy Solution for use with SAP solutions, which provides enterprise data management and data privacy capabilities in support of SAP applications. The IBM Optim Data Privacy Solution offers data masking techniques to protect privacy in development, testing and training environments. IBM Optim Data Privacy Solutions are also available for use with Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft Enterprise, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, Siebel, and Amdocs CRM.

Man charged with having his pants undone in car

A 41-year-old man told police he was "just relaxing in the park" when they found him sitting in his car with his pants undone. Police patrolling the community park say they saw the man sitting in the driver's seat of his car with his pants open and a sock over his genitals.

Fedora considering a new privacy policy

For a while now, we've been butting up against the Red Hat Privacy Policy (which we've been using to cover Fedora). To try to address some of these concerns, I sat down and made a new privacy policy for Fedora to use that is independent of Red Hat's Privacy Policy. I made a draft, then sent it over to Red Hat Legal for review. They made some minor changes and sent it back to me. Here it is for you folks to look over: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/TomCallaway/PrivacyPolicyD... Keep in mind that while this is more open than the Red Hat Privacy Policy, I think it is more in keeping with the spirit of Fedora. (Also, it is directly derived from Red Hat's privacy policy, so its not as if I completely rewrote it from scratch). Barring any major failures, I plan to present this for approval at next week's board meeting.

"Too Many Minds": How Digital Camera Makers Create Consumer Confusion

There's a scene in The Last Samurai where Tom Cruise's character is learning the art of Japanese sword-fighting, and after getting soundly smacked around by his opponent for several minutes, one of the samurai says to him "Too many minds". The idea is that he's focusing on his opponent, his own stance, his sword, and the people watching - and that many "minds" is making him a less effective warrior. When I look at the digital camera industry and the proliferation of same-brand point and shoot cameras, it's hard not to see the similarities. Rapid release cycles - usually unwarranted in terms of actual improvement in features - coupled with out-of-control model proliferation and confusing model names leads to a "too many minds" scenario - and it's usually the consumer the ends up losing out.

Hans Reiser May Reveal Location of his Wife's Body

Alameda County District Attorney Thomas Orloff suggested that Hans Reiser might tell police where the body of his estranged wife is. He faces a 25 year to live prison term, and this is one of the few options he has to negotiate a reduced sentence. Last month a jury found Reiser guilty of killing his wife, who disappeared in September 2006. Reiser maintained that his wife went back to her native Russia after being accused of embezzling money from his company. According to the rumors Reiser's cooperation in locating the body may reduce his conviction from first-degree murder to second degree.

Search took 1.15 seconds.