Privacy

A young MIT student has invented a new system for storing data which could offer protection against unscrupulous colleagues - and even against the hi-tech tentacles of government organizations with “back doors” into corporate servers.

Starting today, Gmail will use an encrypted HTTPS connection to check or send email, regardless of what platform users employ to access the service - and will use security measures when moving mails internally, citing fears over government snooping.

Facebook’s ‘Deepface’ photo-matching software can now ‘recognize’ human faces with an accuracy just a fraction of a percentage point behind human beings - a huge leap forward in the technology, with some potentially alarming implications for privacy.

Smartphone apps and home equipment for scanning brainwaves could lead to a future in which governments or companies misuse such data as a way of decoding people’s personality traits, researchers from MIT and the Technical University of Denmark have warned.

University of Berkeley researchers have revealed a technique for identifying individual web pages visited ‘securely’ by users, with up to 89% accuracy, revealing data such as health conditions, financial details and sexual orientation.

Did you know that medical data on 20,000 people may be exposed to abuse today? As a healthcare practitioner, you may not be aware of the value of the data in your care, but criminals certainly are.

We want to make sure everyone takes note of Data Privacy Day 2014 (Twitter hashtag #DPD14). It is the perfect time to take a moment to consider the challenges and rewards of data privacy.

The Target security breach and the Snowden revelations about NSA surveillance have raised awareness of data privacy to new levels, making Data Privacy Day more relevant than ever in 2014. And yes, Data Privacy Day is a real thing, observed on January 28.

News of Amazon's plans to use aerial drones to deliver packages raises the prospect of clashing values in areas like use of air space and technology, not to mention privacy and plain old malice.