Privacy in the Digital Society

Next Tuesday sees Europes most influential data privacy conference - A fine Balance in the digital society is at Westminster.

Todays world is powered by complex digital systems that create privacy challenges alongside great opportunities.

• It is estimated that humankind created 150 exabytes (billion gigabytes) of data in 2005. In 2010 we will create 1,200 exabytes. Despite an abundance of tools to capture, process and share this information, data is continuing to multiply at such a rate we need new ways to manage who can see, access and use it.
• There is no current regulatory model for a digital society. We need new rules based on what we already know about privacy, technology and data.
• We need to educate, consult and communicate with the people whose information is on the frontline.

A Fine Balance 2010 features high-profile speakers including from the Information Commissioner's Office, the legal profession, technology companies and civil liberties experts who will debate the latest thinking on how to maintain the integrity of data in a digital world.

Delegates will have the opportunity to ask questions, vote and contribute to a report being developed to influence politicians and decision makers.

If you are transacting over the web this will bring you up to speed with the new legislation around privacy, the law has got tighter.
http://www.pdsfinebalance.com/

Twitter-in a Twist- lost followers

Twitter has an embarrassing bug on its hands – one that allows users to make anyone follow them. Mashable reader Ozan Yılmaz emailed mashable this morning, writing “[tweet] accept [username]” then the [username] immediately starts following you.”

Initially I noticed that my main Twitter account was following lots of new people that I had not manually followed. That means that if peopel chose to exploit this bug, their tweets could show up in anyone’s timeline — at least until the issue gets resolved. Well it appears the powers to be from twitter have resolved it with a mallet... I now have no followers, no one I am following and my lists have disappeared.

Other reports confirm that this exploit is currently being used by many users. No word yet from Twitter on when this might be fixed and if they’ll be able to do undo the damage, but I’ll update here when I know more.

Twitter is experiencing the same problem OpenID will have, or any "federated" approach where a true factor is not involved in authenticating requests such as this. The balance is, most solutions are too "expensive" (meaning hit to processing, user experience - not just cost) for such lightweight, high-scale things based on the social network site usability or cost model.

Twitter needs to find a strong simple to embed authentication technology that - gives the best of both: strength and validation with SAAS utility ease and integration, cost; but without the thin "browser-only or service-only" rigor that can enable such "over the transom" requests.

Not surprisingly 3 the top 10 trending Twitter topics at the moment have to do with the bug and the zeroing of followers.

Read what the press is saying:

http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/web_services/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=224701415

Protecting Vaccination Records Online

Why is it everyone else has the good ideas! Like today this new portal we are working with for vaccination records, this is a GREAT IDEA in action not only is this well constructed site a place for all the advice a traveller needs about vaccinations but you can save your vaccination details on the site free.

Vaccination records are important and increasingly required for global travel. If like me over the years you have lost the red child record book for your children, or the pieces of paper in purse detailing the date of tetanus or hep b shots have become illegible or lost. MyVaccs provides a free web-based solution to store vaccination records for you and your family. MyVaccs complements rather than replaces the records systems used by your medical professional and allows you to access your records instantly for reference or in medical emergencies.

www.myvaccs.com

My Vaccs is talking to us about our authentication they want to protect the identities of people using their free online storage portal. I am looking forward to working with more companies who are beginning to understand they have a responsibility for looking after visitors identity on their sites.