Four police officers are suing on the grounds of privacy so that their personal cellphone records cannot be obtained. A photo of a man killed while resisting arrest and was circulated without authorization prompted the authorities to conduct an investigation on them. The four officers sued so that police officers would stop from searching their cellphones. There is no direct admission from them that they have something to do with the distribution of the controversial photo.

The 35-year-old Carlos Boles died of a gunshot while resisting arrest. One of the four officers admitted at the police office that he used his cellphone to take a picture of the dead man. During that incident in a house at Osage Street, St. Louis, Deputy U.S. Marshal John Perry was also killed. A third victim, a city police officer, was wounded.

Attorney John Bouhasin chose not to divulge how many among the four officers were implicated. He only gave an insinuation that “some have admitted seeing and forwarding the photo”. Bouhasin also approached the court for a restraining order. The inquiry focuses on which among the four officers forwarded the pictures to others. It quickly spread through emails or short message service (SMS). The picture ultimately reached the Post-Dispatch and some TV stations. It was considered to be in bad taste so that these entities decided not to use it.

Is it time to say goodbye to privacy and share photos without restrictions – to friends and even to strangers? Yes, Color is here, the newest photo-sharing network developed by Bill Nguyen. It was launched just last week but it promises to capture a fairly good market share. Nguyen could be remembered as the entrepreneur who sold his music-streaming company Lala to Apple in 2009 for around $80 million.

Color is a social networking app for iPhone and Android devices that lets you share your pictures with anyone within 150 feet. Basically, it is a photo-sharing application much very similar to other mobile apps like Instagram or PicPiz. The plus factor for Color is its proximity-based sharing functionality. Because of this, it holds a far greater potential.

It only takes two users using the application near each other to enjoy. Automatically, Color notes it and “records” the frequency of these “friendship” events. In your contacts, the people you hang out with most appears higher up on your list. The person’s ranking goes down when you hang out with him less often. Take note that it doesn’t matter whether you know these persons you get close to most often. As long as they are within your “area of influence”, Color will treat them as friends.

At last it is victory for the “Pirates” in Massachusetts after the hard days. The Massachusetts Election Division finally said “YES” to the Massachusetts Pirate Party as a political designation. A voter in the state is now allowed to register as a “Pirate”. The United States Pirate Party that was organized in 2006 also passed through a long recognition process. It took some time for this party to be recognized.

Having been given the official nod, the party is now legally eligible to implement its platform and programs. The party is known for being vocal about what it believes to be good for the people. Some of its objectives are to “increase government transparency, promote personal privacy, reinforce the spread of knowledge through copyright reform, and abolish patents.

Personal privacy is one of the major areas of reforms that the party strives to improve. It opposes the government’s increase in surveillance and control over its citizens just by citing the 9/11 incident. The government is curtailing the privacy of people through the PATRIOT ACT, wiretapping, surveillance cameras and more. In addition, corporations intensified their spying in order to get more work out of their employees.

Secretaries at the University of Iowa doubt that their privacy was violated. A supervisor attempted to use a hidden baby monitor to determine whether secretaries talked too much. Medical privacy law prohibits such action, but supervisor Pam Snider said she had a reason for doing so. The secretaries at the urology department filed complaints with their union for violation of privacy.

It all started when, according to Snider, she received complaint from another employee about excessive chatter. She then thought of using the baby monitor as her way of finding out if the allegation was true. She hid the device in the secretaries’ work area without their knowledge. Eventually, a worker discovered the hidden device Monday morning of the following week.

News spread all over the university and top University of Iowa officials wasted no time to meet with employees. They expressed regret at the supervisor’s “attempted use of a hidden baby monitor to determine whether secretaries were talking too much”. However, they declared that “the device did not pick up any conversations to violate medical privacy laws”.

Users were alarmed and threatened as to their online security when Facebook announced its plan last January. The company has just revealed that it is setting up to let third-party developers to gain access to users’ information. It was explained that Facebook would only permit access to home addresses and phone numbers of customers. Plainly it would appear that there is no problem about “letting loose” of such data. Others would even say “Why such a big fuss about addresses and phone numbers?”

Some groups and even individuals have asked Facebook not to go on with its plan. Those who got the courage even wrote personal requests to CEO Mark Zuckerberg urging him to drop the idea. The matter seems to be so critical that it has started a massive movement to discard the plan. Users regardless of their level of exposure to the social networking site have also expressed fear. It cannot be denied that behavioral tracking is not new. Many data marketing companies have collected much money out of data that they have secretly collected. However, with Facebook’s plan to “surrender” user information, these companies do not have to “hide” their undisclosed activities. On the other side, users will be exposed and become helpless targets of unscrupulous people.

It might help to know what is in a user’s phone number and home address. Anyone with sufficient understanding on data mining technique would know that these two hold vast amount of information. Attached to them are users’ dates of birth, e-mail address, or even estimated income. An identity thief could easily succeed to obtain data that he would need for any hidden agenda. The crook could apply for a loan or credit card in the name of the innocent Facebook user.

Automated Imaging Technology or AIT is now being used in some U.S. airports. These are also called full-body scanners where passengers have to go through before boarding. This new technology is in addition to the usual pat-down where passengers have “body contact” with the airport security officer. Some contend that AIT is “better” compared with the pat-down, but a privacy rights advocate group does not believe so.

In Washington, this advocacy group approached the U.S. Court of Appeals judges. They told the body that the use of full-boy scanners in an “unreasonable search” and in violation of a passenger’s civil rights. This machine is now being used at airports as first line of defense at security checkpoints.

As a passenger passes through the full-body scanner, his naked image is shown. This is the main reason for such concern from the group. It could be safely surmised that while passengers have been spared from the physical contact, yet a more invasive one was replaced. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) says that the policy is “in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution”. In addition, it also violates “laws protecting privacy and religious freedom”.

There is an odd connection between missing children cases and tax returns. This was found by Washington Federal treasury officials. Out of the more than 1,700 cases they examined, more than 1/3 of the children had been declared on tax returns. They were declared by relatives that are suspects for their abduction. Many domestic cases of child abduction remain unsolved and children are yet to be found.

The partners Sen. Amy Klobuchar and missing children’s advocate Patty Wetterling knock at law enforcement groups. They said tax returns of suspected abductors hold data that might lead to the solution of the cases. They suggest that, law enforcement agencies should be permitted to gain access at the tax return data of these “suspects”. Granting this flexibility might help in locating missing children across the country.

Klobuchar argued that the state should give a leeway on the privacy of those tax return records. They contain data that could potentially lead to the solution of these cases. These should be made available. Klobuchar is a former Hennepin County attorney who describes that there is no sense in overprotecting tax information data. The state would protect privacy as it should also exhaust all possible means in trying to find out where the kids are.

School officials of Douglas County suspended Alejandra Sosa and two other students of Chapel Hill Middle School. The ruling said that the three violated school policies and hence were punished. Aside from suspension, harsher penalties can be meted against them. It is possible that they would be banished to a school for children with behavior problem.

It all started with a Facebook comment by Alejandra against one of her teachers. She called the teacher a pedophile online. She said the comment was meant to be a joke, but it got out of hand. Her other classmates wrote ensuing comments which aggravated the situation. There was one who called the teacher a rapist. When the “news” about the hot issue circulated in school, the children were bound to face harsh consequences.

Alejandra expressed her regrets over what she did and said that she is writing a letter of apology to her teacher. She explained that she did it because she was angry at one of her teachers. Upon reaching home one day she posted the disagreeable comment on Facebook. Her classmates who have read it responded and called the teacher different names – rapist, with bipolar disorder, and others.

Despite the problematic issue on online privacy, tech giants Microsoft and Facebook continue to push for better consumer protection. They are determined to advance their support and also to explain their stand on the never ending debate concerning privacy. With the new approaches they have introduced, web privacy hopefully would be enhanced.

Microsoft’s new “do-not-track tool” software concept for Web browsing was just endorsed. In essence, this would permit users to avoid those unwanted online behavior monitoring and tracking. Targeted advertisements would no longer be a problem – or at least minimized. As contained in the technical paper that was presented, this tool would be integrated in its Internet Explorer browser.

Facebook’s draft of its new privacy policy has just also been made known. Users have been expecting this move from the company for quite some time. This would contain its new strategy in handling information and advertisements. One of the new features is the use of headings such as “your information and how it is used” and “how advertising works”.

Behavioral tracking is used to gather vital information from internet users. Companies that do target advertising could use these gathered data for their marketing. This has been proven to increase the effectiveness of their campaigns. Gone were those days when marketing firms would conduct surveys of readers’ preferences and applications. Modern technology has given rise to online tracking. Marketing firms collect data associated with users’ online “movements”.

At first this data collection from users seemed harmless. As more and more internet marketing companies made use of such technique, privacy issues started to appear. It became more and more difficult to maintain privacy in the web. A user’s online behavior can easily be tracked, making him or her “target” for internet advertising companies. Then there came the first claims of unlawful intrusiveness by internet data. Users started to question the legitimacy of such behavior, and considered it as violation of individual privacy.

Data gathered from online behavior tracking contain so much valuable information with marketing potentials. Imagine these to be containing not only the user’s data but also those of his or her friends, linkages, locations, and influences. These can then be used to determine not only what the individual user wants but also those of his or her friends. Taken together, there are numerous possibilities of using these data.