Privacy rights 'fragile' in 2007
04/01/08 09:56
| Business | PermalinkIn an article on the BBC, global attitudes towards privacy were reported, following a study by the Privacy International and the Electronic Privacy Information Center. (Report available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/technology/7165778.stm)
In this report, they cited 47 countries, and only one, Greece, was ranked as 'adequate'. There were nine countries that were found to have 'endemic' and 'systematic' failures to defend citizen's private lives. They were - England, Wales, Malaysia, China, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and the USA.
This is an international breakdown of privacy, and therefore of trust. Just look at the data losses in the UK.
One big question is - are there more fraudsters now than before, or are they just able to undertake more fraud. Percentage-wise, I am sure that there are fewer, but that is purely thanks to the increase in the world population. Another BBC report cites the rise is fraudsters attacking the social networking sites - FaceBook, Bebo, etc. Is this going to be the end of Web 2.0? Doom-moners may lead to believe this, but wasn't this said of e-commerce?
Biometrics are, probably the only reliable way to stem the flow of money to these fraudsters - except that even this is not working well. If you have received the new biometric passports, you have foun dthat you are kept longer at the immigration que - the system takes longer to process the information. But the 'Trust-Buster' is that the information on the passport can, apparently, be read through the envelope when the passport is sent to you, or when you send it off for visas. This will, of course, open you up to possible fraud. Thanks HM Government - again. And you think we trust you?