Privacy and Data Protection – Page 28

October 19, 2016

The Italian Supreme Court: name and surname only aren’t subjected to the Data Protection Act

The Corte di cassazione (Italian Supreme Court) decision n. 20615/16 narrows the definition of “personal data” under the Italian data-protection act that enforces the data-protection directive.

The merit of the decision is a legal action against a municipality accused of having published on its website the name and surname of an individual who sued the municipality.

While, the Court said, when mandatory by law the releasing of personal data is always allowed (and this was the case, since there is a law the bind a municipality to disclose its decisions, including those related to legal actions), the simple publication of a name and surname is not enough to make and individual actually identifiable.

Verbatim, the Court says:

the identification of the individuals… would have been possible only by way of further investigations, including third-parties database, with a disproportionate effort in terms of energy and money that is not justified by the interest to identify people involved in a trivial car accident.

This decision set forth a very important point because points out the fact that the “identifiability” notion of the directive is a relative one.

In other words, and enforcing the legal principle to the telco world, an IP number in itself is not necessary a personal data, unless “the identification of the individuals… would have been possible only by way of further investigations, including third-parties database, with a disproportionate effort in terms of energy and money that is not justified by the interest to identify people”.

Needless to sat, the Italian Data Protection Authority has always challenged this interpretation, trying to affirm an “absolute” notion of personal data, thus creating bureaucratic burdens end financial costs for the compliance.

July 12, 2016

Privacy Shield Officially Adopted

Here is the European Commission’s press release summarizing the content of the agreement, and here the fact-sheet.

Showtime!!

July 10, 2016July 10, 2016

What “Big Brother” and “Orwellian” actually mean

A lot of people – politicians, “gurus” and “activists” use the word “Big Brother” and “Orwellian” without having read even the cover of a George Orwell’s book.

They rather want to have a look at this TED-ed short lesson, to discover what they’re actually talking about.

February 17, 2016

Is The IPhone Criminals’ Weapon of Choice?

According to NBC, Apple has been ordered by a federal judge to support the FBI in decrypting the Iphone used by the people accused of having slaughtered 14 people in San Bernardino, California, last December, 2, 2015. The court order has been necessary since Apple refused to voluntarily provide such support.

These are the bare facts, that have been turned into a horse of different colours by? bad-faith anti and pro encryption activist. The former sang the usual song “Strong Encryption Smooths Criminals”(FBI Records), while the latter waged the old flag “Weak Encryption Affects Civil Rights”.

The federal court neither asked for a backdoor nor for the enforcement? of a weaker Iphone security, but just said Apple to support the after-crime investigation. This court order doesn’t hampers people’s legal right to strong encryption, because the justice said something like “you have the right to own a strong safe, but the State has the right to try to open it whatever the mean in case of a criminal investigation”. In this context, then, the fact that Apple has been ordered to provide support to the FBI is not constitutionally illegal.

I still support strong encryption for the masses (and for companies too), but I don’t think that making a case out of this court order might help the civil right cause. It only works as as a (maybe unintended) advertising stunt for Apple that can portray itself as a “privacy shield”.

January 18, 2016

Blogging vs Social Networking: different tools for different goals

Blog and Social Networks are very different tools of expression (and, for what it worth, online marketing.)

A blog gives you absolute freedom and exposes your thoughts to potentially a huge quantity of people. People, on the other end, can enjoy the things you do without necessarily disclose their identity, unless they actually want to do.

A Social Network page/profile, instead, implies that the majority of your audience is made by those you already know or, at least, you are acquainted with. Yes, I either know about the existence of “public” pages or the possibility of “following” somebody else, but this doesn’t change the point.

To blog is more like living into the wild, where you can meet other peers, predators or none at all (and in this case ask yourself why are you still blogging if nobody cares.) While “living” in a social network is fairly safer but actually less challenging because of its “Walled Garden” design.

While is obviously possible to use a blog to stay in touch with people and a social network to publish contents aimed at a (personally) unknown audience, it would be more efficient to use the proper tool designed for the specific task.

Unless you are left without options, why should you use a hammer to cut a wire and a screwdriver to hammer in a nail?