Internet Providers Want To Know More About You Than Google Does, Privacy Groups Say
by Brian Fung, Washington Post
“An [Internet service provider] has access to your full pipe and can see everything you do” online if you aren’t taking extra steps to shield your activities, said Chris Hoofnagle, a law professor at the University of California Berkeley. … Privacy and consumer groups are now calling on federal regulators to fast-track rules … governing when and how an Internet provider may gather and share personal information. Read More ›
Smart TVs An ‘Inevitable’ Path For Hackers To Attack Home PCs: Experts
by Herb Weisbaum, NBC News
“Smart TVs, like computers, host numerous software programs and apps that are susceptible to being compromised,” [One expert said]. “Both security researchers and criminals have figured out that you can jump from the smart TV or an app on that TV to the laptop or desktop or any other computer on the home network.” … While most users have security software on their computers, there is no anti-virus software specifically made for televisions. Read More ›
Stolen Uber Accounts Worth More Than Stolen Credit Cards
by Harriet Taylor, CNBC
Uber, PayPal and even Netflix accounts have become much more valuable to criminals, as evidenced by the price these stolen identifiers now fetch on the so-called “deep Web,” according to security company Trend Micro. … A quick search for tweets with the hashtag #uberaccounthacked reveals a number of complaints related to “ghost rides,” in which users claim their Uber accounts have been charged for rides they did not take. These are often in far flung locations across the globe. Read More ›
Our Privacy Is Losing Out To Internet-Connected Household Devices
by David Lazarus, Los Angeles Times
Roughly 5.5 million devices are hooked up to the Internet of Things every day. … “As with many emerging technologies, security is not effectively built into most connected devices today,” [one online security consultant] said. “The primary development priority for most manufacturers of connected devices is to build functionality first and foremost.” … [Another analyst] predicted that control of smart-device data will be the focus of aggressive industry lobbying in years ahead. “You can see this being painfully legislated,” she said. Read More ›
California Regulators Fine Uber $7.6 Million
by Bryan Goebel, KQED/California Report
California regulators slapped Uber with a $7.6 million fine Thursday, voting unanimously to affirm an administrative judge’s ruling that found the ride service company in contempt for failing to meet reporting requirements. … The detailed information that Uber failed to provide in 2014 had to do with driver safety, access for people with disabilities and how it was serving neighborhoods by zip code. Regulators have said Uber defied the reporting requirements and that the zip code information the company initially submitted was “useless.” Read More ›
PG&E Management Allegedly Ordered Papers Destroyed After Blast
by Jaxon Van Derbeken, San Francisco Chronicle
A former Pacific Gas and Electric Co. official hired after the San Bruno gas-pipeline explosion to clean up the company’s records said management ordered her to destroy documents, and that she found a telltale preblast analysis of the pipe in the garbage, according to a federal court filing. … PG&E’s alleged “pushback” against [the employee’s] recommendations … “is direct evidence of PG&E violations of record-keeping regulations, and explains how PG&E did not genuinely attempt to address its known record-keeping deficiencies,” prosecutors said. Read More ›
FTC Is Falling Short In Protecting Consumers’ Data Used By Businesses
by David Lazarus, Los Angeles Times
In California, businesses are required to report a data breach only if it’s “reasonably believed” that unencrypted data has fallen into the hands of hackers. Since 2005, according to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in San Diego, nearly 896 million consumer records have been put at risk by more than 4,700 known data breaches. The actual number of breaches, said Beth Givens, the advocacy group’s executive director, “is almost certainly much higher but never were reported.” The FTC has asked Congress for more authority to regulate privacy matters. So far, Congress has ignored the agency’s requests. Read More ›
California Regulators Are Urged To Scrutinize Health Insurance Mega-Mergers
by Chad Terhune, Los Angeles Times
There’s a lot at stake for families and employers if the deals go through and leave three health insurers in control of nearly half of the U.S. commercial insurance market. … Much of the debate centers on whether insurers should be required to limit rate increases for a time, expand their provider networks and make other pledges to improve patient care in order to win regulatory approval at the state level. … Consumer advocates say they fear that existing problems over affordability and access to care will get worse as insurers consolidate market power. Read More ›
In Reversal, Some Drivers Ditching Uber And Lyft For Cabs
by Jon Brooks, KQED
[One taxi driver] drove on the side for both Uber and Lyft for about a year, but stopped around seven or eight months ago. The main reason: the extra cost and “wear and tear” of using his own car to do business. … Customers became angry at the inflated fares they had to pay during a surge pricing period and slammed [the driver’s] car door so hard he had to have his automatic windows repaired. But hadn’t those customers agreed to accept the surge price when they ordered the ride? “[Passengers] are still mad, even though they know in advance,” he said. Read More ›
Google Is Tracking Students As It Sells More Products To Schools, Privacy Advocates Warn
by Andrea Peterson, Washington Post
In 2014, 28 student data privacy laws were signed into law across 20 states. … One of the toughest was a California law that bars school vendors from selling student data, using it to target advertisements, or building a profile about them for non-educational purposes. … The Roseville City School District in California [where one concerned parent has struggled to keep his 4th grade daughter out of Google’s data] said the school system is evaluating how the state law will impact their district and its vendors. Read More ›
PUC Needs A Clean Break With Peevey Era
by The Editorial Board, San Diego Union-Tribune
If PUC President Michael Picker wants to save his agency from a further erosion of its tattered reputation … [he] should demand that the PUC stop withholding documents from the media and stop resisting cooperation with criminal investigators. … Then the PUC president should announce he no longer supports the PUC’s November 2014 vote to assign 70 percent of the cost of the San Onofre shutdown — $3.3 billion — to the utilities’ ratepayers. The deal is an awful one for the utilities’ millions of customers. Read More ›
Few Consequences For Health Privacy Law’s Repeat Offenders
by Charles Ornstein and Annie Waldman, ProPublica
ProPublica has reported on loopholes in [the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act] and the federal government’s lax enforcement of the law. … The data analyzed for this story show the problem goes beyond isolated incidents, carrying few consequences even for those who violate the law the most. … “Often, when we take a look into those breaches, what we find is that they were not accidents,” [said an OCR director]. “What contributed to the breach of thousands, if not tens of thousands of records, was systemic noncompliance . . . over a period oftentimes of years.” Read More ›
Criminal Probe Focuses On San Onofre Response
by Jeff McDonald and Ricky Young, San Diego Union-Tribune
“The facts indicate that [Michael Peevey, former President of the California Public Utilities Commission,] conspired to obstruct justice by illegally engaging in ex parte communications, concealed ex parte communications, and inappropriately interfered with the settlement process on behalf of California Center for Sustainable Communities at UCLA,” [according to the sworn affidavit.] “Peevey executed this plan through back channel communications and exertion of pressure, in violation of CPUC ex parte rules, and in obstruction of the due administration of laws.” Read More ›