Tag Archive for: rights

Know your consumer rights in run-up to Christmas

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Retail can be head-spinningly strange. Black Friday (which didn’t even exist in Ireland a decade ago) has now become virtually indistinguishable from Cyber Monday (which didn’t even exist anywhere 15 years ago). Some Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales start on a Saturday while other Black Friday events – that is what we are told we should call such things – go on for a full week before and a full week after the Friday billed as black. Some retailers have been celebrating Black Friday for a whole month.

We have an English inventor by the name of Michael Aldrich to thank for online shopping or at least for starting the ball rolling. He developed the earliest ecommerce platform in 1979 using a system that allowed people to communicate with retailers through their televisions with a thing called Videotex. It took five years before the first transaction was completed by a 72-year-old grandmother called Jane Snowball from Gateshead who used her television remote control to order margarine, cornflakes and eggs from her local Tesco. After she placed her order with the Videotex people, it was phoned in to the shop after which her breakfast of champions was delivered to her home.

It was a pretty humble start and viewed as a social service which might be used by older people or people without the means to get to shops. No one could possibly have imagined that, in fewer than 40 years, global ecommerce would be worth more than $4 trillion each year, a number which is growing fast,

Minitel model

The French Minitel system leapt on the idea with alacrity. It used a Videotex terminal machine accessed through telephone lines and through the 1980s and early 1990s connected millions of users to a computing network but its success was short-lived and was seen off by Tim Berner’s Lee’s far more accessible world wide web, invented as the 1990s dawned.

By 1994 the ecommerce snowball was rolling down the hill in…

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Amnesty says NSO’s Pegasus used to hack phones of Palestinian rights workers

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An aerial view shows the logo of Israeli cyber firm NSO Group at one of its branches in the Arava Desert, southern Israel July 22, 2021. Picture taken with a drone. REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo

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JERUSALEM, Nov 8 (Reuters) – The mobile phones of six Palestinian rights workers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank were hacked using Israeli technology firm NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware, Amnesty International and internet security watchdog Citizen Lab said on Monday.

The new findings followed NSO’s blacklisting last week by the U.S. Commerce Department amid allegations its spyware targeted journalists, rights activists and government officials in several countries.

NSO, which voiced dismay at the U.S. move, exports its products under licences from Israel’s Defence Ministry and says it only sells to law enforcement and intelligence agencies and that it takes steps to curb abuse.

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London-based Amnesty and Toronto’s Citizen Lab said they had independently confirmed that Pegasus had been used to hack the Palestinian activists’ phones, after Front Line Defenders, an international rights group, began collecting data in October about the suspected hacking.

The Israeli Defence Ministry did not immediately comment on the new findings.

Asked about the allegations, NSO said: “As we stated in the past, NSO Group does not operate the products itself … and we are not privy to the details of individuals monitored.”

Three of the six people work for Palestinian rights groups that Israel designated as terrorist organisations last month, saying they had funnelled donor aid to militants. The groups named by Israel have denied the allegations.

Stopping short of blaming Israel for the alleged hacking, some of the groups whose workers were said to have been targeted demanded an international investigation.

“We don’t have evidence. We can’t accuse a certain party since we don’t have yet enough information about who carried out that action,” Sahar Francis, director of Addameer Organization, said at a news conference in Ramallah.

“The United Nations is responsible for human rights and for protecting…

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Human rights lawyers ask Australia’s ‘hacking’ Bill be redrafted

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Human Rights Law Centre and the Law Council of Australia have asked that the federal government redraft the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill 2020, calling its contents “particularly egregious” and “so broad”.

The Bill, if passed, would hand the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) three new computer warrants for dealing with online crime.

“Sweeping state surveillance capacity stands in stark contrast to the core values that liberal democracies like Australia hold dear,” Human Rights Law Centre senior lawyer Kieran Pender declared to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) on Wednesday.

“In the past two decades, the surveillance capabilities of Australian law enforcement and intelligence have rapidly expanded, every increase in state surveillance imposes a democratic cost.”

According to Pender, each time further surveillance powers are contemplated, three questions should be asked: Are the proposed powers strictly necessary, carefully contained, and fully justified.

“We believe that the Bill in its present shape does not satisfy those criteria,” he said.

“While many of the expansions made to surveillance powers in this country in recent years have been troubling, this Bill stands out as particularly egregious because its scope encompasses any and every Australian.”

The first of the warrants is a data disruption one, which according to the Bill’s explanatory memorandum, is intended to be used to prevent “continuation of criminal activity by participants, and be the safest and most expedient option where those participants are in unknown locations or acting under anonymous or false identities”.

The second is a network activity warrant that would allow the AFP and ACIC to collect intelligence from devices that are used, or likely to be used, by those subject to the warrant.

The last warrant is an account takeover warrant that would allow the agencies to take control of an account for the purposes of locking a person out of the account.

“The powers offered by the Bill are extraordinarily intrusive, the explanatory…

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Knowing Your Privacy Rights Before Signing Up for the Coronavirus Vaccine – NBC10 Philadelphia

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Signing up for the COVID-19 Vaccine may mean sharing some of your personal information.

But who is seeing that info once you submit it?

According to the Internet Security Alliance, there is a way to know if a company plans to share your data. You can typically find that information right there on the registration form.

“That form could conceivably be providing consent for the provider to take your information and use it,” said Larry Clinton, the President of the Internet Security Alliance.

According to Clinton, whether you want your information shared is entirely up to you.

“Both federal law as well as Pennsylvania law say the consumer has the right to know what info is being shared and what is being taken and has the right to refuse to allow their information to be shared,” he said. 

He also said sharing data could be a positive thing. Especially in the age of the Coronavirus.

“One of the issues we have with COVID is tracking,” he said. “If I’ve been in close contact with you and I find out I have the virus, let’s say it’s a public interest to be able to find you so that you’re safe.”

If it’s sold, your personal data may also wind up in the hands of marketing companies that could send you targeted ads. Or worse.

“On the downside, there are multiple issues with regard to health information,” Clinton said. “As I say, it’s very, very valuable on the black market. It can be used, sold on the black market so other people can get access to your insurance.”

Clinton urges consumers to read through all of the paperwork they’re presented with when getting the vaccine.

Deciding whether or not to share your data is a personal decision. If you decide to opt out, you have a few options:

Tell the company you don’t want to share your data, and see if they’ll let you advance without sharing it.

Report the company since federal law says you have the right to opt out.

Or, accept the terms and take the chance of having your data sold.

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