Connecticut Governor Seeks to Protect Personal Data Online

Technical Writing Geek alerts us to a report that Connecticut governor Jodi Rell has begun to develop legislation to create an "opt-out" registry to prevent the distribution of personal information on the internet. The registry would be analogous to the "Do Not Call" list. This comes after Rell received many complaints about the availability of personal data from directory assistance sites such as WhitePages and 411.com. While Rell understands that the "sites are breaking no law by gathering and disseminating this information," the legislation will add to the work she has done to re-evaluate the disposition of private data. Where do we draw the line between free speech and privacy in the information age? From the Journal Inquirer: "'Privacy concerns are constantly evolving,' Rell said. 'We must not only keep up with them but do our best to stay ahead of the curve.' Rell said she will ask state agencies to review private information about residents that the state collects, manages, and distributes."

Publish personal details of all company board

[freedom_india]

Since "now law is broken" by companies for publishing out private information, we can plead the same by publishing the company's members information online.
Every single stockholder, boardmember, CEO, lawyer, employee contact information (including public and private numbers and addresses) should be published online 411.com by us.
Once the mighty CEOs and CFOs see their private and unlisted numbers plus email IDs online, am sure the congress and senate would go overnight to enact a law preventing that from happening.

Opt-out? Meh.

[Xenkar]

I wish just once that one of these politicians would have the balls to make it opt-in, with written consent required and none of that "hidden deep within a contract" crud. Perhaps requiring a public notary to stamp it too might be beneficial.

I know for sure that I'd sleep well if these opt-out lowlifes lost their jobs.

Re:Opt-out? Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

I really don't get it as well. It would be much easier to just copy some of the european data protection legislation, which has been proven to work (unless the politicians undermine it for their own (surveillance etc.) purpose).

where is the line

[Grampaw Willie]

the article asks

where do we draw the line between privacy and free speech?

generally, if you own the press you can print what you want,~~

with a few caveats, however, and as these are well established there is no need for discussion

1. you should not publish slander

2. you should not infringe other folk's copyrights

3. you should not involve in a conspiracy to commit crime

Is my personal information copyright protected? I see no reason why it shouldn't be and in a day and age where we have more hackers than Hollywood had stage robbers there are good reasons why we should protect everyone's personal data by law.

Gosh, we'd be happy if...

[jpellino]

...she'd stop the laptops with state taxpayer financial data from being plucked from employee cars. (They claim they need all the data resident on every laptop whose operator is working on a given datatset.) Here in CT that's the bigger issue for her and the lege, To this more recent one, I can recall people being horrified years ago that we could find their phone listing in whitepages, their address on mapquest and an aerial photo on terraserver. Of course all of this was public information, now it's just easier for the "datarazzi" to get it in bulk. We've been on the DNC list and reg'd with DMA's pref service for years, and they still get thru. National opt-in with some teeth in it would be nice.

Re:Publish personal details of all company board

[TaoPhoenix]

Call it "intended to be private".

Just because you can social engineer it out of people doesn't mean it was intended to be known.

Self defeating.....

[Anonymous Coward]

We need to prevent the distribution of personal information on the Interweb so lets create a DATABASE of all the people who don't want their personal information accessible.

Re:Opt-out? Meh.

[Nicolas MONNET]

There's private video surveillance everywhere.

Not everywhere; the UK is not everywhere. It's strongly regulated in France; well, that is, until sarkonazi decides to "reform" this, as he has already hinted. And by "reform", I of course mean "fuck shit up to favor the rich & powerful at the expense of the people."

All phone call metadata, including location information, is going to be recorded and stored for six months beginning next tuesday.

That's bad alright, but *at least* there is some legal protection against unauthorized use of such data. As in, if someone illegally accesses this information, they risk prison time. Whether this is observed at all is another issue, but at least, it is at lest theoretically illegal, unlike in the US where your bank can basically know what brand of hemorroid cream you use.

It is technically illegal to keep web server log files with IP addresses, but everybody (including government) does it and there's nothing anybody can do about it.

It is somewhat illegal, but not actively policed, which would be quite a waste of time anyway. However, anti-piracy outlets have found the hard way that not respecting privacy laws has consequences: copyright infrigement lawsuits against p2p users have been lost by them because of this.
Note that it's not that hard to be compliant, AFAIK: you just need to comply with the requirements of the law. Notify the authority that you are collecting data, notify the users of their right of access and modification, and that should be enough. I am not anal, though.