The Privacy, Identity & Consent Blog

Last year's data loss incidents have sparked a fascinating discussion that compares personally identifiable information with radioactive waste - and who is supposed to pay to clear it up.

Privacy protection pioneers Garlik have been recognised for their innovation at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

BAA is trialling the biometric identification systems that will be used throughout the new Terminal 5, but is this an appropriate solution, and what exactly is the problem?

A Canadian company has launched an identification service that embodies some of the most important principles of identity crime prevention.

An online service claims to be able to secure compensation for individuals who claim they were affected by the HMRC data loss incident.

Whilst we're discussing compensation for data loss, a US citizen is suing Best Buy for $54m for the loss of her laptop.

Privacy is often defined as “the right to be left alone” (OED). The key issue here is the ‘right’ - not the ‘alone’. Very few of us choose to be left entirely alone, we surround ourselves with people, phones, computers, tvs, radios etc. But we want to know we could be left alone in a given context: I’m happy to be called by family & friends at weekends, but have no interest in receiving calls from double glazing firms.

I only have one identity. That’s me. I know who I am. You can’t steal it from me. But I use many personae, and the UK, like many ‘western’ nations, is built upon pseudonymity. For example, I have about a dozen pieces of plastic in my wallet. There is no direct link between the Toby that holds a Visa card and the T Stevens that holds an Amex. When I apply for a new financial product, the provider has to rely on the likes of Experian and Equifax to derive confidence about whether those are the same individual.

It would seem that the plague of personal data loss incidents has spread to Irish shores as the Irish Blood Transfusion Service admits to losing a laptop with 170,000 patient records on it.