Privacy Protection

October has been a busy month here as our team of privacy and security experts hit the road for tradeshows in Texas and New Jersey.

MAACM Annual Conference

Our first stop was the 29th Annual Conference of the Mid-Atlantic Association for Court Management (MAACM), held in Atlantic City. There we spoke to security leaders for courts in several states, and as a result, many more judges will soon have the peace of mind of knowing that their home addresses and other private information will no longer be easily accessible online.

Back in May, I wrote about how Google added an option for users to opt-out of their private information being shown in search results. Recently, the company added a new feature to bolster this policy that allows users to request excluding search results featuring their phone numbers and other sensitive personal information, potentially adding an extra layer of protection.

It has been two years since Daniel Anderl, the son of federal Judge Esther Salas, was killed in a 2020 attack at her New Jersey home. The Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act was a bill introduced into Congress the following year that would allow current and former federal judges to ask public-facing websites to remove personal information about themselves or immediate family members.

A recent research survey by NordVPN found that more than half of Americans (55%) would delete themselves from the internet if they could.

This is understandable, considering all of the ransomware attacks and corporate hacks we’ve read about over the past decade. And for judges and police officers, having their personal information accessible online represents an additional danger to themselves and their families.

The ride-hailing service Uber suffered a major data breach not long ago. The company reported that the hacker did not gain access to sensitive user data.

What Qualifies as Sensitive Data?

Usually that refers to credit card information, bank account numbers or social security numbers, all of which can be used to profit by identity theft.

The California Judges Association was established in 1929 and is the professional association representing the interests of the judiciary of the State of California. Members include judges of the Superior Courts and Courts of Appeal, Commissioners of State courts and State Bar Court judges. Recently the CJA held its annual convention in San Diego, and the IronWall360 team from 360Civic was honored to be among the attendees.

If you ever wondered why it is so easy to find your home address and other private information online, look no further than what recently happened in a courtroom in Maine.

The state recently passed one of the country’s strictest internet privacy laws, but they had to do so over the swift and severe objections of many of the country's biggest telecommunications providers.

According to Maine’s Attorney General, these companies hired "an army of industry lawyers organized against us."

Attacks against journalists are thankfully rare in the US – but the recent murder of a Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter is a reminder of the dangers of that profession.

Like judges and police officers, journalists often stir up anger and resentment with what they do. That was the case in Las Vegas, where reporter Jeff German wrote a series of articles critical of a public administrator alleging corruption in his office. That administrator is now charged with stabbing German outside the reporter’s home. 

One of the fastest growing markets in online security is biometrics, a system in which you unlock devices like your cell phone using a fingerprint, voice recognition, or facial and iris (eye) recognition. It's billed as being safer since, unlike a password that can be stolen, your unique physical features are yours alone and cannot be hacked or duplicated.

The story of Elon Musk purchasing Twitter has evolved into a Musk vs. Twitter conflict that will be resolved in court. But there is an aspect to this story that has not been addressed, despite being the most critical to millions of Twitter users around the world.