Police

According to the Police Executive Research Forum, from 2019 to 2021 resignations for officers are up 43%, and retirements are up 24%. As a result, police departments across the country are dealing with crippling personnel shortages. There are several reasons for this, but the challenge now is for these departments to find a way to swell their ranks so they can continue to provide a level of protection and service commensurate with the needs of their communities.

Recently, the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Police Department revealed that police personnel files were stolen in a ransomware attack and posted on the dark web. This is not the first such attack against BART personnel; in 2011, hackers released more than 100 officers’ email addresses, passwords and personal data.

That’s going to result in some bad press for a fine organization, but the fact is that no public entity is immune to such attacks. From the largest global entities to the smallest municipal library, hackers can strike anywhere.

360Civic today advocated for individuals to play a greater role in their own online privacy. Opting out of data collection as a critical first step in preventing unnecessary information gathering.

Having one’s home address, phone number and other personal data shared and sold can result in a multitude of problems, and is especially hazardous for such public servants as judges, social workers and police officers.

Over the last two years police officers have been retiring early or just flat quitting in droves. The numbers are staggering:

By now you’ve certainly heard about the attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, at their home in San Francisco. Unfortunately such incidents are no longer rare as the divisive nature of our national politics continues to intensify.

In just this current election season, a knife-wielding man attacked Lee Zeldin, a candidate for New York governor; a man tried to assault Senate candidate Don Bolduc at a campaign event, and a gunshot was fired at the family home of North Carolina Congressional candidate Pat Harrigan.

California has been at the forefront of online privacy protection since the state passed a truncated version of the GDPR privacy regulations established by the European Union. These regulations give Californians the right to know what personal information is being collected about them, whether that content is sold or disclosed (and to whom), and the ability to refuse to have that information shared.

From the moment TikTok began its ascent into a social media craze, questions were raised about the security of the data it receives from users, and how that data is being used in TikTok’s country of origin, China. At one time that resulted in government threats to ban the app.

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.

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.