1 7 August 2004

News:

The India governement announced on 21 July that it will amend existing legislation to address data protection concerns about it’s $3.6billion Business Process Outsourcing industry.

The private sector is unaware of the impact of the Freedom of Information Act upon commercial confidentiality in public sector contracts according to FOI lawyers.

The US House of Representatives is currently considering the possibility of introducing a bill to deal with the privacy aspects of RFID. Last week, a House subcommittee held a hearing to get the facts about RFID, learn about its potential applications and examine the public policy issues generated by its use and widespread deployment.

Features:

The data protection community in the UK got very excited last month. This excitement had to do with a letter that the European Commission has written to the Department of Constitutional Affairs. The letter is allegedly a formal notice from the Commission requesting further information on the implementation and interpretation of the EU data protection directive in the UK, in order to assess whether the Data Protection Act is compatible with the aims and requirements of the directive. Not a light matter.

Email marketing is a powerful tool for businesses and organisations of all types. The massive growth in spam has led to much tighter regulation. This article explains how to market while complying with the regulations.

The launch of Google’s Gmail service raised a number of privacy concerns. This article looks in detail at these privacy issues and considers whether the steps taken by Google to address them are adequate.

This article looks in detail at the implementation of data protection legislation in the ten new EU states. Part I reviews the implementation of the Article 4 of the Directive (governing law). In September's issue, divergent approaches to implementing Articles 25 and 26 (international transfers) and differences in core definitions will be reviewed.

This article contains the first part of a memorandum from the Information Commissioner’s Office which was part of its submission to the Parliamentary Home Affairs Committee enquiry into Identity Cards.