Even the Drug Companies are Monitoring Your Social Media

Switched drugs because they were too expensive or you didn’t like the side effects and told a friend or family member about it, or your doctor, on some kind of social media medium? Well, the big pharmaceutical companies are listening. They want to monitor perceptions about a product, shape ad campaigns, and gauge community receptivity. They are also using real-time healthcare databases using “de-identified” (meaning your name is not included) records to analyze diagnoses and switches in using drugs.

Police Need a Warrant to Search Your Cellphone Supreme Court Rules

The Supreme Court recently ruled that police must almost always obtain a warrant before searching mobile devices seized when arresting someone, extending constitutional privacy protections to the increasingly vast amounts of data Americans keep on smartphones, cellphones, and other hand-held digital technology. The ruling rejected law-enforcement arguments that cellphones fell under a long-standing exception to the warrant requirement that allows police to search the contents of suspects' pockets to make sure they don't carry weapons or destroy evidence. Privacy advocates are hailing the ruling as a bold signal that the court will protect constitutional privacy interests from the vast powers of modern technology.

Supreme Court to Hear Facebook Free-Speech Case

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case regarding the free-speech rights of a man who was accused of posting threatening messages on Facebook. The man's lawyers argue that a law banning speech that would be deemed threatening by a reasonable person shouldn't apply to Facebook messages, which are intended for people who know the speaker personally, and thus, might be less likely to take off-color comments seriously. The case revolves around a man sentenced to nearly four years in federal prison for posting violent online rants against his estranged wife, law enforcement officials, and former co-workers. Experts predict that there are going to be more of these kinds of cases as people feel that they can get away with more incendiary speech on the Internet, in tweets and in texts.

Facebook Rolls Out Slingshot

Facebook, in response to the Snapchat app craze that allows users to send self-destructing photos to friends, has rolled out Slingshot, it’s own service to do the same thing. The new app aims to create a sense of community by encouraging users to send a photo or video to a group of friends. Its unique twist is that the recipients are required to share a visual moment of their own before they can see what was sent to them. As with Snapchat, savvy recipients can use their phones’ screenshot features to save the file, which opens up the possibility of cyberbullying, because images that are supposed to self-destruct don’t necessarily do that.

Your Personality Type – What Big Companies See When They Look At Your Internet Use

Ok, so many people understand that companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter look at the queries, observations, and updates we write on their services, then they try to figure out what ads might have the most persuasive effect on us. So now, there is a tool called Five that analyzes your Facebook postings (and even those of your friends) to help you understand what those big companies see in you (and them). Seems a bit like the personality quizzes you take in a magazine, but then again the data they have comes from your public persona. This is something to think about.

Cybersecurity Lowest in Health Sector

The health care sector's adoption of cutting-edge digital and wireless technology has been mired by a stark increase in the number of cyberattacks directed against hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and doctors, according to a new report from BitSight Technologies, which says the industry is struggling to address the challenge. Analysts say when compared with other commercial sectors, health care ranks lowest in cybersecurity preparedness.

Europe Gets a Google Eraser

Google has launched a service to allow Europeans to ask for personal data to be removed from online search results. The move comes after a landmark European Union court ruling earlier this month, which gave people the "right to be forgotten". Links to "irrelevant" and outdated data should be erased on request, it said. Google said it would assess each request and balance "privacy rights of the individual with the public's right to know and distribute information". "When evaluating your request, we will look at whether the results include outdated information about you, as well as whether there's a public interest in the information," Google says on the form which applicants must fill in. Google said it would look at information about "financial scams, professional malpractice, criminal convictions, or public conduct of government officials" while deciding on the request. Earlier this month, the BBC learned that more than half of the requests sent to Google from UK individuals involved convicted criminals.

Ever Think About Digitally Burning Your Text Messages?

If there have been times you have wished you could truly keep your text messages private, you might be interested in a new app called Confide – a super-private texting app that destroys your messages so you're always off the record.

Messages are encrypted end-to-end and can't be forwarded or read by anybody but the intended recipient (not even Confide's staff). Your words are hidden upon receipt and only reveal a couple at a time when the recipient swipes over them. That means your texts are screenshot-proof, and if someone even attempts a screenshot, you're notified immediately. Once your message is read, it permanently self-destructs. Of course, if the message is coming from a cyberbully it makes it harder to prove what they are doing, but it also means that if you are receiving messages from someone who might be tempted to send a less than nice message, you (or your kids) might just not look at them. This is just something else to know about.

What Do Data Brokers Know About You?

The Federal Trade Commission recently published a report revealing how data brokers use billions of individual data points to produce detailed portraits of virtually every American consumer. Data brokers’ portraits feature traditional demographics such as age, race, and income, as well as political leanings, religious affiliations, Social Security numbers, gun-ownership records, favored movie genres, and gambling preferences (casino or state lottery?). Interest in health issues — such as diabetes, HIV infection, and depression — can be tracked, as well. With thousands of fields of data, brokers also put people into dozens of categories such as “Bible Lifestyle,” “Affluent Baby Boomer,” or “Biker/Hell’s Angels.” “The extent of consumer profiling today means that data brokers often know as much — or even more — about us than our family and friends,” FTC Chairman Edith Ramirez said in a statement. “It’s time to bring transparency and accountability to bear on this industry on behalf of consumers, many of whom are unaware that data brokers even exist.”

Amendment Would Bolster Student Privacy Protection

Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, recently said they hope to amend the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Right Act to better protect student data. FERPA requires parental permission to share sensitive student data, but a loophole in the law allows schools to outsource functions, such as data processing, without consent from parents. "The draft legislation would ensure that students are better protected when data is shared with and held by third parties, and parents are able to control the sensitive information of their children," stated a news release from Markey's office.