Stanford CIS

Back in business

By Elaine Newton on

Whew, sorry for the lack of posts.  Besides my usual gap, I had a password snafu, but now I'm back in business without having to start anew.  Yea...

Several topics to post--

First, another blotter...  Welcome, Portland, Oregon, to the list:

http://www.co.multnomah.or.us/sheriff/
http://www.co.multnomah.or.us/sheriff/booking_log.htm


Next, I want to throw out a question that readers of this blog might be able to help answer:  Do you know where/how the term "privacy
policy" was coined originally?  It's not in the standard privacy/data protection doctrines.  And as best as I and another colleague (Mike Nelson) can tell it was coined in the '90's.

As I mentioned at my talk last week at Stanford, the term "privacy policy" is a misnomer that confuses some consumers who assume that seeing this on a webpage means their privacy/data is protected. But of course as you probably realize, the "policy" could be that consumers' personal information is distributed widely or otherwise used in a manner that they would consider an invasion of their privacy.

A phrase like "personal data policy" - or "data policy" for short - would be a more appropriate label (or "personal information policy").


Finally, there are 2 great articles (via dear old Dad, aka Mr. Clemson) in The Chronicle of Higher Education, which are not new but very interesting:
1 - "When Is a College Like a Bank?" -- I did not realize that the FTC was treating campuses like banks as far as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act is concerned.

2 - "Colleges Face Rising Costs for Computer Security" -- Includes some nice survey statistics from universities.

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