Patients fear safety risk from electronic notes

Health campaigners fear that the switch from paper to electronic patient records will put patient confidentiality at risk, researchers said today.

EU committee backs telecoms data storage rule

A European Union committee agreed that details of all EU-wide phone calls and Internet use should be stored, but the steps did not go as far as some member states had wanted in the battle against terrorism and crime.

UN on electronic communications in contracting

25 November 2005 – Updating international trade law to take account of new technologies, the United Nations General Assembly has adopted a new convention on using electronic communications in international contracting, superseding law negotiated before the development of e-mail and the Internet.

A Qualified 'Non' to Snooping of P2P IP Addresses

On October 24, the French data protection authority, the Commission Nationale de I'Informatique et Libertes (CNIL), dealt a blow to music industry enforcement efforts against peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing by announcing that it would not permit the automated monitoring of users of P2P file sharing systems. The CNIL concluded such monitoring could lead to "a massive collection of personal data" and allow "exhaustive and continuous surveillance" of P2P sites "beyond that which was necessary for the fight against piracy". The CNIL's stance runs counter to its own ruling in April authorizing similar P2P site surveillance by the Syndicat des Editeurs de Logiciels de Loisirs (SELL), a trade association representing French video game producers, whose members include video game industry heavyweights such as Sega, Sony, and Atari. Defending its apparent volte-face, the CNIL noted that SELL had pledged to send messages to suspected P2P site users itself, rather than asking ISPs to act as third party intermediaries, and had agreed to take an anonymous approach in communicating with suspected violators. In French, we believe that's what is called "une distinction sans différence." In any event, if French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres is to be believed, forthcoming consideration in the French Parliament of the implementation of the EU Copyright Directive might allow the music industry anti-piracy initiative to move forward. Consideration of the EU Copyright Directive by the French Parliament is scheduled to begin in December.

British teen cleared in 'e-mail bomb' case

A British teenager has been cleared of launching a denial-of-service attack against his former employer, in a ruling that delivers another blow to the U.K's Computer Misuse Act.

Study: IM threats zooming up

The number of threats targeting instant messaging has soared, according to IMlogic, which tracked a 1,500 percent increase in the past year.