PUBLIC MARKS with search regulation

Research in Motion, which makes Blackberry phones, issued a statement in which it promised to work with the authorities. It pointed out that, like other telecoms companies, it complies with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) which allows law enforcement to gain access to private messages when they relate to the commission of a crime.

Computer scientists have recently undermined our faith in the privacy-protecting power of anonymization, the name for techniques for protecting the privacy of individuals in large databases by deleting information like names and social security numbers. These scientists have demonstrated they can often “reidentify” or “deanonymize” individuals hidden in anonymized data with astonishing ease. By understanding this research, we will realize we have made a mistake, labored beneath a fundamental misunderstanding, which has assured us much less privacy than we have assumed. This mistake pervades nearly every information privacy law, regulation, and debate, yet regulators and legal scholars have paid it scant attention. We must respond to the surprising failure of anonymization, and this Article provides the tools to do so.

Environment Minister Erik Solheim has proposed a new state regulation that forbids shopping centers larger than 3,000 square meters (nearly 100,000 square feet) from being built along highways in suburban areas.

An “interim report” of the “study group on the legal system for communications and broadcasting,” in which [it was noted] that regulation of the Internet is led by the government, and that [as such] there is a danger that freedom of expression on the net could be taken away, drew an exceptionally large number of public comments (Note 1). Most of these were against the regulation.