Good news for German jobseekers who like to brag about their drinking exploits on Facebook: A new law will stop bosses from checking out potential hires on social networking sites. They will, however, still be allowed to google applicants.

Lying about qualifications. Alcohol and drug use. Racist comments. These are just some of the reasons why potential bosses reject job applicants after looking at their Facebook profiles.

According to a 2009 survey commissioned by the website CareerBuilder, some 45% of employers use social networking sites to research job candidates. And some 35% of those employers had rejected candidates based on what they found there, such as inappropriate photos, insulting comments about previous employers or boasts about their drug use.

The government has now drafted a new law which will prevent employers from looking at a job applicant's pages on social networking sites during the hiring process. The draft law is set to be approved by the German cabinet on Wednesday, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Although the new law will reportedly prevent potential bosses from checking out a candidate's Facebook page, it will allow them to look at sites that are expressly intended to help people sell themselves to future employers, such as the business-oriented social networking site LinkedIn. Information about the candidate that is generally available on the Internet is also fair game. In other words, employers are allowed to google potential hires. Companies may not be allowed to use information if it is too old or if the candidate has no control over it, however.

The draft legislation also covers the issue of companies spying on employees. According to Die Welt, the law will expressly forbid firms from video surveillance of workers in personal locations such as bathrooms, changing rooms and break rooms. Video cameras will only be permitted in certain places where they are justified, such as entrance areas, and staff will have to be made aware of their presence.

Similarly, companies will only be able to monitor employees' telephone calls and e-mails under certain conditions, and firms will be obliged to inform their staff about such eavesdropping.

Airport security checkpoints aren't the only places where backscatter x-ray vision is being deployed. The same technology, capable of seeing through clothes and walls, has also been rolling out on U.S. streets.

American Science & Engineering has sold U.S. and foreign government agencies more than 500 backscatter x-ray scanners mounted in vans that can be driven past neighboring vehicles to see their contents, Joe Reiss, a vice president of marketing at the company told me in an interview. While the biggest buyer of AS&E's machines over the last seven years has been the Department of Defense operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, Reiss says law enforcement agencies have also deployed the vans to search for vehicle-based bombs in the U.S.

This product is now the largest selling cargo and vehicle inspection system ever, says Reiss.

The Z Backscatter Vans, or ZBVs, as the company calls them, bounce a narrow stream of x-rays off and through nearby objects, and read which ones come back. Absorbed rays indicate dense material such as steel. Scattered rays indicate less-dense objects that can include explosives, drugs, or human bodies. That capability makes them powerful tools for security, law enforcement, and border control.

AS&E's Reiss counters privacy critics by pointing out that the ZBV scans don't capture nearly as much detail of human bodies as their airport counterparts. The company's marketing materials say that its primary purpose is to image vehicles and their contents, and that the system cannot be used to identify an individual, or the race, sex or age of the person.

But EPIC's Marc Rotenberg says that the scans, like those in the airport, potentially violate the fourth amendment. Without a warrant, the government doesn't have a right to peer beneath your clothes without probable cause, he says. Even airport scans are typically used only as a secondary security measure, he points out. If the scans can only be used in exceptional cases in airports, the idea that they can be used routinely on city streets is a very hard argument to make.

A software company is developing revolutionary software which provides the ability to identify people from photographs posted on the internet.

Face.com has produced technology that can identify individuals on social networking sites and online galleries by comparing their image against a known picture of them.

It means detailed profiles of individuals can be built up purely from online photographs and critics have said it could lead to exploitation by employers.

The software works be creating an algorithim of the face - a measurement of the arrangement of features including the eyes, nose and mouth.

The company says it is 90 per cent accurate when scanning typical images which appear on social networking sites.

Face.com has previously limited the availability of the software over concerns about invasion of privacy. But it has now released the Photo Finder software to developers building applications allowing people to search for anyone on the internet.

Gil Hirsch, chief executive of Face.com, told The Sunday Times: We have launched a service that allows developers to take our facial recognition technology and apply it immediately to their own applications. The technology is already being used by 5,000 developers. You can basically search for people in any photo. You could search for family members on Flickr, in newspapers, or in videos on YouTube - but it would take a lot of processing power.

Facebook Places, which will launch in the US only at first, will allow users to check in at a location

Facebook app Facebook Places is a location based service allowing users to share their location. The new tool is bound to spark criticism from data privacy campaigners.

The feature allows users to check in at locations which will then be shared with their friends and Facebook network but it is likely to raise concerns over safety. Users will also be able to browse shops, clubs and nearby venues to see which friends are nearby, leading to concerns it could put individual's security at risk.

What we see with Facebook is a massive learning curve. Every time they make a change, consumers scramble to figure out the privacy settings, said Rainey Reitman, spokeswoman for Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in the US. Location data is tied to people's safety – if people know where you are, they know where you're not. Your location data is some of the most sensitive data we have. I expect we'll see from the get-go people who don't understand how to control the privacy settings.

The service will launch in the US only at first. Reitman said users should be particularly judicious about who they accept as friends, and be aware that even information shared with an intimate network could be copied and pasted elsewhere. Don't post anything online you wouldn't want to get out publicly to anyone.

Yang said protections include notifying a user as soon as they are tagged at a place, and offering a complete opt-out of places tags. Users under 18 can only share location with their immediate friends network and their real-time location will only be seen by friends at the same location.

Critics will note that once a user decides to check in at a location, the primary location setting is switched on by default, which means any places tags automatically being shared with immediate friends. But the service does offer a range of protections and controls including the option to detag locations, notifications if friends add your location and the option to disable Places entirely.

Widespread smartphone take-up has allowed location services such as Foursquare and Gowalla to flourish. Facebook has been watching the development of these services, which are setting up a steady stream of promotions and prizes with venues and retailers to reward loyal customers who check in regularly.

Initially available as an update to Facebook's app for Apple iPhone, updated apps for BlackBerry, Android and other handsets are expected in the next few months. A version will also launch for the UK.

It is the moment the cameras were turned on Medway's hated spy car.

The CCTV car driver has been caught on video getting angry with a member of the public for filming him at work.

Bill Khan captured footage of the unnamed warden getting out of the vehicle to confront him, holding his clipboard up to the camera.

He is heard saying: Do not take my photograph, you haven't got my permission to take my photograph.

Khan responds: But this is public.

The operator replies: No, it's not, cause you are not allowed to take my photograph like I'm not allowed to take yours. Why are you doing this, you're harassing me.

He then says he is going to phone the police and can be seen dialling a number before Khan wanders off.

Khan, who sent his video to the Medway Messenger, said: Is this how Medway Council train their employees? Not very good ambassadors for the council, are they?

Medway Council said Khan could not have been arrested for filming the warden, but declined to comment further.

The government have proposed the use of credit rating agencies like Experian to catch people committing benefit fraud.

This is a very bad idea. Nobody approves of benefit cheats. But mining private data on a routine basis on the off-chance of catching people out is a disproportionate invasion of privacy.

There's a presumption of innocence in this country, and trawling everyone's credit data and treating us all as suspects brings that into question. Furthermore, there is or should be a bright line between the state and the private sector. Taking powers of legal investigation and enforcement which ought to sit with the state, and granting them to private organisations, blurs that line. Worse still, if profit-making companies are rewarded by the number of people they catch they will have a perverse incentive to sling accusations in any even marginally plausible case - because they'll have nothing to lose and potentially something to gain in the smearing.

Ultimately, it's probably not in the interests of the companies either. People will be far less likely to comply with their requirements in the future if it's known that one risks such intrusion in doing so. Credit agencies should think carefully about effectively becoming enforcers for the state, compromising private information they've accumulated about people.

Update: No Fishing

14th August 2010. Based on article from theregister.co.uk

The Information Commissioner has asked coalition ministers to explain their plans to use credit reference agencies to gather evidence of benefit fraud, citing privacy concerns.

Christopher Graham said he has requested a meeting with the welfare minister Lord Freud. He urged caution: I hope the Government is going to hold to the good practice of considering the data protection implications of policies at the earliest stage.

A common sense approach should be applied to information sharing. This includes letting people know how their information will be processed. Most organisations make it clear that should they need to they will share details with authorities for the prevention and detection of crime.

Graham indicated that he believes it is proportionate to share credit reference data where fraud is suspected. It is reasonable to expect that if you are committing benefit fraud your details will be shared with the appropriate authorities dealing with this, he said.

Police in South Korea have raided Google's headquarters in Seoul.

A police statement said they suspected Google has been collecting and storing data on unspecified internet users from wi-fi networks.

The firm recently admitted that its Street View cars had been collecting information over unencrypted wi-fi networks, claiming it to be a mistake. However there now seems to be a database that correlates routers to street addresses with data gathered by the Street View cars.

[We] have been investigating Google Korea on suspicion of unauthorised collection and storage of data on unspecified Internet users from wi-fi networks, the Korean National Police Agency (KNPA) said in a statement.

Korean media reported that 19 KNPA agents raided the office, seizing hard drives and related documents. Authorities said they plan to summon Google officials for investigation once analysis on the confiscated items is complete.

At noon on Friday 6th August the ContactPoint database was switched off.

A £224 million system that contained the names, ages, addresses, schools, GPs and several other private and personal details of 11 million children in the UK, disappeared at the flick of a button.

In advance of the move, Children's Minister Tim Loughton voiced a number of our stated concerns when speaking to the BBC:

We don't think that spreading very thinly a resource which contains details of all 11million children in the entire country, more than 90% of whom will never come into contact with children's services, is the best way of safeguarding children. This is a surrogate ID card scheme for children, by the back door, and we just don't think it's necessary.

The only thing worse than an unwieldy state database that opens up the personal details of millions of children, is one that is deeply flawed and dangerously unstable. Good riddance to ContactPoint.

The Obama administration is seeking to make it easier for the FBI to compel companies to turn over records of an individual's Internet activity without a court order if agents deem the information relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation.

The administration wants to add just four words -- electronic communication transactional records -- to a list of items that the law says the FBI may demand without a judge's approval. Government lawyers say this category of information includes the addresses to which an Internet user sends e-mail; the times and dates e-mail was sent and received; and possibly a user's browser history.

But what officials portray as a technical clarification designed to remedy a legal ambiguity strikes industry lawyers and privacy advocates as an expansion of the power the government wields through so-called national security letters. These missives, which can be issued by an FBI field office on its own authority, require the recipient to provide the requested information and to keep the request secret.

The use of the national security letters to obtain personal data on Americans has prompted concern. The Justice Department issued 192,500 national security letters from 2003 to 2006, according to a 2008 inspector general report, which did not indicate how many were demands for Internet records.

One visit to a specially configured website could direct attackers to a person's home, a security expert has shown.

The attack, thought up by hacker Samy Kamkar, exploits shortcomings in many routers to find out a key identification number.

It uses this number and widely available net tools to find out where a router is located.

Many people go online via a router and typically only the computer directly connected to the device can interrogate it for ID information. However, Kamkar found a way to code a webpage via a browser so the request for the ID information looks like it is coming from the PC on which that page is being viewed.

He then coupled the ID information, known as a MAC address, with a geo-location feature of the Firefox web browser. This interrogates a Google database created when its cars were carrying out surveys for its Street View service.

This database links Mac addresses of routers with GPS co-ordinates to help locate them. During the demonstration, Kamkar showed how straightforward it was to use the attack to identify someone's location to within a few metres.

This is geo-location gone terrible, said Kamkar during his presentation. Privacy is dead, people. I'm sorry.

Mikko Hypponen, senior researcher at security firm F Secure, attended the presentation and said it was very interesting research. The fact that databases like Google Streetview's Mac-to-Location database or the Skyhook database can be used in these attacks just underlines how much responsibility companies that collect such data have to safeguard it correctly.

Journalist Carmen Valino had images deleted from her camera by police and was threatened with arrest whilst photographing the scene of a shooting in Hackney, East London. The incident happened as Valino photographed the crime scene from outside a police cordon whilst on assignment from the Hackney Gazette. She had identified herself as a journalist and showed her UK Press Card to police.

A police Sergeant approached Valino telling her that she was disrupting a police investigation and to hand over her camera. After protesting to the Sergeant that she was in a public place, outside the cordon he had no right to take her camera, he grabbed her wrist and pulled out his handcuffs. Before he could put the cuffs on she handed him her camera. He then left for five minutes before coming back, bringing Valino inside the cordon and asking her to show him the images and deleting them. Valino was told that she could come back in a few hours to photograph the scene.

This incident highlights how police officers are still woefully ignorant of the law regarding photography and the agreed ACPO Media Guidelines which state:

Members of the media have a duty to take photographs and film incidents and we have no legal power or moral responsibility to prevent or restrict what they record. It is a matter for their editors to control what is published or broadcast, not the police. Once images are recorded, we have no power to delete or confiscate them without a court order, even if we think they contain damaging or useful evidence.

Jeremy Dear, NUJ General Secretary said: The abuse of the law must stop. There is a gulf between photographers legal rights and the current practices of individual police officers. The police should uphold the law, not abuse it – photographers acting in the public interest deserve better.

A court ruling has challenged the legality of the use of police surveillance against political campaigners and protesters.

Three Fitwatch supporters, who had stopped police filming a political meeting, were acquitted of charges of police obstruction after the police failed to justify why the surveillance was necessary.

The Inner London Crown Court ruled the police surveillance of an open, public political meeting in June 2008, may not have been lawful. The Judge said the police had failed to provide any evidence that they were pursuing a legitimate aim.

The meeting, called by the freedom of movement group, No Borders, took place at the Pullen community centre, South London. It had been publicly advertised and was open to anyone to attend. There was no suggestion that anything underhand was taking place.

Officers from Metropolitan police FIT (Forward Intelligence Teams), wearing full uniform, stood across the road and took film and still photographs of those attending, until three supporters of Fitwatch unfurled a banner in front of them, obstructing the filming.

During the trial, the prosecution asserted anyone regularly attending or organising protests should expect to be of the interest of the state.

Jeff Parks said I'm delighted with the result, and not surprised that no police surveillance officer was willing to give evidence and have to explain the real purpose of their operations under oath.

Watching over the Town of Poole?

A council in Dorset which spied on a family to see if they lived in the right school catchment area has lost a landmark ruling over its actions.

Jenny Paton took Poole Borough Council to a tribunal after it used the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) to spy on her family 21 times.

The Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruled it was not a proper purpose and not necessary to use surveillance powers.

It is the first time these powers have been challenged at an open hearing before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT). The IPT also found that the surveillance breached the family's right to privacy under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act.

The council had argued that the covert surveillance, which took place between 10 February and 3 March 2008, was lawful under Ripa.

Paton only found out she had been under surveillance when it was revealed during a meeting with council officials to discuss their school application. They were tailed round the clock, spied on at home and their movements were recorded in detailed surveillance forms. Their car was also described as a target vehicle.

In a statement the council said: The council accepts fully the ruling of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal and would like to apologise to Miss Paton and her family for any distress caused as a result of its actions in this case.

Corinna Ferguson, legal officer for Liberty, said: Intrusive surveillance is vital to fighting terrorism and serious crime but weak legal protections and petty abuses of power bring it into disrepute. Former ministers claimed that the innocent had nothing to fear but the sinister treatment of Jenny and her kids proves that these powers need to be far more tightly restricted and supervised.