Week Four-Post #2

Computer Privacy

After reading the CRS Report for Congress entitled; The Privacy Act: Emerging Issues and Related Legislation, I thought I would continue week fours theme of privacy, and post my comments on this article. The Code of Fair Information Practice established to punish unfair information practice with civil and criminal penalties, to provide injunctive relief to prevent violations of safeguard requirements and to empower individuals to bring suits for unfair information practices.

The Privacy Act of 1974 clearly makes an attempt to legislate several aspects of personal privacy. In addition, the Crime Control Act of 1973 states “an individual who believes that criminal history information concerning him contained in an automated system is inaccurate, incomplete, or maintained in violation of this [law]… to review such information and to obtain a copy of it for the purpose of challenge or correction.”

The article went on to discuss that Federal agencies obtained personal information about visitors to their websites through the use of computer software known as “cookies” In response, OMB issued a memorandum indicating that cookies should not be used at Federal websites. However, in October 2000, press disclosures revealed that 13 federal agencies had ignored the OMB memorandum prohibiting the tracking of visitors to government websites.

After reading this information I began to question who has the power to enforce these agencies to conform to the OMB memorandum and why there isn’t a punishment in place when federal agencies violate this request. The article went on to indicate that “session cookies” were alright for agencies to collect, however, “persistent cookies” which may track web habits for long periods of time were not authorized to be collected.

By reading this I am able to determine that “session cookies” are okay to be collected, however, “persistent cookies” are not okay? How does a lay person know the difference when they visit a federal agencies website????

While compiling the data for my resent group project I became aware that agencies provide a privacy statement on their website. How many individuals actually review that privacy statement before browsing a site at will? And if they do read the privacy statement, are they able to determine the ever-so-slight difference between a “session cookie” and a “persistent cookie”?