Sprint Nextel have filed a federal lawsuit against a Florida-base private investigation firm that allegedly used unlawful practices to obtain confidential cell phone records of subscribers.

From a recent article in the St. Petersburg Times —

Sprint Nextel has filed a federal lawsuit against a private investigation firm in St. Petersburg, claiming it stole confidential cell phone subscriber information by posing as customers and employees.

The civil suit, filed Friday in Tampa, alleges that San Marco and Associates Private Investigation Inc. illegally obtained customer cell phone numbers and other information, then sold it to third parties. The cell phone provider wants a judge to order the firm to stop.

Jennifer Walsh, a spokeswoman for Sprint Nextel, said it was unclear how long the St. Petersburg firm had been allegedly stealing customer information.

“That’s part of the purpose of the suit,” Walsh said. “What’s behind the suit is the extreme concern we have about privacy and maintaining our customer privacy.”

San Marco and Associates advertised its services to other business through faxes and fliers handed out at trade shows and distributed on the Internet, according to the federal complaint. The firm charged $75 for providing the cell phone records, the court documents said.

Virginia-based Sprint Nextel provides training to customer service representatives to prevent information thefts like the ones San Marco is accused of. Sprint Nextel employees generally follow a verification process before giving information to a caller.

But the lawsuit says that on several occasions, the private investigation firm managed to get around the verification process. San Marco and Associates sometimes posed as employees of Sprint Nextel or customers to get information, the complaint said. Walsh would not elaborate on how the firm was able to get around Sprint Nextel’s verification process.

For more information, you can read the entire article @ Sprint Nextel sues private investigator.

Top Tech News has done an in depth article covering the availability of personal information online. The article seems somewhat alarmist in some places, but, nevertheless, has some good information in it.

From the article

Forget shredding your mail or worrying about who might have a copy of a recent credit card transaction. You have much bigger problems if you want to keep your personal information private.

In fact, personal information is now so readily available that a total stranger with nothing more than an online connection and a credit card could discover everything there is to know about you. He or she could compile a complete dossier on you, your family members, friends, work associates, or business rivals without any special investigative training.

Fears about identity theft are not limited to spyware or to records stolen from corporate databases. As it turns out, the neighbor next door can be just as big a concern.

“Definitely, using the Internet to spy on average citizens is our next big social problem,” said Avivah Litan, security analyst for identity-theft issues at the research firm Gartner.

You can read the entire article @ For Sale: Your Life on the Internet.

In an attempt to make the privacy notices of banks and other financial institutions easier to read, Federal regulators are attempting to overhaul the requirements that govern these notices. All this according to an article in Computer World.

From the article –

Federal regulators today released a prototype privacy notice designed to make it easier for consumers to read about, understand and compare the privacy practices of banks and other financial institutions.

The simplified notice is part of a 365-page interagency report (download PDF) summarizing the first phase of a research effort launched in September 2004 to develop alternatives to today’s lengthy, dense and complex notices.

You can read the entire article @ Feds push for improved privacy notices.

CBS News is reporting that LA County has sent out a warning to 94,000 residents about possible identity theft after documents containing their confidential information were publicly exposed in January.

From the article –

The documents were left next to a recycling bin in a parking garage outside a Department of Public Social Services office in Exposition Park. The documents contained names, addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers and medical information of people who received services from the office in the last two to three years, said department spokeswoman Shirley Christensen.

There have been no reports of identity theft from any of the 2.2 million people who use the department’s service, Christensen said.

In a report to the county Board of Supervisors, department director Bryce Yokomizo wrote that extra precautionary measures have been taken, including mandatory shredding of all documents going to the recycling bin. Officials met with their shredding company, SafeShred, to develop a “pre-scheduled weekly reporting requirement” to make sure compliance with the shredding policy, City News Service reports.

The entire article appears on the CBS News site @ L.A. Warns 94,000 Of Possible ID Theft.

Identity theft can occur anywhere people have access to your personal information. The Chicago Sun Times is reporting that a salesman for Lexus of Orlando has been charged with identity theft of one of the dealerships customers and more charges may follow.

You can read the entire article @ Lexus salesman accused of identity theft.

A University of Connecticut poll of 800 US adults showed the following results regarding web search monitoring:

- 60% oppose search engines storing the search behaviors of their users

- 65% oppose the US Government monitoring search behavior of citizens

- 50% oppose companies turning over search records to the government

- Only 5% of people polled were confident that their searches would remain private

The entire survey results are available @ University of Connecticut Poll on Government Investigation of Internet Search Engines.

Wired News is reporting on a smart street artist in the United Kingdom who is using technology to grab feeds from private surveillance cameras in local buildings and rebroadcasting these camera feeds to a public audience, in order to draw attention to how easy it is to compromise this new technology.

From the article –

Michelle Teran is the pied piper of wireless networks. Leading a band of followers through the city streets, the Canadian artist drags along a screen embedded in a suitcase that is showing supposedly secret images captured from cameras inside surrounding buildings.

Call it war-driving for video. Although many people assume new surveillance technology that lets cameras transmit footage wirelessly to TVs and computers is private, Teran is on a mission to show them otherwise.

Equipment that underpins in-store closed-circuit TV cameras, personal internet surveillance, even baby crib monitors and TV signal extenders, sends signals along the 2.4-GHz wave band, an unlicensed portion of radio spectrum that is firmly in the public domain. If the cameras are set up incorrectly, passersby with the proper equipment can easily grab images from them when they wander within range.

You can read the entire article by Robert Andrews @ The Art of Privacy Invasion.

David Canton with the London Free Press argues that, in the age of Google; specialized people search sites; blogs and social networks like Facebook and MySpace, internet privacy is all but nonexistent.

From the article –

In addition to Googling a person, sites have been created for the purpose of profiling individuals and businesses. Try putting your own name or the name of someone you know in zoominfo.com and see what comes up.

At the same time, more people are using sites such as Flickr.com to post personal photos and del.icio.us to post personal web links.

The explosion of digital photography has resulted in a rapidly increasing number of photographs online. People typically expect pictures to be viewed by friends and family, but they are often available for anyone to see.

Social networking sites such as Facebook.com and MySpace.com or one’s own blog or comments left on other blogs leave trails of personal information.

You can read the entire article @ Internet privacy doesn’t exist.

Students who take the Law School Admissions Test ( LSAT ) may be giving up their privacy according to a warning put out by the University of Ottawa. LSAT rules require test takers to provide a fingerprint before taking the test to thwart attempts by imposters to gain access.

Privacy advocates and students are worried about how this information could be used in light of the Patriot Act and US Federal Government requests for various types of personal information, including search engine records.

From the article —

Last week, B.C. Information and Privacy Commissioner David Loukidelis agreed to investigate the company’s request for information after a student complained about the requirement.

“We’ll be looking at, ‘Is it appropriate to force someone who wants to take that test to give up that personal identifier in the nature of a thumbprint?’” said Loukidelis.

The Law School Admission Council said the U.S. government has never requested information on a student, but they’re investigating how they would be required to handle the situation if it arose.

“We’re seeking legal opinion now about exactly what circumstances would have to be in place before that could happen,” said Jim Vaseleck, a lawyer with the law council.

You can read the entire article @ Fingerprinting threatens LSAT writers’ privacy, university warns.

The Financial Times is reporting that CityWatcher.com, an Ohio-based public surveillance company, is experimenting with silicon chips implanted in two of its employees for identification and room access purposes.

From the article –

CityWatcher.com, a private video surveillance company, said it was testing the technology as a way of controlling access to a room where it holds security video footage for government agencies and the police.

Embedding slivers of silicon in workers is likely to add to the controversy over RFID technology, widely seen as one of the next big growth industries.

RFID chips – inexpensive radio transmitters that give off a unique identifying signal – have been implanted in pets or attached to goods so they can be tracked in transit.

“There are very serious privacy and civil liberty issues of having people permanently numbered,” said Liz McIntyre, who campaigns against the use of identification technology.

You can read the entire article @ US group implants electronic tags in workers.