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EPIC Alert 10.07 [2003] EPICAlert 7

EPIC ALERT

Justice Department Issues Quarterly FOIA Report
The Department of Justice Office of Information and Privacy has issueda useful report on recent Freedom of Information Act decisions,
including Dept. of Justice v. City of Chicago, the recent Supreme Courtcase concerning access to gun purchase records under the FOIA.

"New FOIA Decisions, January-March 2003":

http://www.usdoj.gov/oip/foiapost/2003foiapost13.htm

Medical Privacy Rule Compliance Deadline Nears
By Monday, April 14, the health care industry must be in compliancewith the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
Privacy Rule. The Privacy Rule provides the first baseline federalprotection for privacy of medical information communicated electron-
ically, by paper, or orally. Patients will now have the right toreceive notice of privacy policies, request restrictions on disclosure,
amend their records, receive an accounting of disclosures, and file acomplaint with the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).
However, contrary to the Administration's claims, the Privacy Ruledoes allow marketing use of health information without patient consent.
This was accomplished by exempting advertisements for health-relatedproducts or services and "alternative" therapies from the regulation'sdefinition of "marketing."

HHS HIPAA Page:

http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa/

Senate Considers FISA "Lone Wolf" Amendment
This week the Senate is due to consider a bill, S.113, that would relaxa requirement for authorizing warrants under the Foreign IntelligenceSurveillance Act. The legislation would allow the government toconduct surveillance on a person, even if officials lacked evidenceconnecting the individual to a specific terrorist group or foreignpower that supported terrorism, as is now required. The bill wasamended on March 11 to exclude United States persons, and it contains asunset clause in line with the USA PATRIOT Act. The "lone wolf"
amendment to the FISA is supposedly aimed at addressing the allegedproblem in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, where FBI lawyers failed toapply the correct standard to obtain a FISA warrant because they wereconfused about the law.

S.113, A bill to exclude United States persons from the definition of "foreign power" under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 relating to international terrorism:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:s.00113:

U.S. Big Brother Award Winners Announced at CFP 2003
At the 13th Annual Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy onApril 3, Privacy International announced the winners of the 5th AnnualU.S. "Big Brother" awards to the government and private sector organi-
zations that have done the most to invade personal privacy in theUnited States. "Brandeis" awards were also given to individuals whohave made an outstanding contribution to the protection of privacy.

A list of winners is available online at:

http://www.privacyinternational.org/bigbrother/us2003/

EPIC Bill Track: Tracking Privacy, Speech, and Cyber-Liberties Billsin the 108th Congress, is available at:

http://www.epic.org/privacy/bill_track.html

Biometrics are on the rise. New systems of identification capturefingerprints, voiceprints, iris patterns, and even facial images.
Increasingly, air travelers, visitors to the United States, andlicensed drivers may confront these new hi-tech IDs. How do thesesystems work? Are they reliable, and how best is privacy preserved?
These issues are taken up in a new book from McGraw-Hill and a newreport from the National Research Council.

John Woodward and his colleagues provide a comprehensive introductionto biometric applications in "Biometrics: Identity Assurance in theInformation Age." Several chapters describe the major biometrictechniques, as well as methods for evaluation, testing and standard-
setting. The book notes problems and vulnerabilities with each of themajor biometric techniques. It also explores several case studies inapplications as far-ranging as a housing project in Chicago, a schoolin Stockholm, Las Vegas casinos, and the California Statewide Finger-
printing System.

Woodward also engages the major policy and legal objections to theexpanded use of biometric systems. While some may sense that he lacksthe skepticism about government abuse that has given rise to manyprivacy laws, it is hard not to recognize his efforts to assessbiometric systems from a wide range of perspectives, including theEuropean Union Data Directive as well as cultural, religious andphilosophical objections.

The National Research Council takes up the issue of privacy andbiometric identification in "Who Goes There: Authentication Throughthe Lens of Privacy?" Much of the report focuses on the privacyproblems that flow from systems that collect personally identifiableinformation. The report sensibly suggests limiting the collection anduse of data, and notes that discrete systems of identifications aremore likely to safeguard privacy than integrated identificationsystems.

In the end, one's willingness to support advanced identificationsystems, including a national ID card that Woodward and his colleaguesappear to favor, may depend on one's trust in the institutions thatoperate such systems.

- Marc Rotenberg