Africa

Sep 03 2020

Expanding Solutions to Address the Risks of Face Recognition Systems

Today we are publishing the first of a series of discussion papers regarding face recognition and biometrics. The ideas in this paper will be discussed in the ID4Africa live cast, Spotlight on Face Recognition. Too often, discussions about what to do about the risks of face recognition have lacked the kinds of specific protections for

Aug 05 2020

Africa’s Rising Leadership in Privacy: breaking new ground before and during the COVID-19 crisis

Numerous African countries, having passed new privacy laws during and after the time the GDPR was being negotiated, have broken new ground by advancing privacy thought in new and important ways which stretch past the boundaries of the GDPR and contextualize privacy for African contexts. The COVID-19 crisis represents a major test of some of the new data governance systems.

National IDs Around the World — Interactive map

About this Data Visualization: This interactive map displays the presence...
Report: From the Filing Cabinet to the Cloud: Updating the Privacy Act of 1974

This comprehensive report and proposed bill text is focused on the Privacy Act of 1974, an important and early Federal privacy law that applies to the government sector and some contractors. The Privacy Act was written for the 1970s information era -- an era that was characterized by the use of mainframe computers and filing cabinets. Today's digital information era looks much different than the '70s: smart phones are smarter than the old mainframes, and documents are now routinely digitized and stored and perhaps even analyzed in the cloud, among many other changes. The report focuses on why the Privacy Act needs an update that will bring it into this century, and how that could look and work. This work was written by Robert Gellman, and informed by a two-year multi-stakeholder process.
COVID-19 and HIPAA: HHS’s Troubled Approach to Waiving Privacy and Security Rules for the Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic strained the U.S. health ecosystem in numerous ways, including putting pressure on the HIPAA privacy and security rules. The Department of Health and Human Services adjusted the privacy and security rules for the pandemic through the use of statutory and administrative HIPAA waivers. While some of the adjustments are appropriate for the emergency circumstances, there are also some meaningful and potentially unwelcome privacy and security consequences. At an appropriate time, the use of HIPAA waivers as a response to health care emergencies needs a thorough review. This report sets out the facts, identifies the issues, and proposes a roadmap for change.