According to a new survey published by Kroll Ontrack, there is a serious hole in the plethora of policies relating to corporate risk. The Kroll Ontrack survey of in-house lawyers finds that less than half of organisations (48% in the UK, 43% US) have a strategy or policy in place on how to deal with…
Predictions 2008 – Foursight
From Simon Briskman, a partner in the Technology Law Group at Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP: www.ffw.com US corporations will lobby Europe to simplify privacy laws, allowing smarter Web advertising. We will also see new Web 2.0 entrants causing valuation jitters for current platform owners. Joost and other peer-to-peer solutions will spread, whilst applications such as…
CRM: Selecting and Implementing a New System
The long-term vision for Reed Smith’s CRM system is to create a single repository of client information. Rich relationship intelligence, data from other internal systems (for example financial and matter information) and external news feeds together with the provision of a single, central database for contact data (names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers etc) will…
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Not me Gov! Data Security in the 21st Century
The recent events at HMRC have thrown the issue of data security into sharp focus. This article will examine some of the key technological and social drivers, which are underpinning the increasing focus of the media and the legislators on the issue of data security. I will also examine the ICO’s current guidance on the…
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Data sharing review consultation
The review is said to be a response to the request of the Prime Minister in October that a review be conducted of the framework for the use of information in the private and public sector. It may well have had an increased urgency in the light of subsequent events. In their opening request for…
The SCO Open Source Litigation Saga – the Community Fights Back
SCO Group, Inc. (SCO) is a US corporation primarily known for the development and distribution of products based on the UNIX System V (UNIX SVRx) operating systems. By 2003 the open source operating system Linux had become a serious competitor to UNIX and, in an apparent attempt to derive revenue from Linux users and, ultimately,…
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Lying to the Computer
There are times when many of us feel that our computers are human – certainly for inanimate objects they have the ability to drive us mad. A recent case has confirmed that it is possible to lie to a machine and the person so lying can be guilty of deceit. Renault operated an affinity scheme…
Predictions 3
From Alex Dunstan-Lee, a Legal Specialist in KPMG’s Forensic Technology Services group: www.KPMG.co.uk Thinking in data: Lawyers will start to understand the power of thinking in data, not in paper. They will start to realise that word documents, e-mails etc are not pieces of paper inserted into a computer screen. They are large bodies of…
Virtually Unlicensed: The Problem with Virtualisation
‘Virtualisation’ has been growing in popularity, particularly since the end of 2006, as a form of infrastructure technology that can be used to consolidate the hardware resources of a business. But what exactly is it? Put simply, ‘virtualisation’ means either ‘partitioning’ a single physical resource (such as a server, operating system or application) to make…
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Wrap Trap
These days software supply options abound, but by far the most common choice remains an ‘off-the-shelf’ package with its take-it-or-leave-it licence. But before you accept those standard terms and conditions, have you ever stopped to wonder what the small print might actually mean? Defining terms First we need to be clear about what we mean…