Last month I described the ability to track users sessions with browser data. A recent posting on IT Law in Ireland highlighted a series of blog posts elsewhere that give further insight into what is possible.

Well, I just got round to reading them properly. The posts on Freedom to Tinker by David Robinson and Harlan Yu are:

• Identifying John Doe: It might be easier than you think
• What Third Parties Know About John Doe
• The Traceability of an Anonymous Online Comment

The conclusion? It is possible to trace and identify individuals easier than you may think. We are dropping evidence like dead skin cells as we traverse the internet. Fact or fiction? Well the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are taking it seriously with a recent call for research into cyber genetics, cyber anthropology and cyber physiology in its Cyber Genome Program. DARPA hopes to develop advanced methods to fingerprint or identify the origins of a cyber attacks by examining digital artifacts, and presumably other criminal activities utilising computer technology.

Getting a bit more down to earth, web site owners need to consider what information is being gathered and why, ensure this is legal, check that consent is implied or has been explicitly given for the purposes and what monitoring and analysis is performed on the data. It could be easy for system developers to carried away with tracking and tagging. Contracts with third parties should state clearly what the expectations are about the security and privacy of information, to protect web site users (employees, customers, clients, citizens) and the business.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Association of American Advertising Agencies (4A's) have published a draft revised Standard Terms and Conditions for Interactive Advertising. Whilst this is principally aimed at the USA market, due to the international nature of the Internet, I thought it worth a mention here.

Use of the template (full title "Standard Terms and Conditions for Interactive Advertising for Media Buys One Year or Less") is voluntary and open to negotiation between media companies and advertisers. However it does discuss data usage and privacy. This is important if you have advertising on your own web site and need to write a privacy notice. Without knowing the agreement between the advertiser and media company, how can you inform your web site users what will happen to their personal information? Although this is only an example template, it probably contains most of the likely issues you will come across in other ones. The definitions of "user volunteered data", "performance data", "site data" and "use of collected data" probably need careful reading and advice from a lawyer! The education version provides some further explanation of terminology and the changes since the previous version.

The template also describes the "special situation of User-Generated Content (UGC) pages" on advert placement and positioning—there could be an interesting discussion if the actual content was neither that intended by the site owner, nor that added by the user, but instead was the result of some malicious injection.

There doesn't seem to be any reference to malware on the site or malware delivered by the advert.

Of course, including third party content is a risk that should be considered in itself.

On Wednesday I attended the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) Personal Information Online Conference 2009 at which the ICO launched their consultation on the new Personal Information Online Code of Practice.

Manchester and Salford gave us a beautiful sunny day for the event which briefed delegates on the ICO's approach to data protection and an outline of the collaborative process used to develop the draft code of practice. Iain Bourne, Head of Data Protection projects, noted that fewer than hoped public sector organisations had been involved to date, and they would like more feedback from this sector in particular during the consultation phase that ends on 5 March 2009.

My first impressions are this will be a useful document for organisations without staff dedicated to data protection or compliance, especially once the examples and SME checklist are added. The structure and content are still a little raw, but probably about right for the start of a 12-week consultation process. Areas where I am already considering providing feedback are:

• local storage of personal information (not just cookies)
• verification of protection
• suppliers, sub-contractors and staff
• monitoring and anomaly detection
• transmission of personal information
• inclusion of third party content in web sites
• using cookies to enforce an opt out
• additional reference materials.

The full text and consultation document is available as a PDF.

Feedback on the Personal Information Online Code of Practice can be provided using the ICO's consultation portal with further background available in the related press release.