Henk Nowlin Website

Providing additional protection to individuals’ personal data and privacy, the GDPR will apply to all electronic communications service providers, including telecoms operators, as well as over-the-top applications, and will supplement the recently implemented GDPR. The ePR will significantly affect how mobile operators are able to use data and the ability of Europe’s mobile networks to engage in the data-driven innovation in the future.

As the European Council continues to debate the proposed ePR, we all are entering a crucial phase of this development, which could have a long-lasting impact on the provision of digital services across Europe.
 

Mobile operators are the backbone of the European digital economy and their networks have enabled the rise of connectivity across the region.

According to the GSMA Mobile Economy 2018 report, Europe has achieved a subscriber penetration rate of 82%, and a mobile internet penetration rate of 70%. As mobile technologies, including 5G and the internet of things  move on, mobile operators are more focused on responsibly harnessing the power of big-data to stay at the forefront of Europe’s digital evolution.

Mobile operators recognise the importance of the privacy and confidentiality of communications, and for years have adhered to stringent regulations to protect the interests of the public. The ePR’s continued focus on confidentiality is welcomed, but some aspects run the risk of having a negative effect on consumers and innovation, if practical considerations on how data can be used are not more closely considered.

The ePR will regulate the use of a major source of data for mobile operators – electronic communications metadata. This allows mobile networks to connect people to each other and to services, and includes the date, time, duration and type of communication (whether it is a call or SMS, but not the content of the communication); the source and destination of a communication; and the location of a device.

Metadata can be used in privacy-protective ways to develop innovative services that deliver new societal benefits, such as public transport improvements and traffic congestion management. In many cases, pseudonymisation can be applied to metadata to protect the privacy rights of individuals, while also delivering societal benefits.

Pseudonymisation of data means replacing any identifying characteristics of data with a pseudonym, or, in other words, a value which does not allow the data subject to be directly identified.

The processing of pseudonymised metadata can enable a wide range of smart city applications. For example, during a snow storm, city governments can work with mobile networks to notify connected car owners to remove their cars from a snowplough path. Using pseudonyms, the mobile network can notify owners to move their cars from a street identified by the city, without the city ever knowing the car owners’ identities.

In this way, significant gains can be realised in resource management without necessitating prior consent from each potentially concerned individual, which would be required under the proposed ePR.

Source:  ComputerWeekly. com/Beyond-GDPR

Henk N.

Police have set up a database for people to check if their e-mail address has been hacked using information gathered by cybercrime investigators.

The database may contain 60,000 e-mail addresses which have turned up in in the hands of hackers and botnets during police investigations. People who think their email might have been stolen simply send their email address to the police who will notify them of the case and offer help if it has been taken over.

The police stressed that the database is far from complete and recommends people who are worried to check other sites such as haveibeenpwnd.com too.

 (Seen on Dutch News .nl)

H.N.

Mobile payments are becoming more common in Holland. Almost one in six smartphones runs a payments application, equal to around 2 million phone users, doubling the number from a year ago, according to the December edition of Telecompapers Dutch Apps Market report. The study also found that WhatsApp remains the most popular app in the country, installed on around 12 million smartphones.

Not only do more people have mobile payment apps on their phones, but also the apps are being used more often. On average, mobile payment apps are used 10 days on each month, up from eight at the start of 2015. However, more people install the  apps only to never use them; around 15 percent of those with payment apps installed said the apps are never or rarely used.

The findings also showed that more people are using health-related apps. These went from 16 percent of smartphone users in February 2015 to 22 percent in the latest survey. Women are more likely to download health apps, at 24 percent versus 20 percent of men with health apps on their smartphones.

The most popular app, WhatsApp is now on 91 percent of smartphones in the Netherlands and is still growing its presence. It added around 2 million installed users in the past year, growing to almost 11 million smartphones from 8.7 million in October 2014. Seniors (65+ year-olds) are also adopting the messaging app more, with 80 percent saying WhatsApp is on their phone.

Almost 4 million house holds in the Netherlands own tablets, thats equal to two-thirds of all households according to Telecompapers report. Dutch tablet owners use their gadgets most often for browsing the internet and gaming; those with an iPad are the most active users, while Acer tablet owners use their tablet less than the market average. The most important factor when choosing a tablet is the brand.

It was found out that the average age of tablet users is 42. Apple is more popular among the younger age groups, resulting in a lower average age from the brand than Acer, Asus or Samsung. Asus has the highest share of 50-80 year olds in its tablet customer base. This may explain in part why iPad owners use their tablet for all activities more often than the market average and the opposite is true for Acer owners.

The most common activities on the tablet are browsing the web and gaming.

Men tend to use their tablet more often than women for news-related activities, like following the news or reading newspapers. Households with children are the most intensive tablet users; (educational) gaming and watching and streaming videos are the most popular activities among children.

The paper indicates that the brand image and the price of the tablet are the most mentioned reasons why tablet owners chose their tablet. Apple users are more brand sensitive than the market average, while Samsung tablet owners look at the brand as well as the price when acquiring a tablet. For HP and Asus tablet owners, the purchase price comes first. The figures come from a survey of 5,000 Dutch consumers aged 12-80 during the third quarter of 2015 by the Telecompaper.

A Dutch tech start-up is looking to hit it big with a doctors-only communications app which, it says, combines the benefits of Linkedin and Whatsapp in one secure instant messaging tool.

MDLinking.com aims to connect millions of healthcare professionals worldwide so they can share information in a private and secure environment, without worrying whether it is being viewed by others or even used for commercial purposes.
The idea for a secure communication platform for doctors came from Dutch vascular surgeon Hans Flu, who realised that existing tools had too many constraints and major security issues.

Privacy

Doctors should be able to use communication platforms such as LinkedIn or Whatsapp in their professional lives, but unfortunately that is not really the case, says Flu.
These communication tools are not developed for doctors and as such do not offer the specific features that doctors need. The second problem is privacy. Existing communication tools are not secure with regards to patient privacy.
According to recent research involving over 2,000 doctors and 4,000 nurses in London, almost all doctors and around half of nurses found their smartphone to be very useful or useful in helping them to perform their clinical duties.
In practice, 90% of doctors and 67% of nurses who owned medical apps were using these as part of their clinical practice, the report in the British Medical Journal said. These results provide strong evidence that healthcare organisations need to develop policies to support the safe and secure use of digital technologies in the workplace and that strategies are needed to secure further innovations in digital health, the researchers from Imperial College London concluded.

Mission

Flu has since quit the medical profession to focus purely on his idea. I have made it my mission to connect healthcare professionals across the planet, he says. Doctors learn from doctors. That is how it works. Our tool allows healthcare professionals who have never met to connect and share their knowledge in a totally secure environment.
At the end of last year it emerged that a number of medical websites in the Netherlands, including some run by some hospitals and doctors, were passing on information about visitors online behaviour to commercial companies.
This scandal shows the importance of privacy issues in healthcare information, says Flu. Hospitals, medical societies and doctors should never get mixed up with deals which could compromise patient details for profit. The main goal should be providing evidence-based quality of care, and not damaging the confidence of the patients in the healthcare system.
The MDLinking app is free for all healthcare professionals to use. The company itself, which is independent and has no exclusive ties to the pharmaceuticals or medical technology industries, is self sufficient for the time being and is looking at possible future revenue models, including paid-for special features, as well as recruitment and publishing.
At the same time, the company has already won initial backing from several wealthy private individuals in the Netherlands and abroad. Having been involved in the early days of Booking.com was fantastic, but being involved in the early days of MDLinking.com is much more rewarding, says Alec Behrens, one of the co-founders of Booking.com which grew from a tiny Dutch start-up to a global company valued at $60 billion.
I have no doubt that MDLinking will save thousands of lives.

Challenges

Flu has put together an advisory board made up of over 100 doctors across the globe and together they developed the concept. The beta version of MDLinking was rolled out last year and healthcare professionals from across Europe, Asia, Africa and the US have already starting using the tool in a test environment. I think there is a great future for a platform like MDLinking, says professor Nageshwar Reddy from the Asian Institute of Gastroenterology in Hyderabad, India, who has supported the project from the beginning. Meanwhile, the Amsterdam-based team is continuing to invest time, money and energy in developing the technology and expanding the e-learning library. We know we are on the right track, but at the same time we realise we still have a long way to go, says Flu. Doctors all over the world know they need to connect and share their knowledge. And they need to do it in a secure environment. That is exactly what we are providing them with.

Het gijzelen van computers gaat weer een stapje verder. Voor het eerst is er een virus opgedoken dat een audioboodschap laat horen. Tot vervelens toe horen de slachtoffers een computerstem die in het Engels zegt: "Attentie! Attentie! Attentie! Al uw documenten, foto's, databases en andere belangrijke bestanden zijn versleuteld.''

Beveiliger Trend Micro waarschuwt daarvoor. Slachtoffers moeten omgerekend 450 tot 900 euro losgeld betalen, in anonieme bitcoins. Pas dan laten de daders hun harde schijf los. Daarvoor moet de gedupeerde gebruiker via het anonieme TOR-netwerk naar een bepaalde site gaan. Daar kunnen de gedupeerden de taal van de site kiezen. Nederlands is één daarvan, maar op dit moment werkt alleen de Engelse versie. De daders eisen 450 tot 900 euro

De code van het gijzelingsprogramma, dat CERBER is genoemd, is makkelijk aan te passen. Dat wijst erop dat de makers het willen verkopen aan andere criminelen. Het programma is te koop op de zwarte markt in Rusland.

‘Health’ is wereldwijd een hot topic! Ook in onze regio worden slimme oplossingen ontwikkeld om de uitdagingen in de gezondheidszorg het hoofd te bieden.

In de twee vorige edities is het thema ‘Health tijdens de Dutch Technology Week’ door een aantal organisaties - waaronder Coöperatie Slimmer Leven 2020, Brainport en de Provincie Noord-Brabant - informeel op de kaart gezet. Dit heeft met name in de laatste editie een zichtbare samenhang van succesvolle events en een positief ontvangst bij publiek en in de media opgeleverd.

Daardoor is de belangstelling om dit thema wederom gezamenlijk op de agenda te zetten bij een groot aantal organisaties gegroeid. De gedachte dat de som van het geheel duidelijk meer impact heeft, dan wanneer ieder zijn/haar eigen event organiseert, wordt sterk gedragen!

Get connected!
Tijdens een aantal events staat het thema ‘health’ al op enige wijze centraal in het programma. Dit is onder meer het geval bij de Netwerkbijeenkomst van Slimmer Leven 2020 en de Smart Health-innovatiesessies van de Provincie.

The original ruling, made by the Belgian Privacy Commissioner (BPC) in December, related to Facebook cookies that track the activity of non-users.  Facebook says that it will respond to a this  ruling in Belgium by requiring users to log in to view pages on the site.The company expects to receive an order this week, which it will contest.

But in the meantime, cookies will not be set for non-users and accounts will be needed to access content.  Facebook argued that the cookie provides better security for the site's members by preventing the creation of fake accounts, reducing the risk of accounts being hijacked, protecting users' content against theft and deterring denial-of-service attacks.

In a letter on Tuesday, the company told the BPC it would comply "fully" with the order as soon as it was received. As well as blocking access to pages for non-users, datr cookies will no longer be set for non-users and existing cookies for such individuals will be deleted where possible. Facebook also says it will implement cookies for users who are logged in to protect against certain attacks on its network.