Dear Law School and friends,

The start of a new academic year always brings new beginnings. A new academic year also means that we welcome a new batch of freshmen into our school. This necessarily means – at least for  me – an inane amount of Facebook stalking as I prowl the website for frivolous information about every new student coming in. It’s great fun, really. Okay, I’m kidding. (Or am I?)

On a more serious note though, the consequences resulting from the wide availability of private information online have begun to worsen over the years. It has cost people jobs, left them with credit card debts that they have no memory of amassing, and in its most extreme situation – can cost people their lives. If you wanted to find out about a person, all you really need is his or her name, and Google.  (Trust me, I’ve tried it.)

As such, for our issue this September, we have decided to explore the (dark) realm of privacy protection laws (or the lack thereof) and make the horrific discovery that we are not as safe as we think we are. Be it our favourite source of gossip – Facebook, or banks – institutions we entrust our most confidential information with, it seems that we private individuals have much to fear. Laws do not seem to have the capacity to deal with the potential dangers that could result from information leakage. Or can they?

We’ll leave it up to you to judge.

The list of articles are shown here:

• Can You Keep a Secret? – Clara Leow
• Facebook/Facestalking – Alessa Pang
• Boss I Spy: Office Surveillance – Too Xingji
• We’re Sorry, but We’ve Lost Your Confidential Data – Tom Chou
• Paparazzi v. Privacy – Calvin Magnus