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Georgia Sex Offenders Must Hand Over Passwords

Georgian Sex Offenders Must Hand Over Passwords
From our "well intentioned, but crossing the line" file comes the tale of a law that will go into effect January 1, 2009 in Georgia that requires registered sex offenders to hand over usernames and passwords for any online service they subscribe to.

The law is aimed at ensuring that sex offenders do not use the Internet to prey upon children or in other inappropriate ways. Of course, there are privacy and security concerns. Critics say that the law violates the privacy of sex offenders who have served their time in prison, and that it will put an untenable burden on law enforcement official to track the online activities of thousands of registrants.



The law may also leave offenders more susceptible to identity theft and potentially disastrous security breaches. Rule number one of online security is never share your password with anyone. Anyone.

Even if this law isn't struck down as violation of privacy (as a similar statute in Utah was), we suspect the first registrant who has their online banking information stolen because of lax security will bring a swift end to this policy. [From: Fox News]

Tags: internet, law, online, privacy, security, sex offenders, SexOffenders, top

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