Delta Airlines Mobile App Is Violating Privacy, State Of California Alleges

 

 California sued Delta Airlines Inc. on Thursday, alleging the Atlanta-based company is breaking state law by not warning users that the airline is collecting sensitive information each time customers contact the company on its "Fly Delta" mobile application.

Attorney General Kamala Harris filed the suit in San Francisco Superior Court in the first legal test of the state's 8-year-old Online Privacy Protection Act.

California is the only state with such a law, which requires companies to prominently notify users of their mobile apps about what personally identifiable information is being collected and how it will be used.

Harris says the company missed a 30-day window to comply with the privacy law on its "Fly Delta" app, which is designed for use on smartphones and other mobile devices. Customers can log on to check in for a flight, review reservations, book flights and pay for checked baggage.

The lawsuit alleges the site lacks privacy warnings even though it collects the customer's full name, telephone number, email and mailing address, along with more sensitive information like birth dates and credit card numbers.

Delta spokesman Anthony Black said company policy prohibits him from commenting on pending litigation.

Harris, a Democrat, is seeking an injunction barring Delta from distributing the application until it posts a privacy policy. She is asking for a penalty of up to $2,500 for each violation, though the lawsuit leaves it up to a judge to determine what constitutes a violation.

"California law is clear that mobile apps collecting personal information need privacy policies, and that the users of those apps deserve to know what is being done with their personal information," Harris said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.

Harris previously reached an agreement with seven companies to warn users about their privacy policy in a consistent, prominent way before consumers download the mobile application. The companies agreeing to comply with California's law are Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, and Research in Motion.

Credit : Huffington Post

FAA flips video guy the bird

A Delta passenger who filmed a bird strike at JFK says he’s being targeted by the embarrassed feds just because he shot the footage with his iPad during takeoff.
“It’s absolutely ridiculous,” said Grant Cardone, an LA-based business consultant whose video of birds being sucked into an engine of LA-bound Delta Flight 1063 on April 19 has become a TV and Internet sensation. The plane turned back and landed safely.
Among those who saw his video were FAA inspectors, who slapped him with an official letter complaining he took the video illegally because portable electronic devices must be turned off during “critical” phases of a flight, such as takeoffs, and can’t be used during an in-flight emergency.

“Your failure to comply with flight attendant instructions during a critical phase of flight and an aircraft emergency could have affected the safe outcome of the flight,” the letter says.
Cardone doesn’t buy that.
“If there is even a minute chance that an iPad could take a plane down then it is the FAA’s obligation to ban the devices from flights or require the airlines to confiscate them when you check in,” he said.
The FAA said Cardone, 54, won’t be fined — but the letter “will be made a matter of record for a period of two years.”
“A record with whom?” asked Cardone, a frequent flier who is worried that he’s on some no-fly list. He said the letter “has a lot of Big Brother in it.

Credit - NY Post