• A 24 year-old Vienna law student has exposed some nasty truths about Facebook the company would prefer were kept in the dark. Under European privacy law, individuals are entitled to any records held about them, even if the records are held by a private company. Max Schrems requested all records Facebook had on him, and received over a thousand pages worth of material, including statuses and photos he had deleted. His finds are pretty shocking. 
• In other Facebook news, a Mississippi woman is suing the company, accusing it of violating the US wiretap law by tracking her internet activity even after she logs off the site.
• The EU parliament is working to clamp down on technology sales to repressive regimes like Egypt, Iran and Libya. No word on whether the EU will ask questions about surveillance technology sales to the US, where various reports allege the NYPD, FBI and CIA are spying on Muslims simply because of their religion.
• Chris Soghoian, a privacy and security researcher and former FTC employee, has filed a complaint with the trade commission alleging that Google doesn't adequately protect users' search queries. Google says: that's just business! Interestingly, the WSJ article points out that, while employed by FTC, Soghoian was prohibited from investigating Google, allegedly because he had done so much research on the company in his own time. He was an expert and therefore couldn't use his expertise? Confusing. 
• The FBI is getting ready to integrate its new biometrics database, Next Generation Identification, with its more traditional law enforcement crime stats database, CJIS. One key element of the roll out will be the inclusion of face recognition as an alternative means of identifying people. Instead of providing a name, the database will be able to search for people using just a photo of their face.