Court to rule on privacy of trash debate started in Calgary

The court ruled the investigation of his trash bags did not breach his privacy, with Justice Keith Ritter saying: "Anyone living in a major metropolitan area knows once garbage is left for pickup, it may be subject to disturbance by bottle collectors and others looking for discarded treasures, as well as birds, dogs and vermin."

"If we say that police are allowed to go through your garbage without telling you, or without a warrant, then by extension, a criminal would have the right to go through your trash, where they could find enough information to steal your identity," says Jenuth.

Parents, police monitoring kids' cell phones

One evening last winter, Mike Harris was watching his local TV news when he saw a segment that caught his attention: Parents were using software to monitor their kids' cell phones.

Harris, an investigator for the Child Sex Internet Investigations Unit in Jefferson County, Colorado, thought the service could be a new tool for combating sexual predators.

Equipping his phone with the software, Harris posed as an underage child on social-networking sites and began luring pedophiles. He immediately got results. Since then, Harris has made 83 arrests of alleged sexual predators -- 44 of them with the help of the monitoring program.

"It makes life easy for me as an investigator. It saves me hours of time, which obviously means I have more time to go out and catch offenders," he said. The software also documents text messages and other data that can be used in court, he said.

Software That Guards Virtual Playgrounds

VIRTUAL worlds for children and teenagers — Web sites like Neopets, Club Penguin and Habbo — are a big business. On these sites, children create an avatar and, with it, explore an imaginary universe. They can play games, chat and decorate virtual rooms or other spaces...

As the number of these virtual worlds grows, so, too, does the demand for sophisticated monitoring software and people, called moderators, who can act as virtual playground monitors. Tamara Littleton, chief executive of eModeration, a company based in London that provides moderation services, says the most common dangers that children and teenagers face online are bullying and young people’s own efforts to share personal information that could enable strangers to identify and contact them in the real world.

Children tracked by sat nav to stop bad behaviour

Children will be tracked by satellite on public transport and encouraged to spy on their friends and report bad behaviour, under a pilot scheme by the Welsh Assembly.

The project is being trialled across the six North Wales counties to tackle anti-social behaviour on school buses.

Pupils will use a picture swipe card to clock on and off the bus allowing parents to keep a closer check on their child via a website.

It will help deal with a number of issues including truancy, drivers reporting and identifying ill-behaved children and monitoring a child's whereabouts in the event of them going missing or a bus breakdown.

Craigslist suspect had items from victims

Police say a Boston University medical student accused of robbing women who advertised erotic services on Craigslist, killing one of them, had items belonging to both victims in his apartment....

Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster, in a statement posted on his blog Tuesday, urged website users to take "the same common-sense precautions online as they would offline," such as choosing a public place or bringing a friend along when meeting people encountered online.