New-ish Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff has declared Privacy Awareness Week, starting today. Her predecessor took a remarkably hands-off stance on new technology. So to help Shroff keep focussed, I asked Consumer Watch columnist Geoff Palmer to stalk her online. Geoff was able to find out a lot more about the PC's private life and finances than she might think was readily available online. Read his results in September PC World, on newsstands today.

I do have to say the PC has Privacy Week off to a good start.

She's announced a new draft guideline for data breaches - the first step toward new legislation that would require banks, government agencies and other large organisations to tell you when your personal privacy has been breached. Remarkably, when an organisation loses your personal data (as Inland Revenue did earlier this year when it misplaced dozens of laptops), or your details get lifted by hackers (as happened to US jobs site Monster.com last week), there's currently no legal requirement for them to tip you off, on any level. Let alone help you prepare for the clear and present danger of identity theft.

Read our stablemate Comptuterworld's scoop on the new disclosure guidelines here.

For more on Privacy Week, see the Commissioner's website here.