The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has announced its participation in the first global International Internet Privacy Sweep along with 18 other privacy enforcement authorities. According to the OAIC, the Global Privacy Enforcement Network initiative will require an audit of each country's most popular websites to determine the accessibility and readability of their privacy policies.

Bloomberg chief executive officer Danial Doctoroff has released a statement regarding concerns raised by subscribers to its news service that Bloomberg journalists had access to subscriber data through "Bloomberg Terminals" installed by subscribers. Mr Doctoroff stated that "[a]lthough we have long made limited customer relationship data available to our journalists, we realize this was a mistake" and that the company "took immediate action" to rectify the situation.

The United Kingdom Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has made available an undertaking (undated) which requires County Armagh based general practice The Burnett Practice (the Practice) to make changes to its handling of patient information after an ICO investigation found that the Practice had breached the Data Protection Act 1998.

The United Kingdom Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has made available a letter (undated) addressed to professionals, customers and others related to the private investigation industry, announcing its campaign to "shin[e] a light into the darkest corners of the industry".

The United States (US) Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has made available a final order (29 April 2013) settling allegations that umbilical cord blood and umbilical cord tissue banking services provider Cbr Systems Inc (Cbr) "failed to protect the security of customers' personal information and that its inadequate security practices led to a breach that exposed the [s]ocial [s]ecurity numbers and debit and credit card information of nearly 300,000 consumers". The matter relates to an incident in 2010 in which property containing consumers' personal information was stolen from the car of a Cbr employee.

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has announced that Privacy Awareness Week commenced on 29 April 2013. Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim stated that Privacy Awareness Week was particularly significant, considering upcoming changes to the Privacy Act 1988 No. 119 (Cth) (the Privacy Act), and urged "private sector organisations and agencies to consider where they are at with preparations for the new laws". Mr Pilgrim added that "[e]arly preparation is definitely going to be key for compliance with the new requirements".

The website of Lebanon-based newspaper Al Mustaqbal was hacked and replaced by a list of witnesses in the murder trial of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, reports The New York Times (NYT). The list reportedly included the names, pictures, professions and residence details of 167 witnesses that were to appear before the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in the murder trial.

Facebook and the United States National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) have jointly launched Safety and Privacy on Facebook, a consumer education campaign which aims to encourage Facebook users to understand and implement privacy controls on their social networking accounts.

BBC News reports that several hard drives, containing email and home addresses, dates of birth and account activity, were stolen from the premises of video streaming website Vudu. Vudu chief technology officer Prasanna Ganesan reportedly stated that "[w]hile the stolen hard drives included Vudu account passwords, those passwords were encrypted".

The United Kingdom (UK) Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has announced that it has observed "a dramatic rise in compliance" by real estate agents with their obligation to register with the ICO under the UK Data Protection Act 1998 (the Act), since the ICO launched a targeted campaign on the matter in September 2010. According to the ICO, the Act requires "organisations processing personal information ... to register with the ICO" and may impose "unlimited [criminal] fines in a Crown Court" for breach of this obligation.