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DESPITE SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENTS since the U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 became effective, the continuing cost of compliance with the act's Section 404 requirements remains a concern for board members and management. A periodic operational audit of the Section 404 program can provide valuable information to executive management and the audit committee, and potentially identify areas where significant costsavings can be realized. Whether the Section 404 program is managed by the finance department, internal auditing, or another organization, it's an excellent candidate for this type of review, particularly if the focus remains on program efficiency. Several questions, based on The IIA's publication Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404: A Guide for Management by Internal Control Practitioners, can be used as the basis for the audit. The questions cover issues ranging from ensuring that operating management takes ownership of its processes, to achieving fewer and more effective key controls, to determining whether the external auditor's reliance on management testing has been optimized.

Has your management team asked the following four questions about your organization's internal controls? 1) Have we identified the meaningful risks to our objectives? 2) Which controls are "key controls" that will best support a conclusion regarding the effectiveness of internal control in a particular process? 3) What information will be persuasive in assessing whether the controls are continuing to operate effectively? 4) Are we presently performing effective monitoring that is not unnecessary and costly testing? These questions appear in a white paper, "Effective Internal Control Systems for Rapidly Changing Markets: A New Opportunity," packed with answers for GRC professionals wondering if there is a better way to operate. The paper, authored by the GRC experts at advisory firm SMART Group, clearly lays out how controls monitoring processes can and should align with the "Guidance on Monitoring" COSO published earlier this year to help organizations strengthen the effectiveness and efficiency of their internal controls frameworks. Among other useful how-to information, the 12-page paper includes a five-step "Implementation Guide" for creating a better controls-monitoring program.

Frontline video on eWaste, Computer Security On the outskirts of Ghana's biggest city sits a smoldering wasteland, a slum carved into the banks of the Korle Lagoon, one of the most polluted bodies of water on earth. The locals call it Sodom and Gomorrah. Correspondent Peter Klein and a group of graduate journalism students from the University of British Columbia have come here as part of a global investigation -- to track a shadowy industry that's causing big problems here and around the world. Their guide is a 13-year-old boy named Alex. He shows them his home, a small room in a mass of shanty dwellings, and offers to take them across a dead river to a notorious area called Agbogbloshie.

Another test of who owns what data, what can be done with it and the power of State's Rights.

IMS Health (RX) has built a lucrative niche collecting data on which drugs physicians prescribe, then selling the information to pharmaceutical companies. But legislators in more than 20 states have questioned whether the company has a constitutional right to do so. The Supreme Court could shine a spotlight on this topic in the next few weeks if it decides to hear a closely watched case IMS has been fighting in New Hampshire. The court's ruling would quickly reverberate beyond the pharmaceutical industry, affecting virtually any business that uses information about consumer buying behavior to guide its sales strategies.

Interactive tutorial from the FTC on how businesses should go about protecting personal information

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) has developed these guidelines to explain how the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) applies to transfers of personal information to a third party, including a third party operating outside of Canada, for processing. As the legislation itself states, PIPEDA is intended to "support and promote electronic commerce by protecting personal information that is collected, used or disclosed in certain circumstances…" This acknowledges that proper protection of personal information both facilitates and promotes commerce by building consumer confidence. Today's globally interdependent economy relies on international flows of information. These cross-border transfers do raise some legitimate concerns about where personal information is going as well as what happens to it while in transit and after it arrives at some foreign destination. Consumer confidence will be enhanced, and trust will be fostered, if consumers know that transfers of their personal information are governed by clear and transparent rules. There are different approaches to protecting personal information that is being transferred for processing. European Union member states have passed laws prohibiting the transfer of personal information to another jurisdiction unless the European Commission has determined that the other jurisdiction offers "adequate" protection for personal information.

Everywhere you look (even here at Ars), there are articles about people making poor decisions about what kinds of info and how much to share on sites like Facebook. The Internet is no longer a place where you can hide out easily-friends, family, and employers are all lurking, reading your embarrassing status updates and checking up on those drunken pictures from last week. And that's just the beginning-the world of social networking is a feeding ground for identity thieves and stalkers, too. But it doesn't have to be that way. Many users are aware that Facebook has numerous privacy controls, for example, but even the most experienced Facebook users often don't know just how much they can control who sees what. For instance, did you know that you can specify...

Beyond PCI: Other Regulations to Look For in 2009 Just a few days ago, the Federal Reserve, the Office of Thrift Supervision and the National Credit Union Administration announced the enactment of comprehensive new rules regarding card practices. These rules, which will not take effect until July 1, 2010, impose restrictions on a number of controversial issuer practices, including interest rate increases, late fees and double-cycle billing. Many industry observers predict that the rules will result in less credit being made available, and on stricter terms, than has been the case over the last several years. These rules may not be the end of the matter. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), who in 2008 introduced the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights Act of 2008 (which sought to regulate many of the same practices as the then-proposed Fed rules), stated that she was disappointed in the delayed effectiveness of the Fed rules and promised to revive the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights in 2009 to, as she put it, "bridge the gap" between now and the effective date of the Fed rules.