February

"A new Minnesota law that took effect on January 1 expands the opportunities for ex-offenders to expunge their criminal records. In an effort to protect employers who hire employees with expunged records, the new law provides that such records ""may not be introduced as evidence in a civil litigation against a private employer . . . that is based on the conduct of the employee"" (such as in a negligent hiring suit)."

The D.C. Council unanimously passed a bill prohibiting employers from testing job applicants for marijuana until after they've made a conditional job offer. The bill would allow employers to test for pot after they offer someone a job as well as during employment. Because it's a local law, it doesn't apply to the federal government or to federal contractors.

"Jan Krissler, a member of the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) hacker network says he replicated the fingerprint of defence minister Ursula von der Leyen using pictures taken with a ""standard photo camera."" Mr Krissler had no physical print from Ms von der Leyen. He told the audience he had obtained a close-up of a photo of Ms von der Leyen's thumb and had also used other pictures taken at different angles during a press event that the minister had spoken at in October. Fingerprint identification is used as a security measure on both Apple and Samsung devices, and was used to identify voters at polling stations in Brazil's presidential election this year, but it is not considered to be particularly secure, experts say."