CDP Institute

Charmingly named Project Ghostbusters, Facebook (Meta) apparently went to great trouble to spy on competitors, including Snapchat, Amazon and YouTube for user data. This revealed in unsealed documents in California federal court, was done to gain competitive advantage and understand how users behaved on other sites – and was supported by Meta executives including CEO Mark Zuckerberg. It was done by intercepting and decrypting network traffic between user devices and company servers.

In 2021, a threat actor claimed to be selling data of 73 million AT&T customers, but the telecom demurred saying there hadn’t been a breach. Well, apparently, that was incorrect as AT&T now confirms, and highly sensitive information dating back to 2019 has been leaked on the dark web. This includes Social Security numbers, passcodes, email addresses and birth dates, and has raised concerns over risks for identity theft.

The Cybersecurity Administration of China (CAC), has published the Provisions on Promoting and Regulating the Cross-border Flow of Data (New Provisions), which eases up on select requirements for data controllers. This follows concerns that had been raised about viability of data controllers adhering to the CAC’s previous outline of obligations, so companies doing cross-border business should review changes for applicability.

When considering data care, it’s wise to check what those in the know do. Ghostery’s survey of 2,000 American consumers indicates many are lagging behind those with advertising, programming and cybersecurity expertise. So, while 52% surveyed used an adblocker, numbers for those with experience in the field went up to more than 75%. This carried over to concerns about health data and data being gathered for political reasons.

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) denied an application that proposed using facial recognition to ensure a person granting approval for children to use websites covered by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) is an adult. The agency will continue to consider age verification technology options to address this issue.

Issues raised included that users were asked to grant broad rights use of their data (in exchange £40-50 in cash); no time limit was given for term of use; and requested data included likeness, voice, opinion, and biographical information.

Portugal’s regulator cited concern about protecting minors and the use of iris-scanning for IDs.