CDP Institute

Apple, which only three months ago received a 1.8 billion euro (US$1.9 billion) fine from the EU related to music streaming access, has been told its App Store is breaching digital competition rules and the fine could be up to 10% of its $383 billion annual global revenue if it repeats the offense. This is the first time a company has been accused of breaching the Digital Markets Act, which is aimed at curbing the power of Big Tech.

The suit, which combined complaints from across the US was brought against Clearview for mass collection of facial images to create a database that other companies used for marketing. The case is unique in giving plaintiffs a share of the company’s potential value, which could amount to more than $50 million. Concern is that this does not stop Clearview from harvesting and selling images or using it to train AI.

The US Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a Final Rule amending the Privacy Rule of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and that goes into effect this month. This was instituted by the Federal government in response to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson ruling to not protect abortion rights and is designed to protect individual privacy and the integrity of the provider-patient relationship.

A US Department of Justice (DOJ) plan to address allegations that claimed TikTok misled US consumers about data security, has changed to instead pursue a lawsuit charging the company with children’s privacy violations.

Reason is the leads provided did not grant permission to have the data collected, stored or used.

The organization, which provides underserved young Africans with digital opportunities, released the information with pre-action notice to government organizations.

Bowing to business-interest pressure, Vermont Governor Phil Scott ensured his state wouldn’t be the 18th in the US to pass a privacy bill that was within inches of becoming an admirable, groundbreaking piece of legislation. Apparently, the prospect of Vermonters being able to sue large tech companies for misuse of private information was unacceptable to Scott, and the fact the bill passed in the state’s House and Senate was immaterial.

Not a “no,” but rather a “pause,” “delay” strategy from Meta on AI. This following a filing by advocacy group noyb that resulted in objections from 11 European DPAs and a request to delay being conveyed to the company by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), which has Meta in its jurisdiction.

Hong Kong’s Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (PCPD) released its first set of protection guidelines for AI use. The stated goal is to nurture development of AI and to help propel Hong Kong into being an innovation and technology hub.

New York’s governor has expressed support for the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act and is expected to sign it into law soon. The state attorney general, whose office would be tasked with enforcing the law, also supports it. SAFE would ban internet companies from exploiting children’s data and from using addictive algorithms to keep kids ages 18 and under hooked on social media.

This follows a complaint having been lodged with the European Commission privacy watchdog. According to LinkedIn, the move is meant to alleviate risk of confusion about whether EU citizens could be indirectly targeted based on special categories of data or related profiling categories.

Core tenets include only using data to fulfill a request but not retaining it; having privacy components not dependent on outside components; ensuring PCC doesn’t contain privileges to bypass privacy protection; ensuring attackers cannot access individual data; and ensuring verifiable transparency to security researchers.