CDP Institute

Washington State has introduced a bill proposing a single-mechanism opt-out for Do-Not-Track processing of consumer data, plus provisions protecting children’s privacy. This comes as the state governor announced the creation of an Office of Privacy and Data Protection.

Cost for exploiting 44 million UK names? Great Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) just pegged it at $3.2 billion, a number large enough that Meta might notice. The lawsuit, brought on behalf of the British people who used Facebook from 2015 to 2019, accused the company of violating the 1998 Competition Act with unfair pricing.

Surveying one thousand US consumers about use of online data, privacy, VR, smart appliances, mobile devices and digital services; the company found more concerned about use of data and fewer willing to share data with health trackers and smart appliances.

Vista Equity Partners has spent six years buying controlling shares of big-name ed software companies, including PowerSchool (45M names, including from Naviance), Ellucian (26M names) and EAB, which works with 2,500 educational institutions. Together they cover K-college level students’ data which can be parsed to predict likely success rates and risk factors; assess family wealth; and inform on religion, health, disciplinary actions, and grades. Parents and student privacy groups are voicing concerns about what is being done with all that data and exploring what options they have to engage via... Read More >

“Look, it’s Haley’s Comet!”…Britain’s PM Boris Johnson (who, it would seem should have enough COVID-party pr problems to not open this can of worms) has just hired the M&C Saatchi ad agency to launch a campaign to get the public to oppose end-to-end encryption following Facebook’s decision to encrypt its Messenger app. According to Rolling Stone, the planned media blitz is designed to make the public uneasy by claiming such encryption would diminish their ability to keep kids safe.

Researchers at FingerprintJS say the leak allows websites to learn what other sites are visited during a given session.

New rules would require notifying customers when data was left exposed in an “inadvertent” breach as well as when there are cyberattacks.

The disingenuous, and not uncommon, practice of making it easy to opt-in/tough to opt-out has drawn the ire of CNIL which just slapped Google and Facebook with a combined $226 million fine for making it difficult for users to decline cookies.

Investment bank, Morgan Stanley, has settled a class action that stated it exposed the data of more than 15 million current and former clients.

UAE Cybercrime Law now disallows photographing others without permission. Enacted as an amendment, it is punishable with a six-month jail term and/or a fine up to DH 500,000.

A new survey by Surfshark shows the frequency and reasons countries asked Google to remove content. Russia asked most often, US least often and Spain, Australia and the Netherlands most often gave “Privacy and Security” as their reasons for requesting removal.

An Ipsos survey of more than 1,000 Americans found 70% believe protecting data is getting harder, while just over a third believe companies do well providing data security. At the same time, most surveyed said they took basic precautions – 84% reported they updated passwords, but very few took all six steps that are recommended.