CDP Institute

Facebook is being required by the EU to offer its users consent for behavioral ad targeting. The change comes after regulators decided that consent is the only acceptable basis for targeting based on consumer data.  UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) wants to know why Facebook won’t afford the same privacy options to those in the UK and elsewhere.

Scan your eyeball, secure your identity everywhere in one easy step. Too good to be true? Well, WorldCoin, courtesy of Sam Altman, who gave us OpenAI and ChatGPT, may best be approached with caution and some skepticism. While 2 million users have forged ahead to be in his “real human database,” to prove via an eye-scan they are in fact individual people not bots or digital impersonators; an incident in Kenya may give pause. That's because police there confiscated WorldCoin data over concern about the company.

In a turn-around from last year, India’s Lower House of Parliament, the Lok Sabha, may now pass the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill. Ostensible purpose is to protect citizen privacy rights, though significant concerns are being raised about aspects of the legislation. The Editors Guild of India (EGI), for example, believes it may give the government power to censor and curtail press rights.

Apple is instituting new rules that will require app developers to explain why they need certain data, or if not justified, to stop collecting it. This is in response to developers using Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to extract and exchange data via device signals, aka “fingerprinting,” which Apple doesn’t allow. The new requirement will go into effect this fall, and then in the spring apps and updates that don’t provide sufficient reasons will be rejected.

The Irish Protection Commission, which has jurisdiction over TikTok in the EU, has a month to issue the final penalty and rules for the platform when it comes to children’s and teen data. TikTok is used by 125 million people in the EU bloc. While the fine amount has not been announced, this can move ahead because the European Protection Board (EDPB) resolved disputes among several of the EU regulators.

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) introduced regulation to keep children off the internet a lot of the time, which could be a game changer for Tencent, ByteDance and other social platforms. The new rules have specific rules for different age groups of children, and include limiting “non-adult” children from accessing the internet via mobile for more than 2 hours between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 am.

The EU regulators want more concessions if Meta wants to stave off a major fine.

The ruling results from a case in which a male Facebook user wanted to remain anonymous after making secret recordings of women and then posting defamatory statements about them. A claimant asked Meta to delete the posts and identify the man, but Meta refused claiming his free speech rights. However, the Court ruled the claimant deserved an opportunity to challenge the man’s allegedly defamatory statements.

The suit, which alleged Instagram used a facial recognition feature that violated the law by capturing facial scans without consent, is open to users active on Instagram from August 10, 2015 to the present.

New investigations by the European Commission about Microsoft Teams and by France’s Autorité de la concurrence about Apple continue efforts to reign in Big Tech overreach. With Microsoft concern is that having bundled Teams software with its Office 365 suite by default, Microsoft made it difficult for other products to compete. With Apple, the regulator that oversees competition is looking into claims the company used its market position to implement discriminatory, non-transparent conditions to use its customer data to be used for ad purposes.

Saudi officials announced Microsoft’s $2 billion investment plan to build a cloud storage facility in the kingdom at Neom, the mega-development spearheaded by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Concern is this could expose sensitive personal and political data.

AI is running far ahead of our ability to craft laws to control it and, though we saw it coming, legislation has moved slowly. The US has few laws to regulate and control it, while the EU’s proposed Artificial Intelligence Act, is looking to lead with a global standard as it did with GDPR. In Asia, China is moving quickly to get laws on the books, and Singapore, Japan and Australia have been proactive as well with specific focus on cybersecurity.