CDP Institute

The company has been accused of misleading its users into thinking they were publicly anonymous when according to the suit, a flaw in the application interface exposed names, phone numbers and email addresses.

France’s regulator, CNIL gave a wrist-slap fine of €5 million to TikTok as a reprimand reminder not to manipulate consent against user interest. The fine is relatively small, likely owing to the fact that TikTok added a “Refuse all” button to its website last February to make opting out easy for site visitors.

A majority of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) moved to ratify the protocol and establish a legal basis for cross-border disclosure of electronic information as part of law enforcement operations. Liberal groups had opposed the move due to concern EU citizen data could then be given to countries with less stringent rules for privacy protection.

The United States has over a dozen state privacy laws pending for 2023. Eight states are considering consumer privacy bills. New Jersey, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia are considering children’s privacy bills; Maryland and Mississippi have filed biometric privacy bills; and New York, Virginia, and Washington are considering health privacy bills.

Privacy by design is raised to a new level by Cap_able, an Italian fashion startup that has just debuted its Manifesto collection, containing clothing capable of cloaking your biometric identity. Its use of AI algorithms can make you look to a scan camera like a giraffe, zebra, dog, or other animal to keep your identity on the Q.T.

Meta has just announced planned changes to give teens more control over ads and their privacy on Facebook & Instragram. Beginning next month, teens can choose types of ads they’d rather not see, and advertisers will no longer see user gender to use for ad targeting. The company will also provide information to teens about which ads they see, and teens will also be given the ability to hide any or all ads from a specific advertiser. Certainly, steps in the right direction.

Looking a bit scary there based on reports that the country’s chief prosecutor will not allow the Hellenic Authority for Communication Security and Privacy (ADAE) privacy regulator, to audit telecom companies to ensure that the Greek secret service is not conducting undue surveillance.

The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has imposed a fine of $411 million on Meta for serving behavioral ads based on personal data without providing an opt-in option for users. The ruling issued by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission stated this is a requirement under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and rejected Meta’s claim its practice was covered by contractual law requirements.

It took twelve years to strike the deal, but Google just agreed to pay $23 million, almost three times its original offer, to settle a class action claiming its search engine leaked personally identifiable data by transmitting queries to publishers and third parties. The case alleged the company violated the Stored Communications Act which governs access to records held by internet providers, as well as California laws.

Spain’s new Real Decreto 933/2021 legislation sets stage for extensive data collection on travelers – and raises alarms about privacy overreach. Beginning with a five-month adoption period that kicked off January 2nd, accommodation and car rental providers, which had been collecting no more than 8 personal data points on travelers, will now be expected to collect more than 30.

While €8 million would be a big fine for most companies, it’s small potatoes for Apple. However, France’s data protection authority CNIL just levied that fine against Apple as a reminder that keeping one’s promises is important. In this case, Apple, which claims to pay close attention to keeping user data private, in fact was found to handle user data carelessly by collecting iPhone user data for targeted ads without obtaining consent.

Virtually all those helpful apps that make kids’ and parents’ lives easier after school – for homework, study skills, virtual classrooms, connecting with teachers, and the school community – are helping themselves to your family’s data, thank you very much! A recent survey of edtech apps in US schools from Internet Safety Labs, which conducts software product safety testing, found 96% of school apps were sharing data with 3rd parties and especially with Google (68%), which dominates the edtech space as a supplier of both hardware and software.