Greece’s new “smart policing” program is alarming human rights groups. The program will allow use of facial and fingerprint scanning technology to collect and then compare data with police, immigration, and private sector data. Concerns are that this EU Commission-funded program will increase discrimination and abuse.
The EU imposed $1.25B worth of privacy breach fines in 2021, up sevenfold from $180M the previous year. Cross-border transfers will be an area to watch in 2022.
A lawsuit filed by state attorneys general in Texas, Indiana, Washington State, and the District of Columbia claims Google “systematically” deceived consumers about how their locations are tracked and used. In fact, consumers can’t opt out of having their location tracked – and don’t realize how knowing their location at all times is a massive source of income for Google’s digital ad business which last year alone netted the company $150 billion.
Procrastinators of the world can throw a party whenever they get around to it: Google has once more pushed back complete third-party cookie deprecation. The new target is “early next year.” Reasons for the delay include concerns expressed by U.K. data regulator Information Commissioner’s Office, an ongoing inquiry by the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority, and widespread discontent in the advertising ecosystem.