An investigation into business practices of data brokers in Germany by Netzpolitik and Bayerischer Rundfunk found popular apps for services, such as weather, navigation and dating, likely violated the EU General Data Protection Regulation.
The California State Legislature continues to work on privacy and artificial intelligence policy matters during its 2024 legislative session. A range of bills, both broad and targeted, are reaching critical points in the legislative process as the session draws closer to its 30 Aug. adjournment. The IAPP California Privacy and AI Legislation Tracker offers the latest status updates and details on the various bills being considered.Full story
Brazil's Federal Public Prosecutor's Office and the Brazilian Consumer Defense Institute filed a BRL1.733 billion civil action against Meta's WhatsApp, seeking nonmaterial damages in connection with alleged privacy violations.
Foreign companies are at risk of misinterpreting how the Cyberspace Administration of China regulates the export of "important data" out of the country under recent data transfer provisions, Dell Technologies Legal Counsel and Consultant Scott Livingston and Trivium China Associate Director Tom Nunlist write.
The Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information issued a discussion paper outlining the relationship between the EU General Data Protection Regulation and large language models. The paper covers LLM data processing considerations under the GDPR, the proper application of data subject rights, and GDPR-compliant training of LLMs.
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of New Zealand released a free online toolkit for improving businesses' compliance with privacy laws. The OPC's toolkit, called Poupou Matatapu, is geared toward privacy program management but will also help organizations "improve their data quality, innovation, customer and stakeholder trust, and decision-making processes."Full story
Singapore's Personal Data Protection Commission published a draft guide for creating synthetic data. The guide includes case studies, a handbook for key considerations and best practices, and reidentification risks. The PDPC also noted the guidance is particularly aimed at instances involving synthetic data for artificial intelligence and machine learning.Full story
The Netherlands' data protection authority, the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens, issued a 600,000 euro fine to the parent company of the pharmacy chain Kruidvat for allegedly placing tracking cookies on its website without user knowledge or consent.
Politico reports the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is preparing a broad study on "surveillance pricing," which targets consumers based on personal circumstances. The agency could demand information from companies as soon as August, but plans for the initiative are not final, and it is not yet clear which businesses will be targeted, according to the report.
The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology wrote about how to protect trained models in privacy-preserving federated learning as part of its ongoing series about the method. It examines how differential privacy can be effective in protecting models, but doing so presents a potential tradeoff in regards to decreased accuracy.Full story