The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy expanded its list of critical and emerging technologies to include data privacy and security, as well as different types of artificial intelligence. The list can be an indicator of what policy areas the government is focusing on in the upcoming year.
U.K. Department for Science, Innovation and Technology Secretary of State Michelle Donelan sent a letter to the Information Commissioner's Office requesting an update on the ICO's artificial intelligence strategy.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office told federal agencies to determine the effectiveness of its cybersecurity risk assessments due to a rise in ransomware attacks, The HIPAA Journal reports.
Spain's data protection authority, the Agencia Española de Protección de Datos, fined utility company Endesa Energía 6.1 million euros for alleged EU General Data Protection Regulation violations. The AEPD claimed the company had insufficient data security measures and did not notify consumers of a data breach.Full story
Data security and privacy compliance vendor BigID released an organizational data governance solution. The new offering aims to help organizations improve their security postures, mitigate risk, achieve zero trust security, and comply with emerging regulations for artificial intelligence through new access governance controls.
In a letter to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Wash., alleges a data broker tracked individuals' visits to approximately 600 Planned Parenthood locations across 48 states, Politico reports. Wyden's letter asks the agencies to investigate Near Intelligence, which allegedly collected and sold the location data. It claims to have location data for 1.6 billion people across 44 countries, according to a review of its website.
Ireland Minister for Justice Helen McEntee announced the appointment of two commissioners to the three-member Data Protection Commission — Des Hogan and Dale Sunderland. Hogan, who will chair the DPC's new commissioner bench, previously served as the assistant chief state solicitor since 2015 while Sunderland has been a deputy commissioner at the DPC since 2016.
College Board agreed to pay the New York Attorney General's Office USD750,000 to settle claims it unlawfully sold students' personal data to schools and other customers.
The team at Google Research created an open-source library for those looking to audit their differential privacy mechanisms. DP-Auditorium offers property testers and dataset finders.Full story
Italy's data protection authority, the Garante, announced approval of a code of conduct on job candidate data processing. The code states employers can only collect necessary data from employees and job applicants, and can only view job applicants' professional social media profiles.Full story