The U.S. Senate voted 59-40 to confirm Harry Coker as national cyber director, NextGov reports. Coker, who replaces Chris Inglis following his retirement in February, spoke in support of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's secure-by-design initiative. He said the initiative must help "ensure that it's not just a focus on first-to-market. It needs to be secure-to-market."Full story
Apple rolled out a policy change on disclosing user push notification data to law enforcement, Reuters reports. The company will now disclose only when served a court order to do so, joining a policy position adopted by Google.
The California Privacy Protection Agency Board approved a legislative proposal that would require internet browsers to provide notice of users' rights to opt out of the sharing and sale of their personal information.
EU institutions returned to work on the Artificial Intelligence Act 12 Dec. in the first of 11 scheduled technical meetings to finalize details of the law, Reuters reports. Following the political agreement on the landmark regulation 8 Dec., the technical meetings aim to settle lingering gaps and outstanding details around the legal basis for government use of AI in biometric surveillance and the regulation of foundation models.
The New York Times reports two U.S. House proposals to reauthorize and narrow Section 702 of the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act were abandoned. Republican House members could not agree on which bill to move forward, pushing the reauthorization discussion to April if Congress passes a short-term Section 702 extension in the National Defense Authorization Act.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia will hear arguments in the Federal Trade Commission's children's privacy dispute against Meta, Reuters reports. The FTC claimed Meta did not properly inform parents on parental and message control features within the Messenger Kids app.
Euractiv reports EU member states are implementing the updated Network and Information Security Directive in various stages and applying additional privacy standards. The Czech Republic, Germany and Hungary's existing cybersecurity measures overlap with the NIS2 directive and must comply with cybersecurity standards.
As companies look to integrate generative artificial intelligence for a variety of applications, privacy professionals should look to better utilize synthetic data as a privacy enhancing technology, De Jesus Consulting founder and CEO Ron De Jesus, CIPP/A, CIPP/C, CIPP/E, CIPP/US, CIPM, CIPT, FIP, writes.
U.S. President Joe Biden's national security team will begin meeting this week with companies, labor and human rights activists to discuss global internet policies after launching a review last month, Bloomberg reports. The policy discussions could have major economic and privacy implications as countries race to put guardrails around industries like e-commerce and artificial intelligence.Full story
The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology released guidance for employing differential privacy as a privacy-enhancing measure. Notably, the guidance is part of NIST's work to fulfill a guidance mandate in U.S.