New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit against National General and Allstate, claiming the insurance companies had insufficient data protection practices when they sustained two data breaches affecting customers' personal data. James' office alleged the companies failed to notify consumers of the first breach and did not investigate if sensitive information was impacted.
Belgium's Data Protection Authority is seeking feedback on its updated guidance on direct marketing practices. The update is accompanied by a data protection checklist to ensure marketing campaigns align with the EU General Data Protection Regulation.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission reported consumers lost USD12.5 billion to fraud in 2024, a 25% increase compared to 2023. The agency said imposter scams, online shopping issues, and business and job opportunities were the top three categories of fraud.Full story
The American Psychological Association's Council of Representatives approved new policies to protect individuals' psychological and neural data collected by consumer devices. The safeguards aim to address "the need for ethical collection, storage and use of data gathered from direct-to-consumer software and wearable devices."Full story
A study by marketing research group YouGov found 54% of U.S. consumers consider targeted advertisements to be invasive, while 27% believe personalized ads are helpful when purchasing products online, MediaPost reports.
Social platform Bluesky CEO Jay Graber said the company is exploring consumer opt outs from data sharing for AI training purposes, TechCrunch reports. Graber said the proposed framework will give users more control over their data and would work similarly to how "websites specify whether they want to be scraped by search engines or not."Full story
New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a USD650,000 settlement with app developer Saturn Technologies after the company allegedly did not confirm users' school email addresses and age on its calendar platform for high school students. James said Saturn "will have to update its practices, better protect users, and keep its promises" to protect underage users' personal information.Full story
Consumer Reports published an analysis highlighting potential privacy issues at six voice cloning companies.
The European Data Protection Board will discuss a procedure for how to approve binding corporate rules for controllers and processors under the EU General Data Protection Regulation during its 13 March meeting. The group will also discuss a statement on implementing the Passenger Name Record Directive after the Court of Justice of the European Union issued a ruling on its validity.Full story
Signal President Meredith Whittaker raised concerns about the potential privacy implications of agentic AI, TechCrunch reports. Whittaker said agentic AI's alleged ability to do a variety of tasks for consumers would mean granting the technology access to large amounts of data "with something that looks like root permission."Full story