The European Commission commenced its initiative on companies' voluntary phaseout of third-party cookies, Euractiv reports. The commission shared draft pledges with participants of industry working groups that took part in meetings on the phaseout in April.
In a wrongful termination lawsuit, Grindr's former Chief Privacy Officer Ron De Jesus, CIPP/A, CIPP/C, CIPP/E, CIPP/US, CIPM, CIPT, FIP, alleges the LGBTQ+ dating app collected and retained sensitive data without consent in violation of privacy laws, Bloomberg reports. De Jesus said he was terminated for bringing forward concerns about "alarming" data practices.
EU institutions are nearing a political agreement on the Data Act, Euractiv reports. The Swedish Presidency of the EU Council of Ministers presented an updated trilogue agreement overviewing the major changes to the legislation 20 June, which include data sharing obligations for business-to-business agreements, trade secrets, cloud switching and governance.Full story
Child consumer advocates are criticizing U.S. Federal Trade Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya for his reluctance to reopen the agency's privacy violation case against Meta for the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Politico reports.
Meta announced two new privacy features for its encrypted chat platform, WhatsApp. The features are called "Silence Unknown Callers" and "Privacy Checkup." The ability to silence unknown calls helps "to automatically screen out spam, scams, and calls from unknown people" and will not cause the phone to ring but will appear in a user's call list.
The IAPP released its Artificial Intelligence Governance Professional Body of Knowledge, the foundational document for the upcoming AIGP certification and training for the emerging AI governance profession. The BoK documents the information and skills that will be assessed in the upcoming AIGP certification exam.
In an interview with Gizmodo, U.S. Federal Trade Commission Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Samuel Levine provided a window into the agency's ongoing privacy and data security enforcement work. Levine said the agency is "done preaching this fiction that the markets can self correct" while discussing what types of practices the agency seeks to thwart. He also offered thoughts on federal privacy legislation and potential artificial intelligence rules.
The Texan reports Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, signed HB 4, the Texas Data and Privacy Security Act, into law 18 June. The majority of the law takes force 1 July 2024 while provisions for recognition of universal opt-out mechanisms take effect 1 Jan. 2025. "Our goal from the onset was to maximize the utility of consumers' rights and minimize the compliance costs for businesses," said state Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Texas.
Privacy rights group NOYB filed a complaint to Ireland's High Court claiming Ireland's Data Protection Commission did not fully follow through on enforcement of alleged EU General Data Protection Regulation violations by Meta following consultation with European Data Protection Board members, The Irish Times reports.