Fifteen European governments provided formal comments on a draft law combatting child sexual abuse material, citing end-to-end encryption and data retention as significant points of concern, Euractiv reports. Germany asked for additional text stating technologies that "disrupt, weaken, circumvent or modify encryption" will not be used, while Estonia, Italy and Slovakia highlighted data retention.
Norway's data protection authority, the Datatilsynet, fined U.S.-based Argon Medical Devices 2.5 million kroner for failing to report a July 2021 data breach within the 72-hour deadline required by the EU General Data Protection Regulation.
European privacy rights group NOYB lodged a complaint with the Berlin Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information alleging multiple German political parties engaged in microtargeting of voters on Facebook during the 2021 campaign, Euractiv reports. While the EU General Data Protection Regulation does not expressly ban "microtargeting," it does prohibit processing individuals’ sensitive personal data, including one’s political opinions.
Google seeks the dismissal of a U.K. lawsuit in London's High Court alleging it mishandled the medical records of 1.6 million patients, Reuters reports. In 2015, the Royal Free London National Health Service Trust transferred patient records to Google-owned artificial intelligence firm DeepMind Technologies, which was developing an app to analyze records "and detect acute kidney injuries." In 2017, the U.K.
The proposed EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework continues to be the hottest topic in privacy circles, but especially for the U.S. Department of Justice's two-level binding and independent redress process for individuals. Join the IAPP March 27 as U.S. government officials outline how the redress process will function from beginning to end.
Indian Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar confirmed the proposed Digital Data Protection Bill will contain a "blacklist" for cross-border data transfers, The Economic Times reports. Chandrasekhar said the proposal will allow transfers "by default" unless otherwise noted by the government, which contrasts a prior plan to designate trusted transfer partners.
U.S. Federal Trade Commission Division of Advertising Practices Attorney Michael Atleson wrote a post regarding the "deeper, emerging threat" of deceiving consumers through generative artificial intelligence. Atleson cited chatbots, voice clones and deepfakes as the more common deployments that "generate realistic but fake content quickly and cheaply," subsequently putting consumers at risk.
Five state attorneys general in the U.S. reached a USD9 million settlement with Google over deceptive location tracking practices. The settlement resolves allegations that Google's "Location History" and "Web & App Activity" account settings misled consumers and violated state consumer protection laws since at least 2014.