The Irish Data Protection Commission’s 405 million euro fine against Meta represents a “watershed moment” in EU General Data Protection Regulation enforcement, write Bird & Bird’s Head of Privacy and Data Protection, Ireland, Anna Morgan and Associate Heather Catchpole.
Mediapost reports a coalition of 19 advertising and business groups wrote the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to request an extension to the 60-day public consultation for the agency's Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on commercial surveillance and lax data security. The groups, which included the U.S.
Seven Canadian advocacy groups wrote a letter to Minister of Public Safety of Canada Marco Mendicino with objections to draft federal cybersecurity legislation, Bill C-26, introduced in June.
Canadian Parliament tabled the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada's 2021-2022 annual report. The OPC outlined its private-sector investigations and advisory work, which support "the importance of building privacy into new products or initiatives from the very start." During the introduction of the report, Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne supported consideration of Canadian federal privacy reform under Bill C-27.
IAB Tech Lab finalized the Global Privacy Platform, designed to help communicate and manage user consent signals from various jurisdictions. The GPP supports signals for the Global Privacy Control and the IAB Europe Transparency and Consent Framework as well as consent strings required under comprehensive state privacy laws. More jurisdictions will be added as global regulations come online. For state law compliance, IAB Tech Lab urged companies to transition from its U.S.
Illinois residents involved in a class-action lawsuit against Google will receive $154 each as part of a $100 million settlement, the Chicago Tribune reports. The class of roughly 420,000 who brought the lawsuit argued Google Photos' face grouping tool violated the state Biometric Information Privacy Act.
The use of text-to-image artificial intelligence generators is expanding “faster than AI companies can shape norms around its use,” The Washington Post reports. Researchers are concerned widespread public use of text-to-image generators can create “dangerous outcomes,” such as “reinforcing racial and gender stereotypes” or forging artists’ work. OpenAI, developers of image generator DALL-E, named after Salvador Dali and Pixar’s WALL-E, do not allow users to replicate images of celebrities and politicians to prevent the creation of disinformation.
U.S. telecoms diplomat Doreen Bogdan-Martin was elected to head the United Nations’ International Telecommunication Union, Politico reports. Bogdan-Martin received 139 votes to secure the election over Russia’s Rashid Ismailov, who received 25 votes. The vote was viewed by observers as a clash between western countries' "vision of a more open version of the internet against more authoritarian" control of cyberspace from the likes of Russia and Saudi Arabia.
Google Maps now features augmented reality in search results, ARS Technica reports. Search results will appear as augmented reality markers in users’ video feeds. The AR system is powered by Maps’ Visual Positioning System, which can be used by pointing a cellphone’s camera in any direction.