data protection law
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Adtech’s compliance theatre is headed to Europe’s top court
For those watching the slow motion unpicking of surveillance advertising in the European Union here’s a fresh development on the long and winding road to a long-overdue legal reckoning: Multiple grounds for appeal lodged by industry body, the IAB Europe, against a breach finding earlier this year against its self-proclaimed…
The U.K. could be gearing up to hit a handful of tech firms with enforcement orders (and potentially fines) related to a children’s online privacy and safety Code which has…
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A huge Chinese database of faces and vehicle license plates spilled online
A massive Chinese database storing millions of faces and vehicle license plates was left exposed on the internet for months before it quietly disappeared in August. While its contents might seem unremarkable for China, where facial recognition is routine and state surveillance is ubiquitous, the sheer size of the exposed…
The explosive Twitter whistleblower complaint that was made public yesterday — detailing a raft of damning allegations across security, privacy and data protection issues (among others) by Twitter’s former former…
A ruling put out yesterday by the European Union’s top court could have major implications for online platforms that use background tracking and profiling to target users with behavioral ads…
A proposal put forward by European Union lawmakers in May, to establish a legal framework to make it easier to share electronic health records and other medical data — across…
Consumer rights groups in Europe have filed a new series of privacy complaints against Google — accusing the advertising giant of deceptive design around the account creation process that they…
As Google works on reconfiguring its adtech stack to move away from cookie-based ad targeting to something else that’s not yet fixed but which it claims will be better for…
The U.K. government has published its final response to a data ‘reform’ consultation it kicked off last year, laying out how it intends to diverge from EU-based data protection rules.…
The U.K. government has confirmed it will move forward on a major ex ante competition reform aimed at Big Tech, as it set out its priorities for the new parliamentary…
An interesting new study of 1,759 iOS apps before and after Apple implemented a major privacy feature last year which required developers to ask permission to track app users —…
The political agreement reached late last month between the European Union and the United States on a new trans-Atlantic data transfers pact, which aims to end years of legal uncertainty…
A UK High Court judge has granted permission for a class-action style privacy lawsuit to proceed against TikTok over its handling of children’s data. The lawsuit was filed back in…
European privacy advocacy group noyb has fired off a second batch of cookie consent complaints (270 in total) targeting websites in the region that it says are failing to properly…
A coordinated enforcement action focused on public sector bodies’ use of cloud services is kicking off across the European Union. More than 80 public bodies in a wide range of…
What does Meta/Facebook’s favorite new phrase to bandy around in awkward earnings calls — as it warns of “regulatory headwinds” cutting into its future growth — actually mean when you…
The European Union’s chief privacy and data protection regulator has urged EU policymakers to strengthen proposed ‘transparency’ rules for political ads — calling instead for meaningful limits that would fully…
As the legal uncertainty in Europe clouding use of US cloud services cranks up, Google has responded by firing up its lobbying engines to call for US and European lawmakers…
In bad news for US cloud services, Austrian website’s use of Google Analytics found to breach GDPR
A decision by Austria’s data protection watchdog upholding a complaint against a website related to its use of Google Analytics does not bode well for use of US cloud services…
The European Union’s chief data protection supervisor has sanctioned the European Parliament for a series of breaches of the bloc’s data protection rules. The decision sounds a loud warning to…
Chalk another one up for decentralized enforcement: France’s data protection watchdog has slapped headline-grabbing fines on Facebook and Google for failing to respect local (and pan-EU) cookie consent rules. Today,…
Civil society has been poring over the detail of the European Commission’s proposal for a risk-based framework for regulating applications of artificial intelligence which was proposed by the EU’s executive…
It’s been almost a year since the EU’s executive announced it would propose rules for political ads transparency in response to concern about online microtargeting and big data techniques making…
The European Data Protection Board (EDPB), an expert steering body which advises EU lawmakers on how to interpret rules wrapping citizen’s personal data, has warned the bloc’s legislators that a…
Apple, Google questioned by ICO over app age ratings after UK child safety charity raises concerns
The U.K.’s data protection watchdog has written to Apple and Google seeking details of how they assess apps to determine the age ratings they apply following concerns raised by an…
Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) has yet another Big Tech GDPR probe to add to its pile: The regulator said yesterday it has opened two investigations into video sharing platform TikTok.…
After years of inaction against adtech, UK’s ICO calls for browser-level controls to fix ‘cookie fatigue’
In the latest quasi-throwback toward “do not track,” the U.K.’s data protection chief has come out in favor of a browser- and/or device-level setting to allow internet users to set…
There have been further calls from EU institutions to outlaw biometric surveillance in public. In a joint opinion published today, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) and the European Data…
The need for markets-focused competition watchdogs and consumer-centric privacy regulators to think outside their respective ‘legal silos’ and find creative ways to work together to tackle the challenge of big…
The UK’s chief data protection regulator has warned over reckless and inappropriate use of live facial recognition (LFR) in public places. Publishing an opinion today on the use of this…