The data regulator for the German state of Lower Saxony has fined a local laptop retailer a whopping $12.6 million for keeping its employees under constant video surveillance at all times for the past two years without a legal basis. From a report: The penalty represents one of the largest fines imposed under the 2018 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) not…
Tag: gdpr
Google CEO Criticises Antitrust Regulation
Google chief Sundar Pichai has warned that “regulation can get it wrong” as his firm is increasingly targeted by antitrust moves. From a report: Last week, the European Commission set out new regulation to curb the power of big tech. The Digital Services Act hopes to increase transparency and competition for tech firms. The legislation will force firms, such as Google,…
Instagram’s Handling of Kids’ Data Is Now Being Probed In the EU
Facebook’s lead data regulator in Europe has opened another two probes into its business empire — both focused on how the Instagram platform processes children’s information. TechCrunch reports: The action by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), reported earlier by the Telegraph, comes more than a year after a U.S. data scientist reported concerns to Instagram that its platform was leaking the…
Facebook Halts Oculus Quest Sales In Germany Amid Privacy Concerns
Facebook has “temporarily paused” sales of its Oculus Quest headsets to customers in Germany. “Reports suggest the move is in response to concerns from German regulators about the recently announced requirement that all Oculus users will need to use a Facebook account by 2023 to log in to the device,” reports Ars Technica. From the report: “We have temporarily paused selling…
Your Browsing History Can Uniquely Identify You
An anonymous reader writes:
Researchers from Mozilla report in a study that web browsing histories (the lists of user visited websites) are uniquely identifying users (PDF). In their study that was the case for 99% of users. Treating web browsing histories like fingerprints, the researchers analysed how the users can be reidentified just based on the coarsened list of user-visited websites. In…
Google Victory In German Top Court Over Right To Be Forgotten
Germany’s top court handed down its first ruling since the EU’s GDPR laws went into effect in mid-2018. The court “sided with Google and rejected requests to wipe entries from search results,” reports German public broadcaster DW (in an article shared by long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo): The cases hinged on whether the right to be forgotten outweighed the public’s right to…
Uber Drivers To Launch Legal Bid To Uncover App’s Algorithm
AmiMoJo shares a report from The Guardian: Minicab drivers will launch a legal bid to uncover secret computer algorithms used by Uber to manage their work in a test case that could increase transparency for millions of gig economy workers across Europe. Two UK drivers are demanding to see the huge amounts of data the ride-sharing company collects on them and…
Tech Firms Like Facebook Must Restrict Data Sent From EU To US, Court Rules
The European Court of Justice has ruled that the “Privacy Shield” data transfer agreement, which had allowed tech companies to transfer EU user data to the US, failed to adequately protect Europeans’ data from US surveillance and security laws and was therefore invalid. What this means is companies like Facebook “could be prevented from sending data back to the US,” reports…
Only 9% of Visitors Give GDPR Consent To Be Tracked
Marko Saric, a digital marketing consultant and blogger, conducted his own experiment to find out how many visitors would engage with a GDPR banner and grant GDPR consent to their information being collected and shared. For his study, Saric used Metomic for his GDPR consent banner and tested it on two different websites during June. “Site 1 was a site about…
France Upholds $50M Fine Against Google For GDPR Violations
An anonymous reader quotes NBC News:
France’s highest administrative court has upheld a fine of 50 million euros ($56 million) Google was ordered to pay for not being “sufficiently clear and transparent” with Android users about their data protection options. Google was first slapped with the fine in January 2019, the first penalty for a U.S. tech giant under new European data…