Region: United States of America
Canada competition commissioner fines Facebook C$9m for privacy violations
Canada’s Competition Bureau has fined Facebook C$9.5 million ($6.9 million) for sharing users’ personal information – including content from the company’s messaging service – to third-party developers from 2012 to 2018.
20 May 2020
US attorney general slams Apple over decryption refusal
US attorney general William Barr has called on Apple to make its devices accessible to government agencies, after announcing that the FBI gleaned information from a terrorist by unlocking his two encrypted iPhones without the company’s assistance.
19 May 2020
US Senate votes to renew Patriot Act spying powers
Shutting down an amendment that would have required traditional warrants to surveil Americans, the US Senate has voted to reauthorise surveillance powers used by US law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
15 May 2020
Zoom faces more data litigation pressure
A San Francisco church has filed a putative class action lawsuit against Zoom over allegedly poor cybersecurity which the plaintiffs say led to congregants being exposed to child sexual abuse footage.
15 May 2020
US warrantless browser history spying ban fails
The US Senate has voted in favour of greater oversight of government surveillance, but has failed to pass an amendment that would have prohibited law enforcement from spying on Americans’ browser history without a warrant.
14 May 2020
Facial recognition legislation makes its way through California legislature
A bill that would govern the use of facial recognition technology is making its way through the California legislature over the objections of 55 civil rights organisations.
13 May 2020
US lawmakers propose temporary covid-19 privacy law
Five Republican senators have introduced a bill that would regulate contact-tracing apps and similar projects geared towards tracking the spread of covid-19.
12 May 2020
Thomson Reuters sues over database scraping
Thomson Reuters is pursuing rivals for allegedly using a third-party company’s scraping software to steal its extensive legal database.
12 May 2020
New York stops investigation as Zoom beefs up data security
On the same day Zoom announced its acquisition of an end-to-end encryption platform, New York’s attorney general said she reached an agreement with the chat platform that required the company to improve its data privacy and security policies.
11 May 2020
US AI commission wants centralised data network
The US National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence has called for the creation of infrastructure that would centralise the country’s AI-ready data sets.
07 May 2020