Tag: Privacy Law

(Jul 20, 2018) The rise of pseudo-AI, or using humans to perform work intended for an artificial intelligence or supplementing an AI under development, has prompted legal and ethical questions. "Ideally, a system utilizing a pseudo-AI is never exposed to the public; however, as agile software development approaches become more popular, this is less true," IAPP Westin Research Fellow Nicholas Schmidt writes. The practice has led some companies to employ workers who end up reading receipts and emails of unsuspec... Read More

(Jul 20, 2018) France's data protection authority, the CNIL, has announced it has closed a formal notice procedure placed on a connected toy company. Last November, after it was alerted by a consumer association about a lack of security protections in two connected toys, the CNIL sent a questionnaire to Hong Kong–based Genesis Industries Limited, as well as a request to conduct online inspections. According to Friday's announcement, the company "has dealt with several of the issues raised in the formal notice,... Read More

(Jul 20, 2018) In a post on its new website, the European Data Protection Board, which was formerly the Article 29 Working Party — a collection of the EU's data protection authorities — has offered an update to its cross-border cooperation and consistency procedures. During its second plenary meeting earlier this month, "Most [DPAs] reported a substantial increase in complaints received," and currently there are about 100 cross-border cases under investigation. EDPB Chair Andrea Jelinek said, "we should only e... Read More

(Jul 20, 2018) The U.K. Information Commissioner's Office has released its annual report for 2017–18. According to an ICO news release, data protection complaints are up 15 percent, and self-reported breaches are up 30 percent. It has also issued the "largest number and amount of civil monetary penalties in our history," including 26 penalties totaling 3.28 million GBPs and 19 criminal prosecutions with 18 convictions. "This is an important time for privacy rights, with a new legal framework and increased publ... Read More

(Jul 20, 2018) MediaPost reports Microsoft has teamed up with Namogoo to develop software that helps businesses, brands and publishers track third- and fourth-party services that collect and share customers' personal information from their websites. The software also helps determine the risk of the data being collected. Namogoo is "best known for software that blocks unauthorized ads injected into web sessions that can redirect consumers to competitor sites," the report states. Full Story... Read More

(Jul 20, 2018) Brave, a privacy-enhancing browser, has written to all 28 European Union member states urging them not to remove the Article 10 provision on privacy by design and by default from the pending ePrivacy Regulation. In a blog post, Brave's Johnny Ryan wrote, "The Council of Ministers is weighing not only how best to protect privacy, but also publisher sustainability and the future of the Digital Single Market. We believe these things are compatible." The letters also, "perhaps for the first time," c... Read More

(Jul 20, 2018) Olivia Solon recently wrote an excellent article in the Guardian covering the use of “pseudo-AI” by tech startups. Pseudo-AI, or human workers performing work eventually intended for an artificial intelligence or supplementing an AI still under development, is a common prototyping practice, necessitated by the inherit difficulty and large datasets necessary to create an AI. Ideally, a system utilizing a pseudo-AI is never exposed to the public, however, as agile software development approaches ... Read More

(Jul 20, 2018) In a news release, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada announced New Zealand–based social network and search engine startup Profile Engine violated Canadian privacy law when it scraped public profiles of approximately 4.5 million Canadians for reuse on its own site. The company has claimed it has profile information of more than 420 million people. Though Profile argued the information was public and that consent was not needed, the OPC's "investigation determined that was not the c... Read More

(Jul 20, 2018) In a column for the Toronto Star, Sens. Art Eggleton and Raymonde Saint-Germain opine that Canadian privacy law is not keeping up with advancing technology. Citing a survey conducted by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, which found 74 percent of respondents felt they had less protection of their personal information than a decade prior, and in conjunction with the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica revelations, "Canadians are right to be concerned," they write. "Canada needs to model i... Read More

(Jul 20, 2018) A man from Toronto is suing Facebook $500,000 for the Cambridge Analytica data-sharing revelations, IT Business Canada reports. Alfonzo Mattucci filed suit against the company over claims he has received hundreds of unsolicited calls and emails since the incident. A lawyer for Mattucci said his client was notified twice from Facebook that his "personal information had been improperly accessed and shared with Cambridge Analytica without his consent or knowledge." Darryl Singer, Mattucci's lawyer,... Read More