Facebook pays $397 to users due to illegal facial biometrics acquisition

More than 1.4 million residents of Illinois started receiving checks for up to $397, as compensation for a $650 million class action lawsuit settled against Facebook. According to plaintiffs, the social media platform illegally used facial recognition data — gathered without consent — to prompt users to tag their friends in photos.

Mastercard’s “Smile to pay” or “cry to privacy”?

Mastercard is rolling out a controversial programme that will allow shoppers to pay at the till with a mere smile or wave of the hand, as it tries to secure a slice of the $18bn (£14.4bn) biometrics market.While face recognition technology has long raised eyebrows among civil rights groups, the payments giant said it was … Read more

Launch of “The Think before you link App”

This lauched app by the UK government to prevent people falling victim to online approaches by foreign spies. MI5 says it has seen 10,000 UK nationals targeted by fake social media profiles on sites like LinkedIn and Facebook. The spies are seeking to lure people into passing on sensitive information. The Think Before You Link … Read more

Google sued over its use of confidential medical records belonging to 1.6 million individuals in the UK

Google’s artificial intelligence DeepMind received the data in 2015 from the Royal Free NHS Trust for the purpose of testing a smartphone app called Streams. The smartphone app was tested to detect acute kidney injuries. The claim alleges that Google and DeepMind “obtained and used a substantial number of confidential medical records without patients’ knowledge … Read more

Proposed guidelines on GDPR fines by European DPAs

Organizations often ask how much chance they have on data protection fines and how much financial reserve they should make for that. Unit 27 June EDPB guidelines on calculating GDPR fines are released for public consultation. Interesting is to have a look at the example for mitigating and aggravating factors that could influence the height … Read more

Did you contribute to the $54 billion of revevenue in Q1 of Google?

Each time you open an app on your phone or browse the web, an auction for your eyeballs is taking place behind the scenes thanks to a thriving market for personal data. The report of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties says hat ad platforms transmit the location data and browsing habits of Americans and Europeans about … Read more

What are the fining policies of EU Data Protection Authoritities?

Below an overview of the only comprehensive fining methodologies that were published so far by EU DPAs (specifically, by the Dutch, Danish, and Latvian DPAs), as well as the relevant draft Statutory guidance issued by the UK DPA (ICO) in 2020. Therefore, this analysis will also show how the approach of the ICO in this … Read more