Victims of Finland’s largest psychotherapy data breach are seeking higher compensation. In 2020, a hacker stole sensitive information from 40,000 clients of Vastaamo, including patient records, and used it for extortion. While the Finnish government has offered compensation ranging from €500 to €1500, lawyers argue that this is insufficient, given the severe privacy violations the … Read more
Tesla, owned by Elon Musk, confirms that a data breach impacting over 75,000 employees was the result of insider misconduct. The electric car maker states that the breach was initiated by two former employees who leaked personal information of more than 75,000 individuals to a foreign media outlet. The breach encompassed personally identifiable details such … Read more
Spotify is facing a fine of approximately €5 million ($5.4M) in Sweden for breaching data access rights of users in the European Union. Te fine highlights the challenges faced by European users in upholding their data protection rights. The complaint against Spotify was filed by the privacy rights organization noyb more than four years ago. … Read more
The Markup analyzed a database of 650,000 audience segments used by advertisers to target consumers based on specific information and inferences.The segments include sensitive information like being “heavy purchasers” of pregnancy test kits, having an interest in brain tumors, being prone to depression, visiting places of worship, and feeling “easily deflated” or getting a “raw … Read more
A Berlin-based bank has been fined 300,000 euros by the Berlin data protection commissioner. The fine was imposed due to the bank’s lack of transparency regarding the automated rejection of a credit card application.The bank’s algorithm rejected the customer’s application without providing specific justification. The bank only provided general information about the scoring procedure but … Read more
The Cologne District Court has ruled in a non-final judgment on March 23, 2023 (file no. 33 O 376/22) that the use of GoogleAnalytics on the telekom_de website is unlawful, as it violates Art. 44 ff. of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) According to the court, the transmission of IP addresses as well as … Read more
Security researchers discovered that a chip present in some Android phones manufactured by Qualcomm is collecting sensitive user data such as passwords, financial information, and fingerprints.The chip, called the Qualcomm Secure Execution Environment (QSEE), is designed to protect sensitive information on the device.However, researchers found that the QSEE chip was logging sensitive data in plaintext … Read more
ChatGPT, sent a letter to the Italian SA describing the measures it implemented in order to comply with the order issued by the SA on 11 April. OpenAI:– explained what personal data it uses for training of algorithms;– explaned privacy notice accessible in sign up;– granted all individuals in Europe, including non-users, the right to … Read more
Microsoft Edge browser has a privacy issue that can lead to URL leaks.The issue arises due to the “search suggestions” feature in Edge, which suggests URLs as users type. These suggested URLs are fetched from Bing, Microsoft’s search engine. However, the URLs are fetched even before the user hits enter, and this creates a privacy … Read more
Did you know that your Ring doorbell video footage could be part of police surveillance? Ring saw search warrants increase 33 percent in 2022 from the previous year. The lack of legal controls on what police can ask for, and judges failing to properly scrutinize these warrants, opens the door for even indoor home footage … Read more