Bunnings, Australia’s largest hardware chain, has been accused of violating the privacy of hundreds of thousands of customers by using facial recognition technology in over 60 stores. According to the OAIC, Australia’s privacy regulator, the system was overly intrusive and operated without obtaining proper customer consent. The OAIC found that Bunnings failed to meet transparency … Read more
The FTC revealed that major social media and streaming platforms, like Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok, engage in large-scale user surveillance for profit. The investigation found that these companies collect and monetize vast amounts of personal data. This raises serious privacy concerns, especially for children. The report highlights how these companies’ reliance on targeted ads drives … Read more
The Dutch Data Protection Authority (AP) has fined Clearview AI over €30 million for illegally scraping facial images from the internet. Despite previous fines from other European regulators, Clearview continued its violations, amassing a database of 30 billion facial images for use in law enforcement. The AP emphasized that Clearview violated the GDPR by creating … 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
Amazon’s surveillance doorbell company Ring has reached a settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission which will require the company to pay $5.8 million over its inability to keep private footage and audio collected from users’ homes. This action stems from a collection of privacy violations that occurred between 2017 and 2020. Ring customers brought … Read more
The European Parliament has passed a draft law known as the A.I. Act, which aims to regulate artificial intelligence (AI) and its riskiest uses.The draft law would impose new restrictions on facial recognition software and require AI system developers to disclose more about the data used in their programs. The European Union has been debating … 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
Large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, have gained immense popularity and are being rapidly deployed by various organizations.LLMs are trained on large amounts of text-based data and use deep learning to generate human-like text. While LLMs have impressive capabilities, they are not perfect and can make mistakes, hallucinate incorrect facts, and exhibit biases. Concerns … Read more
An investigation by The Observer reveals that 20 NHS trusts in the UK have been sharing private details of patients’ medical conditions, appointments, and treatments with Facebook without consent. A covert tracking tool called Meta Pixel was found on the websites of these NHS trusts, collecting browsing information and sharing it with Facebook, in violation … Read more