Italy's data protection authority, the Garante, called on TikTok to explain reports of its personal data being accessed by the Communist Party of China. The Garante gave the company 15 days to produce a response to the reports and outline how Italian and EU users' data is protected from alleged government access.Full story
Social engineering methods, such as pretexting, are becoming more common in cyberattacks, Axios reports, citing a recent report published by Verizon. From November 2021 to October 2022, Verizon found scammers used pretext methods, such as "emails, texts or social media messages that purport to be from a family member, boss or client," in 4.1% of security breaches. That figure more than doubled in Verizon's report the previous year.
A geolocation guessing game powered by Google Maps helped make a TikTok user famous for finding obscure items in videos and publishing where they can be found, NBC News reports. The game called "GeoGuessr" shows users an image and they have to guess where the image came from in the world.
A fresh economic partnership agreed to by U.S. President Joe Biden and U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak includes enhanced collaboration on privacy and artificial intelligence. On privacy, the two sides touted improved pacts on data flows and privacy-enhancing technologies. With AI, the U.S. and the U.K. will "accelerate our cooperation" with an eye toward "safe and responsible development" of technologies.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission announced a USD5,134,500 fine to lobbying consultancy J.M. Burkman & Associates for directing 1,141 spam calls without individuals' consent. The calls duped individuals into thinking personal data associated with mail-in voting would be collected and used to track down individuals for overdue legal warrants and credit card debt.
The Nevada Legislature granted final passage to SB 370, a health data privacy bill modeled after Washington's My Health My Data Act. The bill was amended before final passage by the Nevada State Assembly 5 June to include an exemption for profiling that does not include personal health data and a new effective date of 31 March 2024. Unlike Washington's law, SB 370 does not carry a private right of action.
IAPP Managing Director, Washington, D.C., Cobun Zweifel-Keegan, CIPM, CIPP/US, examines the newest artificial intelligence developments in the U.S. He said several congressional committees launched inquiries into various AI activities to explore potential areas that could require new legislation.Full story
A view from Brussels: Is the finish line for the Data Act in sight?
Privacy experts are warning generative artificial intelligence users not to share geolocation data with the systems, Cyberscoop reports. "There's a whole host of reasons to be concerned about the security of location data and its implications for the privacy of users of the system," AI Now Institute Managing Director Sarah Myers West said. Full story
European TikTok officials were pressed by French senators over the company's ties to the Chinese government and data protection practices, Euractiv reports. Senators raised questions to TikTok's public affairs director in France regarding the ownership structure of TikTok in France.
The Netherlands data protection authority, the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens, is seeking further clarification from OpenAI about how its generative artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT handles personal information. The AP is inquiring if the ChatGPT algorithm is trained on answers to questions that may contain sensitive personal information.