IAPP Managing Director, Washington, D.C., Cobun Zweifel-Keegan, CIPP/US, CIPM, breaks down the latest privacy happenings in the nation’s capital, including a look at the overlap between privacy and civil rights at the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration.Full Story
A view from Brussels: EU capital the first to act
U.S. schools are not overreacting by following federal, state and local entities in banning TikTok, University of North Carolina Greensboro professor of management and cybersecurity researcher Nir Kshetri writes in Fortune. “TikTok captures user data in a way that is more aggressive than other" applications, he said, as “its default privacy settings allow the app to collect much more information than the app needs to ... function.” One example, he said, was TikTok accessing users contact lists and calendars every hour.
Carnegie Mellon University researchers successfully used Wi-Fi routers to detect 3D shapes and movements of people in a room, Vice reports. They used a system called “DensePose,” created by a team of London researchers and Facebook AI researchers.
The Danish data protection authority, Datatilsynet, shared guidance on storing personal data for documentation purposes.
Apple faces its third class-action lawsuit over alleged collection of user data, despite claiming this can be disabled in privacy settings, Gizmodo reports. As advertised, the iPhone analytics privacy settings purport allowing users to disable sharing device analytics and information that could identify individual users.
Ireland's Data Protection Commission completed its inquiry into Meta platform’s WhatsApp, and fined the company 5.5 million euros related to forced user consent for the processing of their data Jan. 19. The DPC said the fine was significantly less than recent fines issued to Facebook and Instagram because WhatsApp was fined 225 million euros in 2021. However, the DPC decision did not resolve its ongoing jurisdictional fight with the European Data Protection Board related to the EDPB's ability to mandate the scope of a member state's data protection inquiry.
The U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration filed a request for comments on how companies' data practices may negatively affect marginalized or underserved communities. Comments will go toward an NTIA report that aims to "point to how current resources can be better deployed — and provide a guide for new privacy proposals." The agency added the initiative aims to support U.S.