In this week’s global news roundup, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner opened a probe into Medibank’s data breach. Meta received a 265 million euro fine from Ireland's Data Protection Commission. And Israel’s Ministry of Justice is seeking public input on draft regulations for data transfers to the European Economic Area. (IAPP member exclusive.) Full Story
Indian Parliament is weighing a potential exemption for early-stage startup companies in the proposed Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, The Tribune reports. A source within the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said the reprieve may come with a "limited time period" to give startups time to "develop their solution" without compliance burdens. The draft bill remains under public consultation through Dec. 17.
In a piece for the Brookings Institution, Tisch Distinguished Visiting Fellow Cameron Kerry and Research Assistant Mishaela Robison proposed adding U.S. Federal Trade Commission rulemaking authority over digital advertising provisions in a potential federal privacy law. Kerry and Robison argued allowing FTC clarification on rules laid out in the proposed American Data Privacy and Protection Act would "enable thoughtful and evidence-based decisions to get these boundaries right." They added that "the bar for making changes (to the ADPPA) is high" this late in the U.S.
Italy's data protection authority, the Garante, fined Alpha Exploration, owner of the social network Clubhouse, 2 million euros for violations of the EU General Data Protection Regulation. The Garante cited a lack of transparency around data use, users' ability to store and share audio without consent, sharing of account information without a legal basis and indefinite storage times for recordings.
The Council of the European Union, European Parliament and European Commission reached an agreement on the e-Evidence regulation, Euractiv reports. Aiming to facilitate cross-border criminal investigations, the regulation implements a mechanism for law enforcement agencies to obtain electronic evidence stored in another EU country. It includes the European Preservation Order, under which a judge could order a service provider to preserve data related to a suspect that could be accessed at a later date.
International law firm Bird & Bird published its Winter 2022 Global Cookie Review. Authors of the report found “an increasing amount of regulation that both directly and indirectly governs the use of (cookie) technologies” around the world and “a general trend towards European levels of (cookie) regulation” among Asian-Pacific countries.
Toronto-based nonprofit Innovate Cities and synthetic data generation provider Replica Analytics joined forces in a new effort to help Canadian cities transition away from using personal data and instead utilize synthetic data. The basis of the partnership entails providing municipalities with synthetic data based on real-life data points to achieve smarter solutions for each given city.