U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has decided on who will comprise his Republican-led Federal Trade Commission. Current FTC Commissioner Andrew Ferguson will be elevated to chair the agency while Kressin Meador and Powers Partner Mark Meador was nominated commissioner. Ferguson can assume chair outright while Meador's nomination faces U.S. Senate confirmation.
U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., introduced the Health and Location Data Protection Act, which would ban data brokers from selling or transferring location and health data, while also allocating USD1 billion to the Federal Trade Commission to conduct enforcement, The Record reports.
The European Commission is seeking information from Google regarding a "secret" advertising partnership with Meta that allegedly violated Google's policies for how minors are targeted with online advertisements, the Financial Times reports.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada Philippe Dufresne applauded LinkedIn for its promise to pause using Canadian customers' data to train its AI models and work with the agency about its concerns on the practice. More broadly, Dufresne said, "I encourage all companies to apply privacy-by-design principles and establish privacy standards, which will help to promote innovation while also protecting privacy." Full story
Hong Kong's Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data released its data breach investigation report on a breach on the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department that affected approximately 17,000 individuals. The PCPD found the EMSD allegedly did not have clear data deletion policies and failed to delete personal data, leading to a breach.Full story
The Hürriyet Daily News reports Turkey's data protection authority, the Kişisel Verileri Koruma Kurumu, fined Meta TRY11.5 million after the social media company allegedly breached the privacy of minors using its product. The KVKK said Meta allowed accounts for children under age 18 to be converted into business accounts, making them publicly accessible. Full story
TikTok is urging a federal appellate court to prevent the potential U.S. ban on the app after the court previously upheld the recent law compelling divestment from its Chinese-based parent company, MediaPost reports. TikTok said the potential ban would inflict "irreparable injury by silencing petitioners and the 170 million Americans who use the platform each month." The U.S.
Italy's data protection authority, the Garante, released guidance for parents about posting images of children on social platforms. The Garante recommended blurring children's faces and limiting the visibility of social media posts to protect children's privacy.Full story
Latvia's Data State Inspectorate issued guidance on how the EU General Data Protection Regulation applies when personal data is processed from group communications on social media. Private groups do not fall under the GDPR if membership and data access is limited, but groups with unlimited access need to meet stricter standards, the agency said.Full story
France's data protection authority, the Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés, issued a 50 million euro fine to telecommunications firm Orange for alleged violations of the French Post and Electronic Communications Code and French Data Protection Act. The CNIL found Orange would send users of its email service advertisements to their inbox that populated alongside regular emails without their consent.Full story