The Data Drop News for Friday, May 20, 2022
EU court backs 'right to be forgotten' in Google case. Your online activity and location is being exposed 747 times a day. Roe draft raises concerns data could be used to identify abortion seekers and providers. Health data privacy concerns grow as abortion laws change nationwide. Do people caught on ring cameras have privacy rights? Plus the latest in PrivTech news!
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EU Court Backs ‘Right To Be Forgotten’ in Google Case
A top EU court has ruled that tech giant Google must amend certain search results at the request of ordinary people in a test of the so-called "right to be forgotten".
The European Union Court of Justice said links to "irrelevant" and outdated data should be erased on request. The case was brought by a Spanish man who complained that an auction notice of his repossessed home on Google's search results infringed his right to privacy.
Your Online Activity and Location Is Being Exposed 747 Times a Day
A new report has revealed that your online activity and location is being tracked and shared with thousands of companies hundreds of times every day.
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) just released "The Biggest Data Breach", a report that focuses on Real-Time Bidding, also known as RTB, in the US and Europe. RTB is the way digital advertising is bought and sold on a per-impression basis and represents a $117 billion dollar industry.
A side effect of RTB is that it collects lots of personal data about users, including their location. The report claims that an average person in the US has their online activity and location exposed 747 times every single day through RTB data broadcasts.
Roe Draft Raises Concerns Data Could Be Used To Identify Abortion Seekers, Providers
Concerns that data gathered from peoples’ interactions with their digital devices could potentially be used to identify individuals seeking or performing abortions have come into the spotlight with the news that pregnancy termination services could soon be severely restricted or banned in much of the United States.
Anti-abortion activists have a history of targeting clinics that perform abortions and individuals seeking the procedure with violence and harassment.
“The dangers of unfettered access to Americans’ personal information have never been more obvious. Researching birth control online, updating a period-tracking app or bringing a phone to the doctor’s office could be used to track and prosecute women across the U.S.,” Sen. Ron Wyden or Orgeon said in a statement to The Hill. Activist groups have already used phone location data to target ads at people visiting such clinics.
Health Data Privacy Concerns Grow As Abortion Laws Change Nationwide
As the United States awaits the fate of Roe v. Wade, some privacy experts are concerned about how your personal health data is stored online and even shared without your knowledge.
This threat isn’t new but there’s renewed discussion around privacy on health apps with abortion laws potentially changing nationwide. For women’s health, Flo is a popular one used to track periods and pregnancies, but this information isn’t just personal, it’s intimate.
There’s now growing concern that personal health data in states where abortion services maybe criminalized could be obtained by law enforcement or bought from data brokers.
Do People Caught On Ring Cameras Have Privacy Rights?
Surveillance devices like Ring door cameras are becoming ubiquitous. For anyone who has had a package stolen or dealt with property damage, these videos can be enormously satisfying. But the videos, which are regularly posted on social media, also reveal a more uncomfortable truth.
Often, people caught on camera are suffering from mental health crises, addiction, or poverty. According to an article by Sarah Lageson, a sociologist at the Rutgers University, this is a slippery slope, and normalizing surveillance for some groups can lead to the normalization of surveillance for everyone.
Facebook and Instagram Turn Off AR Filters In Texas and Illinois
Meta has turned off augmented reality filters for Facebook and Instagram in Texas and Illinois due to facial recognition and privacy laws in those states.
Although Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said its AR technology is "not facial recognition" it has decidedc to temporarily shut down its AR filters and avatars in both states to prevent "meritless and distracting litigation."
The decision comes a day after a settlement was reached in an ACLU lawsuit filed in Illinois against Clearview AI, a facial recognition company that was selling its database to private companies.
India’s Restrictive VPN Law Should Be a Warning to Us All
People who subscribe to VPN services will generally be driven by two main factors - privacy and security. However, news developing in India indicates that new directions published by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology seek the power to be able to identify VPN users.
Despite the public backlash, India is pressing ahead with its new cybersecurity rules that will require cloud service providers and VPN operators to maintain names of their customers and their IP addresses.
Indian Customer Sends Notice to Ola Electric for Making Telemetry Data Public
A customer has sent a takedown notice to Ola Electric for publishing the electric two-scooter's telemetry data on social media, after the e-scooter met with an accident in Guwahati, injuring the rider.
Ola said it did a thorough investigation of the accident and the "data clearly shows that the rider was overspeeding throughout the night and that he braked in panic, thereby losing control of the vehicle. There was nothing wrong with the vehicle".
FTC To Set Its Sights on Ed Tech Companies
The US Federal Trade Commission is voting on a measure to warn educational technology companies that the agency will prioritize taking action against children's online privacy violations. Ahead of its meeting, the agency noted the policy statement "makes clear that parents and schools must not be required to sign up for surveillance as a condition of access to tools needed to learn."
The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act requires websites to get parents' consent to collect children's information. Schools can consent on parents' behalf for data collection, but only to use the information for an educational purpose.
New DuckDuckGo Privacy Ad Shows How It Makes Sure Internet Trackers Are DuckDuckGone
Privacy-oriented search engine and browser DuckDuckGo has shared a new ad that highlights how it works to protect users from having their data collected by other companies, including Google.
The new ad, which is similar to one that Apple recently shared about iPhone privacy and data brokers, will air on televisions nationwide across the United States, while a radio component will also be part of the campaign.
Dig Emerges From Stealth To Help Organizations Secure Public Cloud Data
Dig, a Tel Aviv-based cloud data security startup, has emerged from stealth with an $11 million investment to help organizations protect data stored in public cloud environments. The startup claims that unlike unlike existing solutions it analyzes and responds instantly to threats to cloud data, triggering alerts on suspicious or anomalous activity, stopping attacks, data exfiltration, and employee data misuse.
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