Tag: privacy

• Monday, March 1st 2021 - 08:34 UTC

  Facebook will pay US$ 650 million for illegally collecting biometric data to identify faces

  

  A US federal judge has given final approval to Facebook's US$650 million payment to settle a privacy dispute between the California group and 1.6 million users in the US state of Illinois. The decision was issued on Friday.

• Tuesday, June 23rd 2020 - 06:55 UTC

  Google unit workers petition the company to stop selling services to police departments

  

  More than 1,600 workers at Alphabet Inc are petitioning its Google unit to stop selling email and other services to police departments. The workers in a petition expressed disappointment with Google not joining the “millions who want to defang and defund” police departments.

• Thursday, April 16th 2020 - 10:44 UTC

  Tracking technology with Smartphone software questioned by US senator fearing privacy violation

  

  Smartphone software makers Alphabet's Google and Apple will have to convince the public that any contact tracking technology to track who has been exposed to the new coronavirus will not lead to a violation of their privacy, Senator Richard Blumenthal said on Wednesday.

• Wednesday, February 19th 2020 - 06:45 UTC

  Colombia orders Facebook to strengthen security measures to protect users personal data

  

  Colombia issued an ultimatum to Facebook, telling the Silicon Valley-based tech giant it must strengthen its security measures to better protect users' personal data in the Andean country.

• Tuesday, December 31st 2019 - 12:20 UTC

  Brazil fines Facebook for breach of privacy involving some 443.000 users

  

  Brazil's government imposed a 6.6 million real (US$ 1.5 million) fine on Facebook and its local unit for its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The fine is tied to Facebook's unlawful sharing of data from its users in Brazil, Brazil's justice ministry said in a statement posted on its website Monday.

• Tuesday, September 10th 2019 - 09:45 UTC

  Facebook faces major lawsuit for allowing third parties access to users private data

  

  A US federal judge on Monday ordered Facebook Inc to face most of a nationwide lawsuit seeking damages for letting third parties such as Cambridge Analytica access users' private data, calling the social media company's views on privacy “so wrong.”

• Friday, August 9th 2019 - 08:39 UTC

  Luxembourg questions Amazon for information on Alexa voice assistant

  

  Luxembourg's privacy regulator has asked Amazon for information regarding its Alexa voice assistant, an indication of rising regulatory unease over companies' use of personal data.

• Thursday, April 25th 2019 - 08:59 UTC

  Facebook profits and users rising, but company will set aside US$ 3bn for US FTC investigation into privacy practices

  

  Facebook has said it will set aside US$ 3bn to cover the potential costs of an investigation by US authorities into its privacy practices. While it has provided for a heavy toll from the investigation by the US Federal Trade Commission, the final cost could be US$ 5bn, it said.

• Friday, April 12th 2019 - 01:24 UTC

  Again Amazon, Apple and Google could be infringing customers' privacy with voice reviewers

  

  Amazon, Apple and Google all employ staffs who listen to customer voice recordings from their smart speakers and voice assistant apps. News site Bloomberg highlighted the topic after speaking to Amazon staff who “reviewed” Alexa recordings.

• Tuesday, December 18th 2018 - 09:31 UTC

  Twitter warns on a “bug-in-help-form” and unusual activity from China and Saudi Arabia

  

  Twitter has warned of “unusual activity” from China and Saudi Arabia related to a bug in a help form. The bug - discovered on 15 November and fixed the day after - could have revealed the country code of users' phone numbers or if their account was locked, the company said.