Privacy Rights

Messaging applications Telegram and Signal see impressive user growth in the wake of confusion over updated terms of service notification from Facebook-owned encrypted messaging service WhatsApp.

Telegram said on Wednesday it had surpassed 500 million active users globally, while Signal took the number 1 spot on both Google Play Store and Apple App Store's top free apps lists this week.

Brian Acton, who co-founded WhatsApp before selling it to Facebook and then co-founding the Signal Foundation, told Reuters that "We’ve seen unprecedented growth this past week." He also said Signal was working to improve its video and group chat functions, allowing it to compete better with WhatsApp, Microsoft Teams, and other conferencing apps that have become vital to day-to-day life over the past year. Privacy advocates have jumped on the WhatsApp changes, pointing to what they say is Facebook's poor track record of supporting consumers' interests when handling their data, with many suggesting users migrate to other platforms.

The State Commissioner for Data Protection (LfD) of Lower Saxony Barbara Thiel has imposed a fine of 10.4 million euros on the electronics retailer notebooksbilliger.de (NBB). In addition, the company had cooperated closely with the LfD in the proceedings, which had been ongoing since 2017, "in order to ensure full compliance with the GDPR, also from the point of view of the authority". According to surveys from 2018, the company notebooksbilliger.de from the small town of Sarstedt in Lower Saxony is the online electronics retailer with the highest turnover in Germany, ahead of Mediamarkt.de, Saturn.de or Alternate.

German privacy advocates warn against the creeping use of surveillance systems to identify people. Not only in retail but also in football stadiums, developers are already experimenting with automatic systems for recognizing the implementation of the mask-wearing requirement and for temperature measurement.

These systems could potentially encourage a faster return to "everyday life", but at the same time, there are doubts about the actual implementation due to the General Data Protection Regulation (DSGVO). The data collected here can fall under the so-called health data, which are subject to special protection. In the case of sensitive data of this kind, the person concerned would also need to have given their explicit consent; implicit consent to purchase the tickets would not be sufficient.

In an effort to avoid the EU's privacy laws, Facebook will move all of its users in the United Kingdom into user agreements with the corporate headquarters in California. Google has done a similar move in February. 

"Like other companies, Facebook has had to make changes to respond to Brexit and will be transferring legal responsibilities and obligations for UK users from Facebook Ireland to Facebook Inc. There will be no change to the privacy controls or the services Facebook offers to people in the UK," so Facebook's UK arm.

The French data protection authority Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) is imposing a record fine on Google - for the second time. This time the dispute is over web cookies. Amazon is also expected to pay 35 million euros.

According to the CNIL, Google is being accused of "placing advertising cookies on the computers of users of the google.fr search engine without prior consent and without adequate information." A total of three violations of Article 82 of the so-called French Data Protection Act have been identified, the authority reports.

According to a request under the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act filed by the Mercury Tribune, the Guelph Police Service (GPS) has confirmed that a device called GrayKey has been acquired from the Atlanta-based technology company Grayshift.

The device enables low enforcement to unlock and copy data on iPhones. GPS stated in the letter that the GrayKey device "is used only by our technological crimes detectives" but that the agency has no internal policy or procedural documents and that no usage guidelines have been issued.

According to an article by Motherboard (Vice) the magazine has observed both the Android and iOS versions of the Muslim Pro app sending granular location data to the X-Mode endpoint multiple times.

X-Mode is a company that obtains location data directly from apps, then sells that data to contractors, and by extension, the military. Motherboard has used public records, interviews with developers, and technical analysis to discover the connection that the military uses data from X-Mode.

Google on Thursday was sued for allegedly stealing Android users' cellular data allowances though unapproved, undisclosed transmissions to the web giant's servers.

The complaint contends that Google is using Android users' limited cellular data allowances without permission to transmit information about those individuals that's unrelated to their use of Google services.

The European Union wants to introduce restrictions on the sale abroad of technologies used for espionage and surveillance. This is reported by "Politico" with reference to informed persons. In the future, facial recognition systems and hacking programs will require a license to be sold outside of the Union. Governments would also have to publish details of the exact nature of the licenses granted to individual companies.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has decided that a comprehensive and flat-rate storage of Internet and telephone connection data is not permissible. Exceptions are only possible when it is a matter of combating serious crime or the specific case of a threat to national security, the ECJ announced in a ruling on Tuesday.

Hamburg’s data protection commissioner has stated that H&M in Nuremberg had collected private information about employees including family issues and religious beliefs. The data had been collected on a network drive and had been accessible for up to 50 managers. The incident got public when the data had been briefly visible for all people on the network.

H&M has been fined €35.3 million and the company stated that the practices uncovered in Nuremberg did not align with the guidelines of the company.

Police forces across Ontario engaged in broad, illegal searches of a now-defunct Covid-19 database, two civil rights groups alleged Wednesday, claiming the use of the portal violated individual privacy rights for months.

Following an announcement of Facebook Ireland's head of data protection Yvonne Cunnane, it is not clear how the company "could continue to provide the Facebook and Instagram services in the EU" following a preliminary order to stop the data transfer of European customers to servers based in the United States.

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) had voiced concerns over possible surveillance of the data by the United States government.

After an approximately one-year trial period the facial recognition system of the Ministry of the Interior of Austria has went into regular operation.

According to the ministry the system has been used 581 times so far and 83 criminal suspects have been identified by the software.

The National Security Agency program that swept up details on billions of Americans' phone calls was illegal and possibly unconstitutional, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

TikTok announced Thursday it would invest €420million in establishing a data centre in Ireland. The company states all European user data will be stored in this new location when the data centre is operational in early 2022.

In a press release, the company states: "Protecting our community's privacy and data is and will continue to be our priority. Today's announcement is just the latest part of our ongoing work to enhance our global capability and efforts to protect our users and the TikTok community."

GEDmatch, a DNA analysis site, confirmed Wednesday that a permission change caused a breach that allowed law enforcement agents to search user's DNA information.

The site has an option that allows users to select if their DNA is to be included in police searches, but users reported on Sunday those settings had changed without their permission.

The company send an email to its users, stating: "We became aware of the situation a short time later and immediately took the site down. As a result of the breach, all user permissions were reset, making all profiles visible to all users,"

"This was the case for approximately 3 hours. During this time, users who did not opt-in for law enforcement matching were also available for law enforcement matching, and conversely, all law enforcement profiles were made visible to GEDmatch users."

The social network platform TikTok has been fined around $154.000 for mishandling data of children in South Korea. According to the Korea Communications Commission that issued the fine, the data of children under 14 years old has been collected without the required consent of their legal guardians.

In addition to the collection, the data had been transferred overseas without the permission or disclosure to the users.

The Independent reports that public records show exports of security technology from the United Kingdom to repressive regimes despite rules to prevent it. Security technology such as wiretaps, spyware and other telecommunications interception equipment shouldn't be exported to regimes that might use them for internal repression purposes.

Public records show that despite the rules exports worth £75 million have been approved to 17 countries including China, Saudia Arabia, the United Arba Emirates and Bahrain. All 17 states have been rated "not free" by the Non-Governmental Organisation Freedom House.

Following the enactment of a new security law in Hong Kong, Facebook and its messaging service WhatsApp are suspending government requests for user data in Hong Kong.

A spokesperson from WhatsApp said that they are pausing such requests pending further assessment of the impact of the national security law, including formal human rights due diligence and consultations with human rights experts.