Privacy

Edward Snowden’s NSA spying revelations highlighted just how much we have sacrificed to the gods of technology and convenience something we used to take for granted, and once considered a basic human right – our privacy. It is just not just the NSA. Governments the world over are racing to…

Adtech industry body IAB Europe is facing down another data protection complaint from Brave browser bod Johnny Ryan, this time over the all-encompassing cookie wall stalking its site. The complaint, filed today in Ryan’s home nation of Ireland, seeks to win a long-running argument between privacy activists and the tracking…

An interesting decision came out of Poland’s data protection agency this week after the watchdog issued its first fine under Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). On the surface the enforcement doesn’t look so remarkable: A ‘small’ ~€220K fine was handed to a Sweden-headquartered European digital marketing company, Bisnode, which has an…

The RCMP has been quietly running an operation monitoring individuals’ Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media activity for at least two years, The Tyee has learned. The existence of Project Wide Awake has never been reported. And The Tyee investigation revealed that the RCMP has moved from a “reactive”…

What follows is the next chapter of the story in a possible future filled with Data Exchange Networks (DENs) that help us sell our private data. Our protagonist learns that not all security is created equal, and that breaches have consequences. . . . March 25, 2029 How long had it been? Lynn…

It has been brewing for a while. The entire privacy debate has been raging on ever since the explosive Cambridge Analytica data scandal that damaged Facebook’s credibility. Apple has often positioned itself above the rest of the tech companies, when it comes to user data privacy. Just this month, Apple…

The Google subsidiary, Sidewalk Labs, is proposing to create an “innovative urban district” on Toronto’s waterfront to be calledQuayside.1 The goal is to overlay the “physical layer” of urban environment (buildings, streets, vehicles) with a “digital layer” of information reflecting the dynamic activities and interactions within the physical layer. Essential…

WITH SO MUCH of our lives lived online, people have often assumed that the pictures, financial documents, and other sensitive information we store on our password-protected phones and computers are kept private. But every day, it seems there’s a new data breach, or another story about our information being passed around in…

As GDPR ages past its first year, with potential fines up to $9.3 billion hitting the likes of Google, Facebook and Instagram thus far, the rights of consumers and operating dynamics of businesses have shifted, adding complexity to an already challenging business environment. Furthermore, the introduction of new data privacy regulations in California becoming…

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which goes into effect January 1, 2020, is considered the most expansive state privacy law in the United States. Organizations familiar with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which became effective on May 25, 2018, certainly will understand CCPA’s implications. Perhaps the best known comprehensive privacy…