ChatGPT, is now allowing users to disable chat history. However, any prior conversations remain logged and available to the company's AI models, and chats will still be retained for 30 days before deletion in order to "fight abuse."
Data Privacy
Technological development has always outpaced privacy concerns, but never more so than in the past decade. Collection and centralization of personally identifiable information (PII), tracking of movements and digital surveillance are all at unprecedented levels. Regulations and laws are only just beginning to catch up to the ability of both governments and private entities to deploy these capabilities.
What exactly is there to worry about? The mass collection and centralization of data by giant multinationals such as Facebook and Google is as good of a place to start as any. Two decades of vacuuming up the personal data of users of various online services has created the most impressive marketing capabilities in history, but these profiles have astounding potential for damage when they are used the wrong way or fall into the wrong hands.
Unauthorized information that is captured in data breaches tends to find its way to massive “combo lists” that are sold and traded on the dark web. Social security numbers are added from this breach, home addresses and phone numbers from that one, personal health information from yet another. Soon, a frighteningly complete profile of millions of individuals is available to anyone willing to pay the asking price.
These are just the established data privacy issues. The emerging ones are even worse. High-quality facial recognition technology is just beginning to roll out across the public places of some countries. Artificial intelligence is not only making mass facial recognition possible, but magnifies the power and reach of any application that involves capturing and sorting information: scanning pictures, analyzing speech, sifting through text and location data. This threatens to not only shatter anonymity and privacy, but allow for highly advanced impersonation and take the concept of “identity theft” to new levels.
Some businesses chafe at the trouble and added expense of new and emerging data privacy regulations, but they are vital to both protecting rights and privacy and instilling confidence in end users. Customers want to be able to submit their payment information without worry about data breaches and identity theft, use services without wondering what is being done with their personal information and use devices without fear of surveillance or having location data tracked. The need for meaningful safeguards only grows greater as technological capabilities increase.
French data regulator CNIL has hit tech giants Google and Amazon with some heavy penalties for placing non-essential tracking cookies. Google will pay €100 million and Amazon will pay €35 million.
Google Chrome's new privacy tools for controlling online tracking and Brave's new model for sharing 70% of ad revenues with users are raising concerns for ad platforms.
The future of data is not about how much we collect, but how ethically it is used and how we can realistically safeguard it so that we get the best out of AI without violating data privacy tenets.
The most coveted of privacy job positions are those in-house with many professionals set on becoming corporate privacy officer. Hear what made Dan Pepper take the uncommon route to become a big law privacy partner instead.
New research study suggests that even deleting your accounts might not be enough to protect your social media privacy. Using machine learning algorithms, your “friends” activities can create some startlingly accurate profiles about you.
A privacy class action against Google that was dismissed in 2022 has been given new life by an appeals court. Privacy lawsuit says Chrome Sync feature collected personal information from those that chose to opt out of it, ignoring their preference to separate their Google accounts from their activity in the Chrome browser.
Arising concerns that Amazon Ring might use its Ring doorbells product to create a gigantic surveillance network through existing 400 partnerships with local police departments and law enforcement agencies.
Thoughtful regulatory framework combined with industry led initiatives will give consumers transparency and control, while enabling businesses to bring new products and services to market without excessive fear around unclear or overbearing regulations.
Instead of using cookies, IAB Tech Lab is proposing web tracking technologies through one centralized token that follows users around the web to track browsing habits and privacy preferences.







