DoorDash has settled an ongoing investigation by the California Department of Justice after Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the company had committed privacy violations under the terms of the CCPA. In addition to paying a $375,000 civil fine, the food delivery giant will be subject to additional CCPA enforcement terms going forward.
Data Protection
Certain types of personal data are very valuable to criminals, and can be very damaging to an individual or business if it falls into the wrong hands. As the world becomes more digital and more connected, more of this sort of data is generated and passed between various sources on a regular basis.
Government regulations and supervisory authorities aren’t just about keeping irresponsible parties in line. They also provide vital security guidance to every type of organization that handles sensitive personal, business or government information.
Data protection regulations also ensure that the end user has a transparent view of and a say in the processing of personal data. These safeguards play a significant role in everything from the preservation of civil rights to ensuring that democratic institutions function properly.
Some types of personal data are clear candidates for regulation: medical records, banking information, national ID numbers and so on. But some of these regulations also cover items that might seem relatively innocuous at first glance: home addresses, email addresses, website profile information and so on. For example, the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has stipulations about anything that is unique to an individual to include phone numbers and social media accounts. People have varying levels of privacy preference with these items, but they are often protected by regulation because they can be used for targeted scams and attempts at identity theft.
Given that regulations often take the size and customer count of businesses into consideration in terms of penalties and the scope of protection of personal data, compliance is particularly important for enterprise-scale organizations. You do not necessarily have to have an active business presence in a country or region; simply storing data on or moving it through servers there may subject you to their data protection rules.
A new report gave almost half of the 14 states that have laws on the books a failing grade and notes that industry lobbying influence on state data privacy laws has been very strong. California is the only state with a model that was not originally drafted by a big tech outfit.
The coalition suggests that if privacy regulators sign off on Meta’s ad-free scheme, it will immediately be adopted by every other service that monetizes via personalized advertising. That could undo a great deal of the work GDPR decisions have done.
The privacy lawsuit dates all the way back to 2018, when Google internally discovered that the Google+ API was being abused. The privacy lawsuit has now been settled for $350 million, after a lengthy appeals process played out.
Amazon was penalized for excessive employee monitoring, insufficient data minimization, and failing to meet transparency and security requirements. Much of the GDPR fine centers on the hand scanners that are issued to warehouse employees.
The EU’s recent negotiated agreement over the A.I. Act is one of the world’s first comprehensive attempts to govern the use of AI. Enforcement won’t kick in until 2025, but IT leaders are already trying to stay ahead lest they risk falling behind.
noyb's GDPR complaint asserts Meta’s privacy fee makes it impossible for existing service users to withdraw consent without paying. That in turn flies in the face of a GDPR stipulation (found in Article 7).
A recent change to its EU terms of service and an email sent out to some ChatGPT users indicates that OpenAI is now formally under the watch of the Irish DPC in terms of its responsibility to EU data privacy regulations.
The Google privacy lawsuit was first filed in 2020, and had been scheduled to go before the District Court on February 5. It is now on pause as the lawyers prepare a binding term sheet. Claimants are seeking a total of at least $5 billion.
The FTC’s new COPPA amendments would bolster children's privacy by further restricting how companies can collect, use and monetize the data of underage users, shifting a greater deal of responsibility for privacy online to service providers.