While one might think that health care providers are the primary entities that could potentially leak, share, or exploit private patient data, the truth is that the most audacious HIPAA violations are being perpetrated every day by Big Tech.
Privacy rules do for enterprise what enterprise won’t do for itself. Asking Big Tech to take the high road even when it hurts their profits is like asking dental patients to pull their own teeth. As long as policymakers delay robust data regulations, there aren’t any rules for Big Tech to break.
Apple's privacy policy changes have already cost other big tech firms nearly $10 billion in lost ad revenue. Research firm Lotame reports that Snap, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have lost a combined $9.85 billion thus far in the third and fourth quarters.
The biggest names in Big Tech are about to be subject to a new investigation. The CFPB wants to look over their handling of payment data, as a means of providing better protections against things like fraud and data breaches.
House Democrats are looking to put reins on Big Tech through legislative means. A proposed $1 billion addition to the $3.5 trillion economic package would go to the FTC for the purposes of establishing a digital division.
New executive order from the Biden administration, containing a broad package of measures from "right to repair" to renewed scrutiny of major mergers, aims to curtail anti-competitive practices among the Big Tech players.
Some of the biggest names in Big Tech may be considering pulling out of Hong Kong. The reason is a recently-implemented "doxxing" privacy law developed in the wake of the 2019 pro-democracy protests.
Popular ride-sharing app Didi is the latest Big Tech target of the CCP, suspended from app stores for violating the country's data protection rules until it makes changes to its user data collection processes.
Recent ruling by the CJEU has given the region's data protection authorities a much greater ability to pursue cases against Big Tech companies that are not headquartered in their territory.
Big Tech may be facing a special “data tax” in the state of New York which would apply to any company collecting and selling personal data, with the proceeds earmarked for digital literacy.
