• Aug 31, 2023
  • Glyn Moody
  • Censorship, General Privacy News, Governments, Online Privacy, Social Media, Surveillance,

What Does the EU’s Far-Reaching New Digital Services Act Mean for Privacy Worldwide?

The Digital Services Act (DSA) is a major new EU law with the potential to be as influential globally as the 2016 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It aims to end the current era of weak self-regulation, and to force companies to actively tackle some of the internet’s more harmful aspects. It includes rules to ensure … Continue reading “What Does the EU’s Far-Reaching New Digital Services Act Mean for Privacy Worldwide?”

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  • Apr 28, 2022
  • Glyn Moody
  • Censorship, Copyright, General Privacy News, Social Media, Surveillance,

How New Copyright Laws Threaten Privacy and Freedom of Speech

There’s a new US bill that everyone in the privacy world should know about — it goes by the name of “Strengthening Measures to Advance Rights Technologies Copyright Act of 2022” or the “SMART Copyright Act of 2022” for short. Although the bill is mostly geared toward tackling copyright infringement, the way it does so … Continue reading “How New Copyright Laws Threaten Privacy and Freedom of Speech”

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  • Aug 9, 2021
  • Glyn Moody
  • General Privacy News, Governments, Social Media, Surveillance,

Shenzhen, the Silicon Valley of Hardware, Sets a Global Standard with China’s Toughest Local Privacy Law

For many Westerners, China is a country associated with widespread surveillance, stringent censorship, and human rights abuses in regions such as Hong Kong and Xinjiang. Despite that, the Chinese government is well aware that the country’s billion Internet users care deeply about personal privacy, and has been steadily introducing surprisingly strong data protection laws to … Continue reading “Shenzhen, the Silicon Valley of Hardware, Sets a Global Standard with China’s Toughest Local Privacy Law”

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  • May 25, 2021
  • Glyn Moody
  • Censorship, Encryption, General Privacy News, Governments, Social Media, Surveillance,

How data minimization can protect privacy and reduce the harms of collecting personal information

It’s no secret that many companies and governments try to collect as much personal information as possible. This might be because they believe this will improve the results of their analyses, or simply “just in case” they need something at a later date. According to a new paper from the digital rights organization, Access Now, … Continue reading “How data minimization can protect privacy and reduce the harms of collecting personal information”

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  • May 20, 2021
  • Glyn Moody
  • General Privacy News, Governments, Social Media, Surveillance,

Better than the EU’s GDPR? China’s new privacy law includes a rule for handling personal information after death

Back in January, Privacy News Online wrote about China’s important new privacy legislation, the Personal Information Protection Law. That post concentrated on the law’s extraterritorial reach, and its likely impact on non-Chinese companies, and referred to the first draft of the law. The second version has just been released, and an article on the Protocol … Continue reading “Better than the EU’s GDPR? China’s new privacy law includes a rule for handling personal information after death”

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  • Nov 19, 2020
  • Glyn Moody
  • General Privacy News, Governments,

Canada unveils its new privacy legislation – with even bigger fines than the GDPR

As this blog has frequently noted, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) plays a crucial role in the privacy world. It not only creates protections for privacy online in the EU, it also provides a role model for other countries looking to implement privacy laws of their own. It shows that this complex area … Continue reading “Canada unveils its new privacy legislation – with even bigger fines than the GDPR”

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  • Nov 2, 2020
  • Glyn Moody
  • Censorship, General Privacy News, Governments, Surveillance,

Abusive surveillance in the name of public health is a widespread problem around the world, new report says

When Privacy News Online first wrote about Covid-19, in February, we noted that it would touch on key concerns of this blog: freedom of speech, surveillance and privacy. Already by March, it was becoming clear that the actions taken by governments to deal with the pandemic posed a serious threat in that regard. Since then, … Continue reading “Abusive surveillance in the name of public health is a widespread problem around the world, new report says”

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  • Aug 12, 2020
  • Glyn Moody
  • General Privacy News, Governments, Surveillance,

Court finds UK police use of facial recognition technology breaches privacy rights, data protection laws and equality laws

Automated facial recognition has emerged as one of the most problematic technologies for privacy. That’s reflected in the increasing number of posts on this blog dealing with the issues it raises. Of particular concern is police use. The UK has been in the vanguard here, as has the pushback by privacy campaigners. A year ago … Continue reading “Court finds UK police use of facial recognition technology breaches privacy rights, data protection laws and equality laws”

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  • Sep 21, 2017
  • Glyn Moody
  • Cybersecurity, General Privacy News,

Opening the black boxes: algorithmic bias and the need for accountability

Here on Privacy News Online we’ve written a number of stories about the privacy implications of DNA. There’s an important case going through the Californian courts at the moment that involves DNA and privacy, but whose ramifications go far beyond those issues: “In this case, a defendant was linked to a series of rapes by … Continue reading “Opening the black boxes: algorithmic bias and the need for accountability”

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  • Jul 3, 2017
  • Glyn Moody
  • General Privacy News, Governments, Surveillance,

Our surveillance future: pervasive, continuous facial recognition from wandering robo-cars and hovering drones

Last month, Privacy News Online wrote about the first arrest by UK police using an automatic facial recognition system mounted on a vehicle to scan people in a crowd. But things move quickly in the world of surveillance technologies: the police in Dubai have announced that they will be deploying facial recognition systems mounted on … Continue reading “Our surveillance future: pervasive, continuous facial recognition from wandering robo-cars and hovering drones”

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