Author: Tyler King

The Government Accountability Office released an article describing the lack of a federal data privacy law and the effect this has on the data privacy of American citizens. Consumers are almost always left out of the data collection loop. There is a lack of transparency in consumer data collection and sale. Consumers are often uninformed about what data is being collected and the validity of the data being attributed to them. The GAO believes that federal legislation governing data privacy and consumer rights will help protect consumers against companies that profit from their data. Full story

Recently there has been a U.S. Senate hearing regarding the legislative regulation of AI. This comes after months of AI breakthroughs and the fast-paced public rollout of AI tools. Snapchat has an AI chatbot you can talk to, Spotify has an AI DJ that combs through your past listening history and finds the music you will like, and Bing implemented its AI tools into Microsoft Edge, just to name a few. These tools all use your personal data to train their models and provide you with a personalized experience. While this seems novel and interesting, it can be a real…

New York Attorney General Letitia James has released a guide to help businesses protect consumers’ data. The guide does not go into specific details regarding data privacy practices, but it does discuss major topics and broad areas of interest. Guide to help businesses adopt effective data security measures. Full story

As organizations increase their digital presence, creating and maintaining data has become an ever-increasing struggle for IT security professionals. With AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning) advances, IT professionals can leverage technology to help monitor and secure their organization’s data. Many companies provide SaaS ML tools to scan data, manage permissions, and monitor data access and activity. Large ML algorithms can spot suspicious activity and notify IT security teams. Utilizing ML tools and automation can drastically increase data security and the efficacy of IT security teams’ resources. Full story

Data privacy within an organization is directly linked to that organization’s cyber security. Without being cyber-secure, data cannot be secure. Mobile Threat Defense Software (MTD) is a tool that can be used to monitor mobile devices and alert cyber professionals of any suspicious activity that might lead to or signal an ongoing cyber attack. When implemented across an organization, cyber professionals can utilize MTDs to protect a large and risky sector of any organization’s digital surface, mobile devices. This can be a big step toward becoming cyber secure and maintaining data privacy. Full story

These past few months have seen AI develop at an incredible pace. ChatGPT has allowed the general public to directly interact with a complex AI capable of outputting humanlike text responses to prompts. While most use ChatGPT as a novel piece of entertainment or a means of inspiration, some have found ways to use it for malice. Those with malintent can utilize ChatGPT to generate emails for phishing campaigns and write malware. ChatGPT has given people, with no experience in coding or social engineering, the capability to conduct fraud on a massive scale. The threats, just mentioned, are not the…

The FTC has requested a $160 million budget increase for next year. The FTC claims it will use the money to fight for consumers’ data privacy rights. Following the investigation into telehealth companies’ poor data privacy practices, this fight has been brought to the forefront of the data privacy community (More here). The FTC hopes that the increase in funding will translate to the increased enforcement of data privacy regulations and the continued investigation into the impact of telehealth organizations on consumers’ data privacy. Full story

California has recently passed a bill setting new regulations on companies providing online services to children. This bill attempts to tackle the issue of companies collecting and selling the data of minors, yet some of its solutions have caused opposition. The notable arguments being made against the bill are its vague clauses leaving companies with liabilities, its unrealistic means of verifying age, its implications on the first amendment rights of individuals, and its contradiction to a pre-existing federal bill on child data privacy. This matter has been taken to court, where a U.S. district court judge will make a ruling…

Many of the world’s largest social media and tech companies are based in the U.S. Almost all of those companies handle data from users outside of the U.S. The proposed EU-US Data Privacy Framework would extend the data privacy rights of E.U. citizens to companies inside the U.S. This would add yet another layer of complexity to U.S. data privacy regulations. The European Commission recommends rejecting the proposed legislation, stating it does not comply with the E.U.’s General Data Protection Regulation. Full story

In the state of the union last week, President Biden expressed his concern over data privacy issues in the U.S.  He pleaded with congress to enact legislation that protects Americans’ data privacy. President Biden specifically asked for “comprehensive privacy and data security protections with one national standard that stops Big Tech’s harmful abuse of power.” Many in the data privacy field have wondered if such a bill will ever be passed to match the EU’s GDPR. It seems as though a new injection of energy has been introduced into this issue. Full story