All news with #gdpr tag

🔐 The Council of Europe has authorized the European Commission and EU member states to sign the United Nations Convention against Cybercrime, adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 2024, which sets common global standards for cybercrime and the cross-border exchange of electronic evidence. The treaty requires harmonization of criminal offenses, including computer fraud, illegal interception and measures targeting online child sexual abuse, grooming and non-consensual dissemination of intimate images, while including explicit safeguards to protect human rights. The Convention will be open for signature from October 25, 2025 until December 31, 2026 and enters into force ninety days after the fortieth ratification; the EU Presidency will prioritize finalizing a Council decision to enable conclusion of the instrument and seek the European Parliament's consent.

⚖️ A German consumer association has launched a model declaratory action against Meta after data from more than 530 million Facebook users was posted on the dark web in April 2021. The Federation of German Consumer Organisations argues Meta failed to protect user data and to inform affected people adequately. Plaintiffs seek tiered compensation of €100–€600 and the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court will first address jurisdictional and formal matters in the hearing.

🔐 The author contends that cyber risk failures are often architectural and cultural, not purely technological, and argues for an ongoing cyber risk management process integrated with information security governance. He outlines a practical, strategic recipe—stakeholder mapping, framework selection (e.g., NIST CSF, ISO 27001), KPIs/KRIs, asset and threat assessments, and guardrails for cloud and generative AI workloads. The piece stresses building a mature risk culture, aligning GRC with the CISO role, enforcing technical controls and secure development practices (SAST/DAST/SCA), and running tabletop exercises to improve resilience and compliance with laws such as GDPR, CCPA and LGPD.

🔒 As enterprises accelerate AI and cloud adoption, selecting the right AI Security Posture Management (AI-SPM) solution is critical. The article presents five core questions to guide procurement: does the product deliver centralized visibility into models, datasets, and infrastructure; can it detect and remediate AI-specific risks like adversarial attacks, data leakage, and bias; and does it map to regulatory standards such as GDPR and NIST AI? It also stresses cloud-native scalability and seamless integration with DSPM, DLP, identity platforms, DevOps toolchains, and AI services to ensure proactive policy enforcement and audit readiness.

⚖️ The ICO has confirmed that Imgur’s decision to block UK access does not absolve the company from scrutiny over alleged past data protection breaches. The regulator issued a notice of intent to fine parent company MediaLab on 10 September and says its findings are provisional while the investigation continues. The concerns relate to potential breaches of the Age Appropriate Design Code, including failures to request or verify ages, lack of high-privacy defaults for children, and serving targeted adverts to minors. The ICO stressed that exiting the UK market is a commercial choice and does not prevent regulatory action for prior infringements.

🛡️ Cyber Risk Assessments enable CISOs to quantify enterprise cyber risk and demonstrate the impact of security work. They uncover vulnerabilities across infrastructure, networks and cloud data, helping teams prioritize remediation and allocate resources where they matter most. Assessments also support compliance with regulations such as GDPR and PCI DSS, delivering actionable reports that document progress for management.

⚖️ The Irish government has appointed Niamh Sweeney as a member of the Data Protection Commission, the authority that leads EU oversight of major technology companies. The appointment has drawn strong criticism from privacy organization Noyb, which highlights Sweeney’s previous role as a lobbyist for Meta. Critics, including Max Schrems, argue this raises questions about impartiality and potential regulatory capture. As recently as December, the DPC fined Meta €251 million for breaches of GDPR, a fact cited by opponents of the appointment.

🔒 Three French regional healthcare agencies (ARS) have reported similar cyber-attacks that exposed patients’ personal data held on regional systems. Preliminary investigations, announced on September 8, indicate attackers gained access by impersonating healthcare professionals and used those accounts to reach GRADeS-managed services such as Normand'e-Santé. Reported exposed PII includes full names, ages, phone numbers and email addresses, while the agencies say no clinical health records appear to have been compromised. Compromised accounts were disabled, additional protections deployed, potentially affected patients will be notified and incidents have been reported to CNIL.

⚖ The French data protection authority CNIL has fined Google €325 million for placing advertising cookies and showing ads in Gmail's 'Promotions' and 'Social' tabs without valid user consent after investigations in 2022–2023. CNIL found Google failed to inform new account holders that accepting advertising cookies was required to access services, breaching Article L.34-5 and the French Data Protection Act (Article 82). The authority said the cookie-related practices affected over 74 million accounts (53 million individuals saw the ads), described the conduct as negligent and cited prior sanctions; it also fined Shein €150 million the same day for separate cookie violations.

⚖️ The French data protection authority, CNIL, has fined Google €325 million ($379 million) and Shein €150 million ($175 million) for placing advertising cookies without valid consent. CNIL found users were nudged to accept personalized ad cookies during Google account creation and that information remained unclear even after an opt-out option was added in October 2023. The regulator also said targeted ads placed inside Gmail's Promotions and Social tabs required explicit consent under the CPCE. Shein has updated systems and plans to appeal; Google must comply within six months or face €100,000-per-day penalties.

🔒 A growing majority of CISOs report being pressured to hide breaches, with a Bitdefender survey finding 69% instructed to keep incidents confidential, up from 42% two years earlier. Security leaders say attackers increasingly prioritize stealthy data theft rather than disruptive encryption, making breaches less visible to the public. Regulatory regimes such as GDPR, NIS2 and DORA complicate disclosure decisions, while experts warn that concealment multiplies legal, financial and reputational risk and recommend robust, transparent incident response plans.

⚖️ The European Court of Justice's General Court has dismissed a legal challenge seeking to annul the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (DPF), finding that, at the time of adoption, US law ensured an adequate level of protection for personal data transferred from the EU. Negotiated in July 2023, the DPF now stands as the main mechanism for transatlantic data flows, providing immediate relief to the European Commission and many businesses. Critics including Max Schrems and advocacy group NOYB have signalled likely appeals, meaning the ruling may not be the final word and legal uncertainty could continue.

🔒 EuroDaT, a state-owned data trustee, built safeAML with major German banks to enable controlled, pseudonymous transaction matching while preserving GDPR compliance. The cloud-native service runs on Google Cloud and Google Kubernetes Engine, using infrastructure-as-code, isolated VPCs and auditable processing so EuroDaT never accesses personal-data content. By letting banks request targeted supplementary information, safeAML accelerates suspicious-activity checks, reduces false positives and lays groundwork for wider use in ESG and health data sharing.

🛡️ Data brokers compile extensive personal dossiers and sell them without consent. This guide explains the challenges of locating and removing your information, outlines typical data collected, and describes practical steps to submit opt-out or deletion requests. It recommends tracking requests in a spreadsheet, citing laws like CCPA or GDPR, and repeating removals every 3–6 months or using paid services.

📄 A Thai hospital was fined after more than 1,000 patient records, sent for destruction, were found being used as street-food wrappers for crispy crepes. Thailand’s Personal Data Protection Committee (PDPC) determined the documents leaked following handling by a contracted disposal firm that stored them at a private residence. The hospital was fined 1.21 million baht and the disposal business owner received a separate penalty. The episode highlights failures in secure disposal and vendor oversight.

🔍 This report details UpGuard's review of publicly downloadable development repositories from data analytics firm AggregateIQ, which contained source code, WordPress backups, database exports, and credentials tied to multiple UK political sites. The exposed repositories appear to link AIQ to web assets for several pro-Brexit groups and campaigns. Sensitive items found include API tokens, payment keys, and admin accounts that, if abused, could grant access to live systems and supporter data. The report highlights misconfiguration and credential management failures with potential regulatory consequences under GDPR.