Category: Legislation

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Jail For Car Accident Data Thief

An employee at a vehicle accident repair centre who stole the data of customers and passed it to a company that made nuisance phone calls has been jailed for 6 months following an investigation by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Used Former Co-Worker’s Login To Company Computer The employee of Nationwide Accident Repair Services, Mustafa…
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EU’s Web Copyright Directive Could Spell Trouble

A vote in January on contentious new EU copyright laws could negatively impact tech platforms and all online publishers, create risky legal grey areas for many businesses, stifle freedom of expression, and lead to more surveillance and control. What Copyright Law? There will be a final vote in January 2019 on an EU Directive on…
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New Facebook Rules For Political Ad Transparency In The UK

After the US and Brazil, the UK has become the next country to be subject to Facebook’s new rules that require those who wish to place a political advert on the social media platform to verify their identity and say who is funding the advert. Verification The new rule in the UK means that anyone…
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New Tech Laws For AI Bots & Better Passwords

It may be no surprise to hear that California, home of Silicon Valley, has become the first state to pass laws to make AI bots ‘introduce themselves’ (i.e. identify themselves as bots), and to ban weak default passwords. Other states and countries (including the UK) may follow. Bot Law With more organisations turning to bots…
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Company Fined £150k For Nuisance-Calling People Who Had Opted-Out

Manchester-based Oaklands Assist UK Ltd has been fined £150,000 by the ICO for making approximately 64,000 nuisance direct marketing calls to people who had already opted out of automated marketing. Serious Contravention of UK Law & EC Directive The monetary penalty by the ICO was delivered under section 55A of the Data Protection Act 1998…
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Facebook Hack Keeps Getting Worse

As if the recent Facebook hack of 50 million user accounts that was discovered on 25th September wasn’t bad enough, it became apparent that it could also affect “Facebook Login” service, which allows other apps to use people’s Facebook account to login. What Happened? On Tuesday 25 September, Facebook engineers discovered that hackers had used…
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Find Out What ‘Deep Fakes’ Are and Why They’re A Threat

Deep fakes are digitally manipulated videos that have been created using deep learning technology to make the subject of the video (often a famous person) say anything the video maker wants them to say, even incorporating the style and facial expressions of another person. Example An example here is a video that demonstrates the technique,…
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ICO Highlights Prevalence of GDPR Myths

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has reported taking 500+ calls per week reporting GDPR data breaches, but one-third of the calls appear to be based on myths and misunderstandings or over-reporting about GDPR matters. Update After Freedom of Information Request The update by the ICO about how things appear to be going just three months…
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Microsoft Launches ‘AccountGuard’ Email Service For Election Candidates

A new kind of pilot secure email service called ‘AccountGuard’ has been launched by Microsoft, specifically for use by election candidates, and as one answer to the kind of interference that took place during the last US presidential election campaign. Ready For The Midterm Elections The new, free email service (which people must useOffice 365…
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BA Security Fallout

Skimming The hack that took place on 21st August and caused disruption into September is now believed to be down to the injection of a digital skimming file designed to steal financial data from the online payment forms of BA’s website and app. The small skimming file, which was discovered by a cyber-security firm RiskIQ,…
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