Welcome back to another addition to my monthly news roundup, where I gather a list of privacy-related news that I found throughout the month. There was an assortment of news, but some of the biggest headlines I caught dealt with facial recognition and Big Tech (especially Meta) taking some major hits. Let's get into it.
1.) Google agrees to delete data from incognito mode - Link
2.) Apple's privacy promise is actually misleading - Link / Additional Link
3.) Mozilla partners up with private French search engine Qwant - Link
4.) Inter-American Court finds that Colombia violated human rights of lawyers defending activists - Link
5.) AT&T is facing a lawsuit over dark web data breach that affected 73 million - Link
6.) AT&T is now saying it was 51.2 million data leak, not 73 million - Link
7.) Proton acquires Standard Notes, an encrypted note taking application - Link
8.) Italy is considering law against โsharentingโ to protect children's privacy - Link
9.) U.S. Insurers are using drones to drop home insurance policies - Link
10.) U.S. hospital websites are sharing data with Google, Microsoft, Meta, and data brokers - Link
11.) UK ministers are considering a proposal that bans smartphones for those under 16 - Link
12.) England and Wales are investing in facial recognition tools to crackdown on shoplifting - Link
13.) DuckDuckGo releases "Privacy Pro" their 3 in 1 subscription plan to protect online privacy - Link
14.) OpenTable, a restaurant reservation service, will now add names to previously anonymous reviews - Link
15.) OpenTable will not add names to anonymous reviews after backlash - Link
16.) Alternative browsers are reporting increasing usage as a result of EU's DMA law - Link
17.) WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum leaves Facebook after fighting over data privacy - Link
18.) What Apple's upcoming ios 18 could mean for data privacy - Link
19.) Google discontinues their VPN service - Link
20.) Electronic Frontier Foundation is fighting facial recognition technology - Link / Additional Link
21.) Ad blockers can help stop government spyware - Link
22.) Cisco Duo says that third-party data breach exposed SMS MFA logs - Link
23.) Tuta Blog: U.S. Congress is saying itโs a crime if you want privacy - Link
24.) U.S. government relies too much on Microsoft - Link
25.) YouTube is putting third party add blocking apps on notice - Link
26.) Japan threatens Big Tech companies with hefty fines for law breaking App Store monopolies - Link
27.) Sweden's public sector is ditching Big Tech - Link
28.) Meta to temporarily close down Threads in Turkey to comply with interim injunction - Link
29.) The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau wants to rein in data brokers power - Link
30.) FTC fines mental health startup Cerebal $7 million for sharing data to third parties - Link
31.) EU privacy body states that Meta cannot force their "consent or pay" business model - Link
32.) Spy.pet, a internet scraping site, claims to have harvested more than 4 billion Discord public messages - Link
33.) The rise of remote proctoring tools in K-12 schools - Link
34.) Wearable devices have huge privacy implications - Link
35.) Touring a rental may now require a face scan - Link
36.) U.S. reauthorizes Section 702 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) law - Link / Additional Link
37.) Dutch privacy group sounds the alarm on traffic light tracking - Link
38.) Proton releases dark web monitoring tool - Link
39.) Europol becomes latest law enforcement group to be against end-to-end encryption - Link / Additional Link
40.) Dutch privacy watchdog says government organizations should not use Facebook due to privacy concerns - Link
41.) U.S. police departments are using "reverse" searches to try and catch criminals - Link
42.) As AI accelerates, EU's GDPR law is under threat - Link
43.) Why a TikTok ban misses the wider problem - Link
44.) U.S. bans TikTok unless it is sold within a year - Link
45.) Ring customers get $5.6 million in refunds - Link
46.) Google will not get rid of third-party cookies until 2025 now - Link
47.) Financial privacy is no more - Link
48.) How to set up a VPN on your home router - Link
49.) Health insurance Kaiser will notify millions of "data breach" after being caught sharing data to advertisers - Link
50.) Meta's Ad model faces further setback in EU - Link
51.) The assault of Bitcoin and privacy - Link
52.) Dating apps are a privacy nightmare - Link
53.) Apple is reportedly in talks with Open AI to build chatbot for iPhone - Link
54.) Tuta Mail files a DMA compliant regarding Google Search - Link
55.) EyeEm, a photo sharing community, is giving users 30 days to opt out of AI training their photos - Link
56.) How to keep your music streaming private - Link
57.) U.S. "Know Your Customer" proposal could end anonymous cloud users - Link
58.) India's top private bank exposed thousands of credit cards to "wrong" users - Link
59.) Austria advocacy group files a complaint against Open AI over failure to fix incorrect information - Link / Additional Link
60.) Appleโs Safari flaw can track users in the EU - Link
61.) FCC fines AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon $200 million for illegally selling location data - Link
62.) U.S. legislators propose the American Privacy Rights Act, a possible federal privacy law - Link / Link / Additional Link
63.) LA looking to facial recognition to curb crime - Link
64.) Cookie consent choices are being ignored - Link
65.) Google Chrome's post-quantum cryptography may break TLS connections - Link
66.) Hackers threaten to leak World Check, a financial criminal watchlist - Link
67.) 35-year long identity theft leads to imprisonment for victim - Link
As always, if you have any other privacy related news that you saw in April, feel free to leave them in the comments.
Until Next Time,
Monique ๐