SimpLawfy

Created with Microsoft Bing Image Creator powered by DALL-E  Jan 30          While privacy breaches over general personal information has frequently been making news, with companies being investigated for the ways they exploited their users' online behavioral data or data breaches revealing financial data, breaches of personal health information (PHI) has gone relatively unnoticed until recently. However, due to the high sensitivity of PHI, breaches of PHI privacy are more serious and any lack of regulation should be amended with alacrity.          The current gap in regulation comes from the PHI collected by countless health apps, devices, and websites. These kinds of PHI collected by devices in the US is not covered by federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) , which governs privacy and security of PHI for physicians, hospitals and the general health care industry. These "developers, vendors, and se...

Created with Microsoft Bing Image Creator powered by DALL-E AI-powered Facial Recognition Technology and Privacy concerns (Part 2)  The issue           Ahead of the 2024 French Olympics,  France's data protection agency warned against using facial recognition technology  (FRT) due to concerns about the surveillance abilities of FRT intruding upon privacy rights. Although direct use of FRTs are not permitted, using artificial intelligence (AI) to facilitate security such as experimental AI-powered surveillance cameras are allowed. For such experiments, France's data protection agency,  CNIL, has assured that they are monitoring it  to minimize bias and guarantee deletion of footage in due time. The  French parliament is currently debating  on whether to introduce new surveillance powers for improved security, or to enable more privacy safeguards against surveillance. France's debate over the use of AI and FRT comes amidst a...

Created with Microsoft Bing Image Creator powered by DALL-E AI-powered Facial Recognition Technology and Privacy concerns (Part 1)  The issue           Ahead of the 2024 French Olympics, France's data protection agency warned against using facial recognition technology (FRT) due to concerns about the surveillance abilities of FRT intruding upon privacy rights. Although direct use of FRTs are not permitted, using artificial intelligence (AI) to facilitate security such as experimental AI-powered surveillance cameras are allowed. For such experiments, France's data protection agency, CNIL, has assured that they are monitoring it to minimize bias and guarantee deletion of footage in due time. The French parliament is currently debating on whether to introduce new surveillance powers for improved security, or to enable more privacy safeguards against surveillance. France's debate over the use of AI and FRT comes amidst a recent wave of legislation propos...

Created with Microsoft Bing Image Creator powered by DALL-E ChatGPT - the future path of Legal Tech?  The Issue          OpenAI's new chatbot, ChatGPT has recently gone viral with its powerful ability to gather and present information in a human-like readable format; this combined with the now-cancelled attempt to use an AI chatbot in the courtroom as a legal assistant demonstrates the growing role 'legal tech' is beginning to play in the legal profession. However, this also raises the question of whether sufficient laws are in place to regulate the use and development of such AI in the legal profession.  Why is ChatGPT and such chatbots attracting so much attention?            ChatGPT is a game-changer in AI technology for its accessibility and ease of use for nontechnical users, as well as its ability to provide detailed and 'intelligent' answers to prompts regarding a vast variety of fields. Such a chatbot's ...

Bans on TikTok Looming; Privacy Rights Violations, or Something Else?  The Issue         Breton, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, has warned TikTok's CEO Shou Zi Chew that TikTok could face a ban in the EU if it does not comply with the Digital Services Act(DSA). Pressure has been mounting on TikTok from concerns from the US and EU over whether citizens' personal data could be accessed by Chinese government officials. Compounding on this was TikTok's admission that two journalists' TikTok data was accessed unlawfully by employees to identify leaks to the press. Although those employees were fired and TikTok's CEO stated such behaviour was 'unacceptable' in a public email, such breaches of privacy along with TikTok's own admission that employees in China could access European and US data significantly impacted public trust in TikTok's handling of personal data.          Currently the US government has bann...

Created with Microsoft Bing Image Creator powered by DALL-E How Privacy Laws are Combatting the Growing Threat of Dark Patterns  Introduction to Dark Patterns           Dark Patterns have become increasingly scrutinized by privacy regulators in the past year. Dark patterns are tactics used to trick or manipulate users into making purchases or providing personal information. Common examples used by companies today include misleading or disguised advertisements, difficult-to-cancel subscriptions or charges, burying key terms and junk fees in dense text, and tricking users into sharing their data. Their use by companies is widespread, with a 2019 study finding over half of 5000 privacy notifications sent by companies in Europe utilizing dark patterns, and only 4.2% of them giving their users the choice to give consent to collecting their personal data. Moreover, it has become revealed that those impacted by dark patterns increasingly include minors, suc...

Created with Microsoft Bing Image Creator powered by DALL-E Privacy News This Week  International:         Recently, France's CNIL fined Tiktok 5 million euros for cookie consent violations. The issue arose from Tiktok's cookie consent methods making it complex to refuse cookies, which encouraged many to choose 'accept all' cookies instead of refusing them purely to avoid the hassle. Combined with inadequate information on the purpose of the cookies, this process was ruled to infringe the freedom of Internet users and thereby violated France's privacy laws. This fine comes closely after EU Commission officials warned Tiktok to comply with all EU privacy laws, especially since Tiktok is under two investigations by Irish data protection regulators on transfers of EU citizens' data to China and violations on children's privacy.  Korea:         Shilla Hotel Resorts suffered two consecutive data breaches after the New Year. The fi...

Created with Microsoft Bing Image Creator powered by DALL-E Keyword Search Warrants: a warrant to identify suspects through data surveillance?            Keyword Search Warrants come under question on issues of privacy: a 2020 arson case in Colorado where a warrant was used to request information from Google regarding those who searched for the address of the fire. Usually, warrants are issued to search data relating to an identified suspect, but in this case, the warrant was issued to search the data of everyone first, before identifying a suspect from that data. Therefore, the warrant applied to search the data of everyone, not merely a suspect, which in Google's case could apply do thousands if not millions of users who may reside in other states or countries. Such "geofence warrants" have been increasing since 2018, representing more than a "quarter of all warrant requests" to Google in the U S. Note, a ' geofence warrant ' asks for informati...

Created with Microsoft Bing Image Creator powered by DALL-E  AI and Developing Privacy Laws in Asia (Part 2) (this is a continuation of an the earlier post, AI and Developing Privacy Laws in Asia ).  Japan :          Regarding AI development, Japan has developed and amended an AI strategy, with the latest updates released on April 2022. AI Strategy 2022 primarily aims to develop AI applications for large scale infrastructure protecting against imminent crises (such as pandemics) and real-world industry applications, as well as promoting research and recruitment of human resources to aid in such advancs in AI technology. Additionally,  Japan published a "Governance Guidelines for the Practice of AI Principles" in Feb 1, 2022, focusing on the " social principles of human-centric AI ". Some examples include analyzing positive and negative impacts of AI, as well as social acceptance of AI system development ; however, these guidelines are not le...