Articles about Privacy

Facebook has launched a new Youth Portal with the aim of educating its teenage users about using the social network safely.

The portal also reveals to teens how Facebook uses their data, and is packed with tips about using the service and translates the site's Data Policy into a more understandable form.

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There's now just two weeks until the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) law comes into force across Europe. Technology companies have been scrabbling to update their privacy policies in order to comply, and today Google reveals the steps it has taken to become compliant.

In addition to this, the company has also published its updated privacy policy. In keeping with GDPR, this time around the terms are presented in a much more accessible and transparent form.

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GDPR comes into force on May 25th and will have an effect on all companies that collect user data even if they are outside the EU.

Independent identity research and strategy company One World Identity has produced a report that aims to serve as a definitive primer on what companies need to do to comply, and help them turn that compliance into a competitive edge.

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Apple appears to be more vigorously enforcing App Store policies relating to the sharing of location data. Over the last few days the company has been removing apps that share location details with third parties without consent.

Developers of apps found to be exploiting user privacy in this way have received emails from Apple. These indicate that apps have undergone "re-evaluation" and found to be in violation of sections 5.1.1 and 5.1.2 of the App Store Review Guidelines.

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With GDPR implementation now only weeks away many businesses are still not fully prepared for the impact of the new legislation.

We spoke to Matt Klassen VP of cloud marketing at IT service management specialist Cherwell Software to find out how managed services can help companies to comply with GDPR by the may 25th deadline and to manage the additional workload it's likely to create.

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The new batch of privacy related legislations that's due to roll out across Europe later this month has claimed another victim -- Unroll.Me.

The email management service, which claims to help users "clean up your inbox", has announced that it is incompatible with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and will therefore close down in the EU on May 23. If you live in the EU, Unroll.Me will delete your account and you'll no longer be able to use the service.

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For almost a decade, most of us using Facebook have trusted it with our personal data. We shared pictures, locations of fun places we visited, friends --old and new -- with whom we connected, 'liked' activities, and much more.

And we did this not knowing our personal information was being used in ways beyond anyone's comprehension. As we watch the Facebook story unfold, we may wonder whether this crisis could have been avoided had personal data privacy and governance been better handled. Such initiatives could be complex and expensive for any company, but is it fair to say there are no shortcuts to this approach? How prepared is any company that relies on personal data?

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At its F8 conference today, Facebook revealed details of an upcoming tool it is working on --- Clear History. The tool will let Facebook users not only see which sites and apps gather information about usage, but also let users delete this information.

The privacy-centric tool comes as the social network slowly comes to the realization "that people want more information about how Facebook works and the controls they have over their information". The ability to delete browsing histories from Facebook appears to be a direct response to the Cambridge Analytica scandal in which private data was shared without consent.

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A few weeks ago we spoke to ThinkMarble about the impending arrival of GDPR and the company's virtual data protection office service.

As the May 25th deadline draws closer, the company has released some research data that shows almost three-quarters of UK businesses are unaware of the lawful basis for processing data and a quarter still don't know, or are unsure of, where the personal data they are responsible for is currently held.

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We've already written quite a bit about Windows 10 April 2018 Update, and there's a reasonable chance that you've taken the plunge and installed it. While there are new features to get excited about, some have people more concerned than excited -- such as Timeline.

In theory, the feature sounds great, making it possible to synchronize your activities between devices, but it's also something of a privacy nightmare. Timelime -- by design and because of its very nature -- gathers a huge amount of information about you and what you do within Windows 10. Thankfully, you can disable it.

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With new privacy laws due to roll out around Europe next month, WhatsApp has increase its minimum age from 13 to 16.

The Facebook-owned messaging tool has made the change in order to comply with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) which comes into force on May 25. To continue to use WhatsApp, users must now confirm that they are at least 16 years old and agree to the privacy policy and terms of services of the newly-created WhatsApp Ireland Limited.

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This is the question Facebook poses and (sort-of-but-not-really) answers in the latest addition to its Hard Questions series. It's the social network's latest attempt to claw back some respect and trust from its users in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal, and it sees the company insisting that "you are not the product".

Whether this is believed or not is neither here nor there. That the company is now having to go to such extraordinary lengths to appear transparent, to try to prove that nothing untoward is going on, is simply indicative of the massive level of suspicion leveled at Facebook.

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Following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the spotlight of privacy has been firmly on Facebook. The social network has made numerous promises about offering greater privacy controls to users, and after fears that Europe would end up with greater controls because of GDPR, Facebook then revealed similar tools will be rolled out around the world.

Just a few days ago, the company gave a little more information about these new privacy controls, boasting that it will soon be "offering new privacy protections to everyone, no matter where you live". Sounds great. But it's not -- strictly speaking -- true. And Facebook is being very sneaky once again.

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The CEO of TaskRabbit has informed users that "certain personally identifiable information may have been compromised" in a security incident that saw the website and app taken offline earlier in the week.

TaskRabbit -- a service that puts "taskers" in touch with people who need help with jobs around the home -- is now back online, and the company is now on a damage limitation exercise, issuing a statement in the name of "trust, openness, and transparency". Stacy Brown-Philpot says that an investigation is still underway to determine what happened, but explains that "preliminary evidence shows that an unauthorized user gained access to our systems".

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The German federal government is moving to an open source, self-hosted cloud platform from Nextcloud for file sync and sharing and collaboration, in order to protect the data of its citizens.

The Federal Information Technology Center (ITZBund), which takes care of IT services for the entire federal government, has been running a pilot of 5000 users with Nextcloud since October 2016 and after a successful tender this will now be rolled out everywhere.

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