In bad news for US cloud services, Austrian website’s use of Google Analytics found to breach GDPR

A decision by Austria’s data protection watchdog upholding a complaint against a website related to its use of Google Analytics does not bode well for use of US cloud services in Europe. The decision raises a big red flag over routine use of tools that require transferring Europeans’ personal data to the US for processing […]

Adtech vendors still tracking EU users who deny consent via IAB’s TCF, study suggests

New research examining what happens after Internet users in Europe land on an ad-supported website and express their “privacy choices” — using a flagship ad industry consent management platform which is supposed to allow them to control the types of ads they receive (i.e. non-tracking vs “personalized”) — has raised fresh questions over the IAB […]

UK privacy watchdog warns adtech the end of tracking is nigh

It’s been well over two years since the UK’s data protection watchdog warned the behavioural advertising industry it’s wildly out of control. The ICO hasn’t done anything to stop the systematic unlawfulness of the tracking and targeting industry abusing Internet users’ personal data to try to manipulate their attention — not in terms of actually […]

IAB Europe says it’s expecting to be found in breach of GDPR

Is this the beginning of the end for the hated tracking cookie consent pop-up? A flagship framework used by Google and scores of other advertisers for gathering claimed consent from web users for creepy ad targeting looks set to be found in breach of Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). A year ago the IAB […]

Google now lets people under 18 or their parents request to delete photos from search results

Google is rolling out the ability for kids, teens and their parents to request to have pictures deleted from the company’s image search results. The new privacy option was one of many changes the company announced in August in an effort to preemptively build in additional protections for users under the age of 18. Google’s […]

Researchers show Facebook’s ad tools can target a single user

A new research paper written by a team of academics and computer scientists from Spain and Austria has demonstrated that it’s possible to use Facebook’s targeting tools to deliver an ad exclusively to a single individual if you know enough about the interests Facebook’s platform assigns them. The paper — entitled “Unique on Facebook: Formulation […]

Ex-minister predicts ‘huge battleground’ over UK’s plan to set Internet content rules

The former UK minster of state for what is now the digital and culture department, DCMS, has warned of the looming battle in parliament over the exact shape of incoming online safety legislation. In an interview with TechCrunch, Ed Vaizey — a former Conservative Party MP, now Lord Vaizey of Didcot, who was head of […]

UK class action-style suit filed over DeepMind NHS health data scandal

A U.K. law firm is bringing a class-action style claim over a patient health data scandal that dates back to 2015 and involves the Google-owned AI company DeepMind, after it was quietly passed medical information on more than a million patients by an NHS Trust as part of an app development project. Law firm Mishcon […]

UK’s AI strategy is ‘ambitious’ but needs funding to match, says Faculty’s Marc Warner

The U.K. published its first-ever national AI strategy this week. The decade-long commitment by the government to levelling up domestic artificial intelligence capabilities — by directing resource and attention toward skills, talent, compute power and data access — has been broadly welcomed by the country’s tech ecosystem, as you’d expect. But there is a question […]