Tag: privacy

Meta Allows EU Users to Access Instagram, Facebook, Messenger Separately to Comply With Regulations

Facebook parent Meta will allow users in the European Union, European Economic Area, and Switzerland to prevent information from being shared across the company’s apps. As a result, people who live in these regions will be able to use Instagram and Facebook separately, even if they are connected on the platform. Meanwhile, Meta will also allow users to create a Messenger account that is not linked to their Facebook account while changing how messaging on the company’s Marketplace platform works.

In a detailed post explaining the changes being made to comply with regulations — the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) — that Meta and other firms must comply with, the company says that users in the EU, EEA, and Switzerland who have already linked their Facebook and Instagram accounts can continue to operate these accounts, or unlink their accounts “so that their information is no longer used across accounts”.

Meta’s announcement comes a month after Instagram-Messenger cross app chats were shut down. Three years after CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Meta would allow users to chat across its services, the company limited messaging to each platform. It also turned on support for end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) chats on Messenger in December.

Meanwhile, the company is also changing how users in these regions can use Messenger — while you can continue to chat using your Facebook account, Meta will also let you sign up for a new Messenger account that operates independently of your existing account. You’ll be able to send messages and call your contacts, but some features won’t work as expected.

For example, Messenger features for Marketplace that allow sellers to chat with buyers will be replaced with an option to use email, if their accounts are unlinked. Similarly, users who unlink their accounts from Facebook Gaming won’t have access to multiplayer features and targeted recommendations, according to the company.

Just like Meta’s optional ad-free subscription for Facebook and Instagram that was introduced two months ago, these changes will only be available to users in the EU, EEA, and Switzerland. The company could also bring the same functionality to other regions if legislation similar to the DMA is passed, allowing users in more countries to operate their accounts independently.

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Apple Granted Two Patents That Could Help Protect iPhone Screens From Snooping Eyes

Apple was recently granted two patents that could allow the company to develop technology that would make it difficult for snoopers to keep an eye on your iPhone or Mac. The novel screen technology could help protect information shown on a display by limiting the viewing angles of the display — this could replace the multipurpose screen protectors utilised by smartphone users that attempt to achieve the same result. The company has explored two methods of implementing the privacy features in its products.

Apple’s recently granted patent (via Apple Insider) refers to the use of a ‘privacy film’ that would be applied on curved displays in order to protect the contents of the screen from people in the vicinity. The document describes the use of a film with a light-blocking layer with opaque and transparent sections that is “interposed between the first and second transparent substrates”.

A privacy film could help reduce the viewing angles of Apple’s displays
Photo Credit: USPTO/ Apple

 

As a result, a display equipped with the privacy film would only show the contents of the screen clearly to users sitting in front of the display, while offering a distorted or blank view to other users who are trying to look at the screen. However, the contents of the screen will still be visible from certain angles, allowing people sitting behind the user to pry on their activity.

Apple’s second patent, published on November 21, discusses ‘displays with adjustable angles of view’. It describes the use of an angle-of-view layer comprised of adjustable light blocking structures created using electrochromic material interposed between the first and second layers of the display.

Apple could develop displays with an adjustable viewing angles
Photo Credit: USPTO/ Apple

 

According to Apple, a display using this technology will allow users to apply a current to the first and second electrodes which will turn the electrochromic material opaque and block nearby viewers from being able to see what is on the screen. This process is reversible using an electric current to the same electrodes that will make the material more transparent and improve the viewing angles of the screen.

It is worth noting that Apple has been granted several patents and there is no indication that the company has plans to bring the new privacy protecting technology to its displays. The company is tipped to be working on making its wearable mixed reality headsets the successor to the iPhone over the next decade. These devices offer improved privacy as the virtual display is only visible to the person wearing Apple’s spatial computer.

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YouTube Faces Criminal Complaint for ‘Spying’ on Users While Detecting Ad Blockers: Report

YouTube could face criminal charges in Europe for allegedly spying on users, according to a report. The Alphabet-owned video streaming platform recently introduced restrictions on ad blockers on the service, preventing users who used specific browser extensions from viewing videos. A privacy consultant, who has deemed Google’s new system to block ads ‘spyware’, is now preparing a complaint against Google under Irish law, for detecting ad blockers on users’ computers, weeks after filing a civil complaint with the Irish Data Protection Commission.

Privacy consultant Alexander Hanff is filing a complaint against YouTube under Ireland’s computer abuse law, The Register reports. Ireland’s National Police have reportedly acknowledged the consultant’s complaint and sought more information. According to Hanff, the video streaming service’s browser interrogation system — tracking scrips that are designed to identify ad blockers in use on a browser — is the equivalent of spying on citizens in the EU.

Last month, YouTube began cracking down on ad blockers globally, pushing users to either allow ads on the video streaming platform, or opt for the company’s YouTube Premium subscription. Days after informing users that the use of ad blockers would not be permitted on the service, the company raised the price of YouTube Premium subscriptions in seven countries — existing subscribers have a three-month grace period before they will be charged the new subscription fee, according to the company.

Hanff also told The Register that he believed the script used by YouTube to detect ad blockers was deployed with one purpose — to monitor his behaviour (whether ads were allowed to load in his browser) without his knowledge or authorisation — deeming it spyware.

According to the report, the consultant opted to file a criminal complaint against the search giant due to regulators’ abysmal track record of enforcing the Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive (or ePrivacy Directive) that came into force in 2002.

Hanff’s decision to file a criminal complaint comes shortly after he filed a civil complaint with the Irish Data Protection Commission against the video streaming platform’s new browser interrogation service. Google must now provide a response to the commission regarding the claims made by the privacy consultant, according to the report.

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Google Chrome Rolls Out Support for ‘Privacy Sandbox’ Ad Platform Aimed at Replacing Third-Party Cookies

Google Chrome is making a new ad platform available to most users via its ‘Privacy Sandbox’, the company announced on Thursday. The search giant previously announced that it plans to phase out support for third party cookies that are used to track people as they browse the web. Instead, the company has built a browser-based advertising mechanism that can track you without cookies, previously called the Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC). Chrome users will be informed about the new “ad privacy feature” when the ad platform is enabled on their browser.

In a blog post, Google revealed that the ad topics feature that is part of the Privacy Sandbox feature — previously available to beta testers — has now reached “general availability” on Chrome. Google says it has worked with publishers, developers, adtech providers, and consumers to develop the new system that will eventually replace the use of third-party cookies on Google’s browser.

A screenshot of the ad platform controls found under Chrome’s privacy settings

 

Once the Privacy Sandbox platform rolls out to you on Chrome, you will be presented with a popup that informs you about the new tracking mechanism. Some users have reported seeing a “Turn on” button suggesting that the feature is opt-in, while others have shared screenshots of the same prompt with a “Got it” button that suggests the feature may have to be manually disabled. You can do this by visiting the Chrome settings section and clicking on Privacy and Security > Ad privacy to modify your settings.

When enabled, Google’s new tracking mechanism will make a list of “ad topics”, by studying your browsing history. These ad topics are then shared with a website when it wants to show you targeted ads, which means that you will see ads based on your browsing history.

According to the company, Google Chrome will drop support for third party cookies for one percent of all users in Q1 2024. The company says that the “countdown to the planned deprecation of third-party cookies is in full effect.”  

If this sounds like an equally bad method of tracking users across the Internet as third party cookies, then you might want to consider switching to Apple’s Safari browser, or the open source Firefox browser from Mozilla. Unlike Chrome and many Chromium-based browsers, both Firefox and Safari block third-party cookies and do not include support for the Privacy Sandbox. iCloud+ and Apple One subscribers can also use Private Relay feature to hide their IP address from websites and trackers.

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Retailers Cannot Insist on Customers’ Mobile Numbers to Provide Services, Consumer Affairs Ministry Says

The Consumer Affairs Ministry has issued an advisory directing retailers not to insist on the personal contact details of customers for delivering certain services, Consumer Affairs Secretary Rohit Kumar Singh said on Tuesday.

The advisory has been issued following several consumer complaints. Customers have complained about many retailers not providing them services if they refuse to share their contact number, he said.

“Sellers say they cannot generate the bill until personal contact details are provided. This is an unfair and restrictive trade practice under the Consumer Protection Act and there is no rationality behind collecting the information,” the Secretary told reporters.

There is also a privacy concern. Therefore, an advisory has been issued to the retail industry and industry chambers CII and FICCI to address this issue in the interest of consumers, he said.

It is not mandatory in India for customers to furnish their mobile numbers to a retailer to generate a bill. However, customers are put in an awkward situation by retailers insisting on a number to conclude transactions. Most of the time, customers are not given an option to opt out in many of these situations.

Last month, the government informed the Supreme Court that the government will table the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill in the upcoming Monsoon Session of Parliament in July. A five-judge Constitution bench of Justices KM Joseph, Ajay Rastogi, Aniruddha Bose, Hrishikesh Roy and CT Ravikumar fixed the matter for hearing in August.

Attorney General R Venkatramani, appearing for the Centre, told the bench that the new Bill on personal data protection is ready and will be introduced in the Monsoon Session of Parliament.

“The Bill is ready, it just has to be introduced in parliament in the monsoon session at the end of June, July,” the Attorney General said.

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Facebook Bug That Automatically Sent Friend Requests to Other Users Resolved: Report

Facebook was reportedly affected by a bug that automatically sent a friend request to other users, an issue that the company says it has resolved. Users recently took to Twitter to complain that the social networking service was sending requests to users immediately upon visiting their profile. The issue was spotted by several users, weeks after the company laid off over 11,000 employees, or 13 percent of its workforce — mostly comprising engineers and adjacent tech teams in its second round of layoffs this year.

On Friday, users began complaining that Facebook was automatically sending a friend request to a user as soon as you visited their profile. Twitter user Bavid Mcjavid (@bavidmcjavid) shared a screen recording of the glitch that shows the Facebook app selecting the Add friend button without any user input, forcing the user to manually cancel the friend request.

Several other users on Twitter complained of the same glitch, and one user stated that every person they “stalked” — viewing a profile privately without informing the user — automatically received a request from them. Another user also said they were experiencing the same issue, adding that it was the “wrong night” to go through their yearbook to stalk other users.

Shortly after the glitch was detected, Majavid tweeted that the issue seemed to have been resolved. Meanwhile, Meta shared a statement with The Daily Beast, revealing that it had fixed a bug that caused the issue and apologised for the issue. 

“We fixed a bug related to a recent app update that caused some Facebook friend requests to be sent mistakenly. We’ve stopped this from happening and we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused,” a Meta spokesperson told the Daily Beast.

The glitch that caused Facebook to send requests to other users upon visiting their profile comes around a month after Meta announced its second round of layoffs this year. As part of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s “Year of Efficiency”, the company is prepared to lay of thousands of employees and cut costs using various methods — including lower bonus payouts for some employees — by the end of the year. 

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WhatsApp Agrees to Be More Transparent Over Privacy Policy Changes, Says EU

Meta Platforms’ WhatsApp has agreed to be more transparent about changes to its privacy policy introduced in 2021, the European Commission said on Monday, following complaints from consumer bodies across Europe.

The European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) and the European Network of consumer authorities told WhatsApp last year that it had not clarified the changes in plain and intelligible language, violating the bloc’s laws.

EU members’ national regulators can sanction companies for breaches.

WhatsApp has now agreed to explain changes to EU users’ contracts and how these could affect their rights, and has agreed to display prominently the possibility for users to accept or reject the changes and ensure that users can easily close pop-up notifications on updates.

The company also confirmed that users’ personal data is not shared with third parties or other Meta companies, including Facebook, for advertising purposes.

“Consumers have a right to understand what they agree to and what that choice entails concretely, so that they can decide whether they want to continue using the platform,” Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders said.

Last month, Ireland’s Data Privacy Commissioner (DPC), EU’s lead privacy regulator, said that Meta must reassess the legal basis on how Facebook and Instagram use personal data to target advertising in the European Union and fined the social media giant EUR 390 million (roughly Rs. 3,500 crore) for the breaches.

The DPC, which is the lead privacy regulator for many of the world’s largest technology companies within the EU, directed Meta to bring its data processing operations into compliance within three months.

The penalties brought the total fines levied against Meta to date by the Irish regulator to EUR 1.3 billion (roughly Rs. 11,500 crore). It currently has 11 other inquiries open into Meta services.

The DPC said that as part of its decision, the EU’s privacy watchdog had purported to direct the Irish regulator to conduct a fresh investigation that would span all of Facebook and Instagram’s data processing operations.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

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Microsoft Fined EUR 60 Million by French Privacy Watchdog Over Advertising Cookies on Bing Website

France’s privacy watchdog said Thursday it has fined US tech giant Microsoft EUR 60 million ($64 million, roughly Rs. 530 crore) for foisting advertising cookies on users.

In the largest fine imposed in 2022, the National Commission for Technology and Freedoms (CNIL) said Microsoft‘s search engine Bing had not set up a system allowing users to refuse cookies as simply as accepting them.

The French regulator said that after investigations it found that “when users visited this site, cookies were deposited on their terminal without their consent, while these cookies were used, among others, for advertising purposes.”

It also “observed that there was no button allowing to refuse the deposit of cookies as easily as accepting it.”

The CNIL said the fine was justified in part because of the profits the company made from advertising profits indirectly generated from the data collected via cookies — tiny data files that track online browsing.

Bing offered a button for the user to immediately accept all cookies, but two clicks were need to refuse them, it said.

The company has been given three months to rectify the issue, with a potential further penalty of EUR 60,000 (roughly Rs. 52 lakh) per day overdue.

The fine was issued to Microsoft Ireland, where the company has its European base.

In a statement Microsoft said that it had “introduced key changes to our cookie practices even before this investigation started.”

“We continue to respectfully be concerned with the CNIL’s position on advertising fraud,” it said, adding that it believes the French watchdog’s “position will harm French individuals and businesses.”

Cookie control

Cookies are installed on a user’s computer when they visit a website, allowing web browsers to save information about their session.

They are hugely valuable for tech platforms as ways to personalise advertising — the primary source of revenue for the likes of Facebook and Google.

But privacy advocates have long pushed back.

Since the European Union passed a 2018 law on personal data, internet companies have faced stricter rules that oblige them to seek consent from users before installing cookies.

Last year, the CNIL said it would carry out a year of checks against sites not following the rules on using web cookies.

Google and Facebook were sanctioned by the French regulator with fines of EUR 150 million (roughly Rs. 1,300 crore) and EUR 60 million (roughly Rs. 530 crore), respectively, for similar breaches around their use of cookies.

The two firms also face scrutiny over their practice of sending the personal data of EU residents to servers in the United States.

And tech giants continue to face a slew of cases across Europe.

Earlier this month, Europe’s data watchdog imposed binding decisions concerning the treatment of personal data by Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

The European Data Protection Supervisor said in a statement that the rulings concerned Meta’s use of data for targeted advertising, but did not give details of its ruling or recommended fines.

The latest case follows complaints by privacy campaigning group Noyb that Meta’s three apps fail to meet Europe’s strict rules on data protection.

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Google Defeats Lawsuit Over Privacy Practices Involving Chrome Browser

Alphabet Inc.’s Google defeated a privacy lawsuit by consumers who accused the company of snooping on them even after they opted out of sharing their web activity.

US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers on Monday dismissed claims that Google tracked users’ personal information, including IP addresses and browsing history, if they chose not to “Sync” their Google accounts with Chrome — and even if they didn’t have an account.

“Google adequately disclosed, and plaintiffs consented to, the collection of the at-issue data,” Rogers wrote in dismissing the suit.

Rogers also ruled on another Chrome privacy case involving the “Incognito Mode” feature that lets people surf the web privately. She let tens of millions of Google users to join the suit launched by a handful of consumers claiming that the search giant scoops up data even when “Incognito Mode” is turned on. The users can’t seek monetary compensation though, only relief that would block the company from further collecting private browsing information and to push it to delete previously gathered data.

A spokesperson for Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Google faces a raft of privacy suits brought by states including Arizona and consumers as well as intense scrutiny by lawmakers over its data-gathering practices. The technology giant has said that in 2024 it will eliminate third-party cookies that help advertisers keep tabs on consumers’ web activity and won’t employ alternative methods to track individuals.

In a bid to keep the Incognito case from expanding, Google had argued in a court filing that many potential class members knew about the company’s data collection and consented to it.

Court filings revealed a paper trail highlighting frustration among Google’s employees over Incognito Mode’s branding, including a 2021 email from the company’s marketing head telling Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai that the feature “isn’t truly private.”

Google has fended off two attempts by plaintiffs to force Pichai to submit to questioning under oath.

The cases are Calhoun v. Google, 20-cv-05146, and Brown v. Google LLC, 20-3664, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (Oakland).

© 2022 Bloomberg LP

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New Data Privacy Bill Will Be Ready Soon, Nirmala Sitharaman Reportedly Confirms

India will get a new data privacy bill “soon”, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman confirmed on Wednesday. The Information Technology minister Ashwini Vaishnaw is working on it, said the minister, adding that the new Bill would address every such concern most of the people had on the privacy Bill. Last month, the government withdrew the controversial Personal Data Protection Bill announcing it was working on a new comprehensive law. The 2019 Bill proposed stringent regulations on cross-border data flows and suggested giving the government powers to seek user data from companies.

As per a report by PTI, Sitharaman made remarks about the introduction of new data privacy bill today while speaking at the India Ideas Summit organised by the US-India Business Council.

“We will soon have a new Data Privacy Bill, which will be a product of consultations and will address every such concern most of us had on the privacy Bill,” she reportedly said.

The Personal Data Protection Bill 2019 was withdrawn by the government in August after parliamentary panel’s review of the 2019 bill suggested many amendments. The Union Minister of Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw had earlier said that the joint committee have recommended 81 amendments in a Bill of 99 sections. There are said to be over 12 more recommendations and a new bill would be presented that would fit into the comprehensive legal framework.

The Bill had raised concerns among big technology companies such as Facebook and Google that it could increase their compliance burden and data storage requirements.

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