Top News: NY’s Tenant Data Privacy Act, Ransomware Attack on Irish Health Service, and more

NY City Council Passes Tenant Data Privacy Act

The New York City Council passed the Tenant Data Privacy Act (TDPA) on April 29, 2021, aimed to regulate the collection, safeguarding, use, and retention of tenant data by owners of smart access buildings. The bill mandates building owners to provide tenants with a data retention and privacy policy. Read more about the legislation here.

Irish health service hit by ‘most significant ransomware attack’

Just a week after the Colonial Pipeline incident, Ireland’s health service fell victim to a “significant” ransomware attack. The attack forced the service operator to shut down all its IT systems, impacting diagnostic services and COVID-19 testing while forcing hospitals to cancel many appointments. Read more about the attack here.

Senators roll out bipartisan data privacy bill

Sen. Amy Klobuchar has reintroduced the Social Media Privacy Protection and Consumer Rights Act, which would force websites to grant users greater control over their data and allow them to opt-out of data tracking and collection. The bill aims to protect consumer data privacy when collected by large tech platforms like Facebook and Google.

India opposes WhatsApp’s privacy update once again

The Indian government once again directed WhatsApp to withdraw the planned update in the country. The Indian IT ministry stated that the changes to the app’s privacy policy might compromise the informational policy, data security, and user choice and harm its citizens’ rights and interests.

Facebook to face data privacy inquiry on cross-border transfers

On May 20, the Irish High Court lifted a court-imposed stay to proceed with the Data Protection Commissioner’s inquiry into the validity of Facebook’s cross-border data transfers. The stay had halted the investigation since last September, pending the outcome of proceedings challenging the commissioner’s decision. Read more about the judgment here.

Twitter’s “biased” automated image-cropping tool dropped

Twitter admitted this week that an algorithm behind its automatic photo cropping feature was biased and has since been dropped. The acknowledgment provides insights on how unfair the automatic systems from social media platforms could be. Read the Twitter blog post here.