Top News: Panasonic confirms data breach, new privacy bills in US, and more

Hackers access candidate data from Panasonic

Panasonic has confirmed that hackers accessed the personal information of job candidates by breaching one of its servers located in Japan via an overseas subsidiary. The security breach began on June 22, 2021, and ended on November 3, 2021, allowing the hackers to obtain files containing unspecified business-related information provided by business partners, as well as information about business partner personnel. Read More

EU plans new law to fight child sexual abuse online

The EU plans to introduce new legislation in the coming months that will require companies to detect, report, and remove child sexual abuse. The EU home affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson said that a voluntary report would then no longer be sufficient after the new legislation takes effect. Read More

Privacy bills proposed in Florida, Indiana, Washington

Sen. Jennifer Bradley reintroduced the Florida Privacy Protection Act on January 7, 2022, which is a new version of last year’s proposed “Florida Privacy Protection Act”.

Representative Carey Hamilton introduced House Bill 1261 to the Indiana House.

Sen. Reuven Carlyle reintroduced the Washington Privacy Act for a fourth consecutive session along with Senate Bill 5813, which includes provisions on children's privacy, data brokers, and the Global Privacy Control. Additionally, Representatives Vandana Slatter and April Berg pre-filed the Washington Foundational Data Privacy Act (HB 1850), which bears similarities with the Colorado and Virginia laws. Read More

EDPS sanctions the European Parliament

The European Data Protection Supervisor has sanctioned the European Parliament for violating data transfer and cookie consent regulations. The action was taken with respect to a COVID-19 test booking website launched by the European Parliament using a third-party provider. The website attracted complaints about third-party trackers and cookie consent banners that did not meet consent standards. Read More

Boston hospitals to pay for privacy settlement

Mass General Brigham and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have agreed to pay a combined $18.4 million settlement over privacy allegations. The class-action suit alleges that the institutions fed personally identifiable information about patients to Facebook, Google, and other companies. Read More

Claims in ‘Assistant’ privacy litigation trimmed against Google

Two claims from a proposed privacy class-action lawsuit accusing Google of recording users' conversations with its Google Assistant-enabled devices were dismissed due to the plaintiff’s “failure to allege sufficient facts in support of an actionable omission, Google’s knowledge of falsity, or Google’s intent to defraud.” Read More