Edwin J. Viera reports: Columbia County, New York, is implementing new facial recognition and privacy policies, following new upgrades to the county’s surveillance cameras, which include facial and license plate recognition software. Michael Chameides, Hudson 3rd Ward representative on the Columbia County Board of Supervisors, said residents told him they want privacy, arguing the technology is…
Senate Passes Landmark Children’s Privacy and Safety Legislation
Hunton Andrews Kurth writes: On July 30, 2024, in a 91-3 vote, the U.S. Senate passed two bills aimed at protecting youth online: the Kids Online Safety Act (“KOSA”) and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA 2.0”). KOSA would create new obligations for companies to mitigate potential harms to children (known as…
UN Draft Cybercrime Treaty Dangerously Expands State Surveillance Powers Without Robust Privacy, Data Protection Safeguards
Katitza Rodriguez of EFF writes: This is the third post in a series highlighting flaws in the proposed UN Cybercrime Convention. Check out Part I, our detailed analysis on the criminalization of security research activities, and Part II, an analysis of the human rights safeguards. As we near the final negotiating session for the proposed UN Cybercrime Treaty, countries are…
FTC Investigation Leads to Lawsuit Against TikTok and ByteDance for Flagrantly Violating Children’s Privacy Law
On behalf of the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice sued video-sharing platform TikTok, its parent company ByteDance, as well as its affiliated companies, with flagrantly violating a children’s privacy law—the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act—and also alleged they infringed an existing FTC 2019 consent order against TikTok for violating COPPA. The complaint alleges defendants failed to comply…