OTTAWA — Two Facebook users are seeking damages on behalf of hundreds of thousands of Canadians whose personal data may have been improperly used for political purposes. The proposed class-action lawsuit filed by Calgary residents Saul Benary and Karma Holoboff asks the Federal Court to order the social-media giant to bolster its security practices to better protect sensitive information and comply with federal privacy law. It also seeks $1,000 for each of the approximately 622,000 Canadians whose information was shared with others through a digital app. In April last year,…
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Facebook Will Reportedly Be Fined A Record $5 Billion Over Privacy Mishaps | CNET
The Federal Trade Commission is expected to hit Facebook with a record-setting $5 billion fine for its alleged privacy mishaps, according to The Wall Street Journal, which reported that commissioners voted this week to approve the settlement with the social network. The Republican majority favored the settlement, according to the report, which cited people familiar with the matter. The commission voted 3-2 to settle, the Journal reported. Read full story here: Facebook Will Reportedly Be Fined A Record $5 Billion Over Privacy Mishaps | CNET
Read MoreFacebook Data Leak: Province-By-Province Breakdown Of Affected Canadians | CTV News
The report was the result of a joint investigation launched a year ago by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia. The probe was prompted by concerns that Facebook had broken Canadian privacy laws after it was revealed that the social media giant disclosed users’ personal information to a third-party app called “This is Your Digital Life” (TYDL) that was later used to deliver targeted political messaging by Cambridge Analytica. Read full story here: Facebook Data Leak: Province-By-Province Breakdown Of Affected Canadians |…
Read MoreGoogle+ To Shut Down After Coverup Of Data-Exposing Bug | TechCrunch
Google is about to have its Cambridge Analytica moment. A security bug allowed third-party developers to access Google+ user profile data since 2015 until Google discovered and patched it in March, but decided not to inform the world. When a user gave permission to an app to access their public profile data, the bug also let those developers pull their and their friends’ non-public profile fields. Indeed, 496,951 users’ full names, email addresses, birth dates, gender, profile photos, places lived, occupation and relationship status were potentially exposed, though Google says it…
Read MoreTechnical Ignorance Is Not Leadership | TechCrunch
There is a peculiar pattern that I have noticed among elites in the United States outside Silicon Valley, which is the almost boastful ignorance of technology. As my colleague Jon Shieber pointed out today, you can see that ignorance among congressmen throughout the whole Facebook/Cambridge Analytica saga. Our president has rarely sent an email, and seems to confine his mobile phone activities to Twitter. One senior policymaker told me a few months ago that she doesn’t know how to turn on her computer. Such a pattern is hardly unique to…
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