Following significant pressure from groups such as OpenDemocracy and Foxglove the UK government has released its data sharing contracts with companies such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft for the creation of a cloud database for sharing covid-19 related data. Contracts with AI firms Planatir and Faculty were also released.
Continue readingGoogle and healthcare provider Ascension collaboration raises privacy concerns
Google Cloud has been providing Ascension, the second biggest healthcare provider in the US, with cloud infrastructure services since July 2019. Providing software services to healthcare providers to facilitate the secure management of patient data is not uncommon for Google. The services Ascension are taking are similarly commonplace- the migration of data to Google Cloud, utilizing suite productivity tools and providing technological tools to Ascension’s doctors for use. What perhaps is the defining factor is the scale, with this being the largest project of its kind to date – managing data of over 50 million Americans. This was dubbed “Project Nightingale”.
Citation: The Guardian: Google and Facebook to investigate the targeting of micro-political ads
The Guardian has an excellent piece on recent moves by Facebook and Google in seeking to ban micro-targeting political ads.
The practice, which underpins the Cambridge Analytica scandal, is being reviewed by the news providers. The harvesting of political oriented data is common and is usually undertaken as part of an effort to profile users.
Facebook has been known to group users for the purposes of ads-targeting, some of which considers political interests. This allows for nuanced and in many cases, an alarming degree of differentiation and influence of users. The US legislatures have taken issue with this approach in the past.
The ICO has recently reached an agreement with Facebook over the fines put in place over the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The regulator continues work into data misuse in political advertising, to which the issue of micro-targeting of political ads is central.
Compound liability following data breaches – Equifax two years on
In September 2017 Equifax suffered a data breach exposing the personal data of over 147 million people. Hackers utilised a website application vulnerability to access the personal data of customers. Continue reading
£3billion class action against Google given the go-ahead – Lloyd v Google LLC [2019] EWCA Civ 1599
Mr Lloyd, a consumer protection advocate, brought a claim against Google for damages on behalf of 4m Apple iPhone users. It was alleged that Google secretly tracked some of their internet activity for commercial purposes between 9 August 2011 and 15 February 2012. Continue reading
The right to be forgotten
Under the Data Protection Act 2018 you have the right to be forgotten, also known as the right to erasure of your personal data. Personal data refers to any information which can be used to identify you. Continue reading
The right to be forgotten does not apply to search engine results globally
On 24 September 2019 the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) handed down judgment in the case of Google v CNIL C-507/17. The effect of the case was that right to be forgotten requests only need be applied to domain names of Member States and not extra-territorially globally. The case, therefore, has implications for the processing and effectiveness of the right to be forgotten requests, particularly for requestors who seek de-listing of search results from multiple non-EU jurisdictions. Notably, the administrative burden upon search engine operators has been limited by the ruling.
Revisiting the right to be forgotten, the NT1 and NT2 case
The right to be forgotten or right to erasure under data protection legislation and enshrined from the Google Spain case allows significant protection of information regarding the individual. In this post, we consider the seminal case of NT1 and NT2 which is illustrative of this fact. Continue reading
