Security News

Roughly two-thirds of test digital vaccination applications commonly used today as safe passes and travel passports exhibit behavior that may put users' privacy at risk. The risks are substantial as these apps are required for large populations worldwide, allowing hackers an extensive target base.

How to check Android 12 permissions with the Privacy Dashboard. One of the new features in Android 12 makes it very easy to check up on your device privacy by way of service access.

Ten months after attempts first began to extract the medical information of 55 million citizens in England, NHS Digital's former chairman is warning the merger of the agency with NHS England threatens the privacy of people's personal data. The view was that if a patient had chosen to use the NHS they had implicitly agreed that their data could be used for the benefit of the NHS. Writing in trade publication the British Medical Journal, Kingsley Manning said health secretary Sajid Javid's decision to merge NHS Digital into NHS England and NHS Improvement last year was a "Retrograde step not least in the context of this government's clear intent to weaken the constraints on the use of patient data."

With more data also comes a deeper responsibility to use this data appropriately. As colleges and universities continue along their transformation journey, transparency, effectively assessing risk, and following new legislation will be critical in creating a culture of data privacy and security and determining which technology solutions will ensure data is appropriately used and protected.

What is Schrems II? Schrems, a former law student, brought the latest edition of the long-running case in 2015, complaining that Ireland's data protection agency still wasn't preventing Facebook Ireland Ltd from beaming his data to the US under Privacy Shield. In July 2020, the EU Court of Justice struck down the so-called Privacy Shield data protection arrangements between the political bloc and the US, triggering a fresh wave of legal confusion over the transfer of EU subjects' data to America.

Cignpost Diagnostics, which trades as ExpressTest and offers £35 tests for holidaymakers, said it holds the right to analyse samples from seals to "Learn more about human health" - and sell information on to third parties. Individuals are required to give informed consent for their sensitive medical data to be used but customers' consent for their DNA to be sold now as buried in Cignpost's online documents.

Merkle surveyed 2,000 consumers to study the amount and extent of data consumers are willing to share, how they feel about emerging data privacy policies, and how well their attitudes align with their own expectations for more connected and contextual experiences. "Our study shows that consumers are increasingly aware of what personal data they are sharing with brands and have a heightened sense of the value exchange that they receive," said Michael Komasinski, global CEO at Merkle.

Google on Wednesday announced plans to bring its Privacy Sandbox initiatives to Android in a bid to expand its privacy-focused, but also less disruptive, advertising technology beyond the desktop web. "The Privacy Sandbox on Android builds on our existing efforts on the web, providing a clear path forward to improve user privacy without putting access to free content and services at risk," Anthony Chavez, vice president of product management for Android security and privacy, said.

If the British government fails to persuade the tech titans to back away from implementing end-to-end encryption in messaging apps then its next tactic will be to try to mobilize public opinion against it by claiming the technology puts society in moral peril. The public probably doesn't like the idea of abusers hiding behind encryption, but many folks are equally suspicious of the government's motives.

Google plans to extend its rework of web ad technology - the optimistically named Privacy Sandbox - to Android devices in an effort to limit the misuse of data in its mobile ecosystem. It began to take shape a year after Google undertook Project Strobe, a rethink of Google Account and Android data access in the wake of ongoing security and privacy problems.