Intentionally shutting down or restricting access to the internet violates multiple rights and can be deadly during a health crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic, Human Rights Watch said today. Governments that are currently imposing an internet shutdown, such as Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, and Myanmar, should lift them immediately to save lives. During a health …
The ICANN 67 Public Meeting has been moved to an online event due to the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced that its ICANN67 Public Meeting, which was to be held in Cancún, Mexico, will now be held via remote participation-only. This decision was made as a result …
The US has expanded its lawsuit against Huawei, accusing the Chinese telecoms giant of a “decades-long” plan to steal technology from US firms. Federal prosecutors announced Thursday new criminal charges against Huawei and two of its U.S. subsidiaries, which included racketeering conspiracy charges and a charge of plotting to steal trade secrets from American companies. …
Early this month Internet Society (ISOC) announced that Private equity firm Ethos Capital had acquired the Public Interest Registry (PIR), which runs the .org domain used for non-profit organisations’ websites that it currently runs. The sale has howeevr elicited major opposition from organizations and individuals such as the Internet Commerce Association (ICA), Electronic Frontier Foundation, …
BOSTON—In a major victory for privacy rights at the border, a federal court in Boston ruled today that suspicionless searches of travelers’ electronic devices by federal agents at airports and other U.S. ports of entry are unconstitutional. The ruling came in a lawsuit, Alasaad v. McAleenan, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Electronic …
The chief executive officers (CEOs) of 51 tech companies including Amazon, AT&T, Dell, IBM, Qualcomm, SAP, Salesforce, Visa, Mastercard, JP Morgan Chase, State Farm, and Walmart have signed and sent an open letter to Congress leaders today, asking for a federal law on user data privacy to supersede the rising number of privacy laws that …
Microsoft could face a GDPR penalty after the Netherlands’ data-protection office asked its Irish counterpart to investigate new aspects of Microsoft’s Windows 10 telemetry data collection. The case stems from the Dutch data-protection agency’s (DPA’s) findings in pre-GDPR 2017. At that time, the agency found that Microsoft didn’t tell Windows 10 Home and Pro users …
Today, Africa lags behind other continents in internet connectivity. One of the greatest barriers to getting people online in Africa is cost, with individuals paying an average of 9 percent of monthly income for 1GB of data, compared with 5 percent globally. These high costs are being exacerbated in East and Southern Africa where some …
The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office has declared that it intends to fine British Airways a record total of £183.4m because of a data breach it suffered during the summer of 2018. The airline fell victim to a cyberattack that saw hackers gain access to personal information and credit card data of hundreds of thousands of its customers …
Two US senators have proposed on Monday a bill in Congress to force tech companies to disclose what data they collect about their users and how it is being leveraged by the platform for profit. Named the Designing Accounting Safeguards to Help Broaden Oversight And Regulations on Data (DASHBOARD) Act, the bill was proposed by …