Safaricom seeking to monetise customer location data in its massive customer base

According to a local daily, Safaricom is seeking to pre-qualify suppliers of a location tracking and intelligence platform, and has invited bids for the service that would help the operator to build profiles of customers based on their locations and telephone usage. This could be signalling the telecoms firm’s plan to monetise data in its …

De-prioritised compliance: 50% of UK businesses not fully GDPR-compliant

As the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) legislation nears its 18 month anniversary, research by security software supplier Egress has suggested that 52% of UK businesses are not fully compliant with the rules, opening the door to severe penalties if they fall victim to a data breach. Egress – which polled 250 decision …

Facebook culled 583m fake accounts in first quarter 2018

Facebook took moderation action against almost 1.5bn accounts and posts which violated its community standards in the first three months of 2018, the company has revealed. In its first quarterly Community Standards Enforcement Report, Facebook said the overwhelming majority of moderation action was against spam posts and fake accounts: it took action on 837m pieces …

Google is asking for web publishers’ consent to gather personal data ahead of GDPR

Google is requesting that web publishers provide it with the necessary consents to continue gathering personal information from Europeans for targeted ads as it gears up for the impending arrival of toughened data privacy laws. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into force on 25 May after which companies will be obligated to obtain …

European Commission suggests Police could soon have restricted WHOIS access

The European Commission has suggested that law enforcement authorities could soon have restricted access to the WHOIS database that identifies website owners because the system is on a collision course with the EU’s strict new data protection law. Law enforcement authorities have complained to the Commission about plans to change the system in May because …