We are excited to launch a weekly newsletter for all the privacy-related news across the globe. We plan to classify our weekly newsletter into three parts namely Applause, Breaches and Current News (ABC’s) of Privacy news. For any feedback on our weekly newsletter, please feel free to send your valuable comments to social@oneDPO.com.
Applause
Researchers rolling out privacy-preserving AI learning system for medical analysis
Researchers from Nvidia and King’s College London are debuting a new methodology for training neural networks that involve large quantities of high-quality data. Federated learning is used to train the datasets in multiple iterations at different sites rather than data from a single location.
For more info: https://www.zdnet.com/article/nvidia-kings-college-london-debut-privacy-focused-way-to-train-neural-networks/
Federal US privacy bill gains support of House Democrats
DelBene’s privacy proposal hasobtained support from a majority of the U.S. House Democrats members. The billwould allow consumers to opt-out of the collection, storage and sharing oftheir data. It would require companies to get consumer approval for any use ofsensitive data such as financial or health information and oblige companies to furnish plain language privacy policies.
For more info: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-15/centrist-democratic- lawmakers-back-pro-business-privacy-law
Breaches
Cyberattacks target nearly half of small businesses
Small businesses continue toexperience the consequences of cyberattacks. They are advised by experts toadopt a list of strategies for combating cyber threats. But at the same time,attackers are getting more smarter, attacks are occurring faster.
For more info: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/13/cyberattacks-cost-small-companies-200k-putting-many-out-of-business.html
Hacker accessed financial info of 37K TransUnion Canada customers
TransUnion Canada, one of thebiggest credit reporting agencies in the world, has reported some consumercredit files in Canada may have been accessed without authorization through thefraudulent use of a legitimate customer’s login credentials. Letters fromTransUnion Canada have been going to possibly affected Canadians sincemid-September.
For more info: https://www.itworldcanada.com/article/canadian-credit-reporting-agency-compromised-through-third-party/422576
Alberta hospital employees illicitly accessed 2K patient records
An internal investigation has found more than two thousand patientelectronic health records were accessed without permission at the Red DeerRegional Hospital Centre (RDRHC). The majority belonged to emergency patients.More than 30 staff members were found to be involved in this breach.
For more info: https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/privacy-breach-impacts-red-deer-hospital-patients-1.4624507
Current News
Brazil to create a single citizen database
The Brazilian government isplanning to create a single citizen database, which is to be shared acrosspublic departments. It is expected to contain a wide range of personalinformation about the country’s population of over 200 million people. Theobjectives of the database include the improvement in public policy, as well assimplifying data sharing between government departments.
For more info: https://www.zdnet.com/article/brazilian-government-to-create-single-citizen-database/
Facebook plans to make money off of Libra
Facebook is currently working onan app called Libra, a sort of a wallet that can tightly integrate with thelikes of WhatsApp and Messenger. Facebook will be able to see which people orbusinesses you’ve transacted with, through their apps. This might result in aloss of data privacy.