GDPR
Ireland now also investigating X over Grok-made sexual images
Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), the country’s data protection authority, has opened a formal investigation into X over the use of the platform’s Grok artificial intelligence tool to generate non-consensual sexual images of real people, including children. The DPC, which also serves as the lead European Union privacy regulator for X due to the company’s […]
France fines unemployment agency €5 million over data breach
The French data protection authority fined the national employment agency €5 million (nearly €6 million) for failing to secure job seekers’ data, which allowed hackers to steal the personal information of 43 million people. France Travail (formerly known as Pôle Emploi) is the country’s public employment service, providing unemployment benefits and helping job seekers find […]
France fines Free Mobile €42 million over 2024 data breach incident
The French data protection authority (CNIL) has imposed cumulative fines of €42 million on Free Mobile and its parent company, Free, for inadequate protection of customer data against cyber threats. The company is the second-largest internet service provider in France and suffered a data breach in October 2024, exposing information of nearly 23 million mobile and […]
UK fines LastPass over 2022 data breach impacting 1.6 million users
The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) fined the LastPass password management firm £1.2 million for failing to implement security measures that allowed an attacker to steal personal information and encrypted password vaults belonging to up to 1.6 million UK users in a 2022 breach. According to the ICO, the incident stemmed from two interconnected breaches […]
Data breach at major Swedish software supplier impacts 1.5 million
The Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection (IMY) is investigating a cyberattack on IT systems supplier Miljödata that exposed data belonging to 1.5 million people. Miljödata is an IT systems supplier for roughly 80% of Sweden’s municipalities. The company disclosed the incident on August 25, saying that the attackers stole data and demanded 1.5 Bitcoin to not leak it. […]
Germany asks Google, Apple to remove DeepSeek AI from app stores
The Berlin Commissioner for Data Protection has formally requested Google and Apple to remove the DeepSeek AI application from the application stores due to GDPR violations. The commissioner, Meike Kamp, alleges that DeepSeek’s owner, Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence, based in Beijing, unlawfully collects data from German users and transfers them for processing in servers in China. […]
TikTok fined €530 million for sending European user data to China
The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has fined TikTok €530 million (over $601 million) for illegally transferring the personal data of users in the European Economic Area (EEA) to China, violating the European Union’s GDPR data protection regulations. The administrative fines imposed by the Irish watchdog consist of a fine of €485 million for its […]
GDPR complaints filed against TikTok, Temu for sending user data to China
Non-profit privacy advocacy group “None of Your Business” (noyb) has filed six complaints against TikTok, AliExpress, SHEIN, Temu, WeChat, and Xiaomi, for unlawfully transferring European user’s data to China and infringing European Union’s general data protection regulation (GDPR). Founded by Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems, NOYB works through legal action against companies that violate users’ privacy rights, particularly in […]
Ireland fines Meta $264 million over 2018 Facebook data breach
The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) fined Meta €251 million ($263.6M) over General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) violations arising from a 2018 personal data breach impacting 29 million Facebook accounts. The breach was caused by the exploitation of user access tokens by unauthorized parties, exposing sensitive user data such as names, email addresses, phone numbers, and physical locations, […]
X faces GDPR complaints for unauthorized use of data for AI training
European privacy advocate NOYB (None of Your Business) has filed nine GDPR complaints about X using the personal data from over 60 million users in Europe to train “Grok,” the social media company’s large language model. According to NOYB, X did not inform its users that their data was being used to train AI and did […]