A reverse engineer claims that their Samsung smart TV has been collecting audio without their consent. The researcher, who calls themselves “log4j,” said in an X thread that their 2025 Samsung TV was delivering ads that seemed suspiciously relevant to them. Investigating, they claim to have found a package called “always on voice,” which uses the TV’s built-in microphone to collect sounds from the room. The software logged events such as dogs barking and babies crying, log4j said, adding that…
Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal may feel like very old news. But the consequences are still arriving, and the latest comes with a $25 billion price tag. Reuters reports that a New Mexico judge has ordered Meta to pay $25 billion in civil penalties after a jury found that Facebook misled consumers about its data practices and its handling of hate speech and misinformation. Meta says it expects to win on appeal. This case is about more than information ending up in the wrong hands. It…
Two Chicago customers say robots delivering their groceries and takeout scanned their faces and hands without consent, stored the data alongside their names and addresses, and used the recordings to train AI. Their separate lawsuits accuse delivery robot operators Coco Robotics and Serve Robotics of violating Illinois’ biometric privacy law. Both companies dispute the claims. The plaintiffs filed the cases in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, alleging that the robots used their…
OpenAI is facing separate legal challenges over how ChatGPT interacts with children. The Guardian reports that eight US states accuse the company of misleading parents about the chatbot’s safety and exposing vulnerable users to dangerous conversations. Separately, CNET reports that a mother suing on behalf of her two children alleges that OpenAI collected and used children’s sensitive personal information without valid parental consent. The cases raise serious questions about what happens when…
A Saudi OpenAI engineer has been arrested for allegedly planting a hidden recording device in an executive conference room at the company's San Francisco offices to secretly record sensitive conversations. [...]
Norway’s privacy regulator Datatilsynet has fined advertising technology company Xandr 92 million Norwegian kroner, approximately $9.6 million, for unlawfully processing and sharing sensitive information about Grindr users. While the decision concerns users in Norway, the data-sharing practices were not confined to Norwegian users. BleepingComputer reports that information about Grindr users in other countries was also exposed through the advertising system. Between July 2018 and April 2020,…
Norway's Data Protection Authority (Datatilsynet) has fined Microsoft-owned advertising company Xandr NOK 92 million ($9.6M) for unlawfully processing and sharing sensitive data belonging to Grindr users in the country. [...]
Italy's Data Protection Authority (GPDP) has fined IQVIA €7 million ($7.8M) over poor data-processing practices that the agency says could have put roughly one million patients at risk of data exposure and de-anonymization. [...]
Security changes include creating an incident response plan for vendor security failings, limiting how much data Labcorp shares with vendors and building an expansive risk management team charged with tracking vendors’ compliance with data security practices.
The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has fined Google €403 million ($459 million) for violating European privacy law. The penalty follows a six-year inquiry into Google’s management of user location data between May 2018 and February 2020. During that time, Google collected users’ location data without making clear that it could be used to infer their interests and shape the ads they saw. Google’s location history keeps track of users’ locations when using their devices. It’s an opt-in…
Sweden's data privacy regulator, IMY, has imposed a $183,000 (SEK 1.8 million) fine on IT systems provider Miljödata for inadequate security measures leading to a breach in August 2025 affecting 2.2 million people. [...]
The investigation, announced Monday, will probe IDScan’s security practices and whether victim notifications were adequate under Canada’s federal private-sector privacy law, the regulator said in a press release.
Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) has fined Google €403 million ($463M) for multiple GDPR violations related to processing users' location data. [...]
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has seized the domains of 12 deepfake websites in what it called the largest known seizure of celebrity deepfake sites in history. The sites, which marketed themselves as deepfake pornography platforms, hosted AI-generated videos of over 1,200 people, including those in the public eye, ranging from politicians to actors, musicians, and social justice advocates. At least one allowed users to create their own deepfakes by grafting real faces and bodies…
Ukraine’s parliament has approved tougher criminal penalties for involvement in fraudulent call centers and the theft of personal data, following a corruption scandal in which prosecutors were accused of taking bribes to protect scam operations.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg held a press conference on Monday touting the takedown of the sites, which hosted AI-generated videos of more than 1,200 people. The sites allowed users to use the faces and bodies of real people to create illegal pornography.
An Ohio man was sentenced to 15 years in prison for multiple cybercrimes, including sextortion and cyberstalking of numerous victims using AI-generated sexually explicit content. [...]
Grindr has reportedly agreed to pay £26 million (around $35 million) to settle a UK privacy lawsuit alleging that it shared sensitive user data, including some users’ HIV status, with advertisers. The claim was brought by London law firm Austen Hays on behalf of roughly 12,000 UK Grindr users. It alleges that the dating app breached privacy and data-protection laws during a period ending in early 2020. The claimants allege that Grindr shared personal and highly sensitive information with…
France's data protection authority (CNIL) has fined Hôpital privé de la Loire €500,000 ($580,000) for failing to adequately protect patients' and their relatives' data. [...]
You might tell an AI chatbot secrets that you wouldn’t divulge to your closest friends. If you do, though, beware: They could end up as evidence in court. An article in the Washington Post this week highlighted several cases in which people had discussed sensitive information with AI systems like Claude and ChatGPT, only to have their conversations obtained by prosecutors or opposing lawyers. Lawyers can get access to your chatbot conversations from AI services like ChatGPT because they aren’t…