Israeli Ministerial Committee for Legislation Authorizes Police use of Facial Recognition Technology

The Israeli Ministerial Committee for Legislation approved a bill memorandum amending the Police Ordinance, which authorizes the Israel Police to deploy stationary and portable cameras enabling the identification of individuals in real time. The memorandum also authorizes the Police to transfer data from the cameras to the Israeli Security Agency (known as “Shabak”), the Military Intelligence Directorate, and other public ...

Court Reaffirms Preliminary Injunction against LinkedIn’s Efforts to Block Data Scraping

On remand from the Supreme Court of the United States, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has reaffirmed the District Court’s preliminary injunction banning LinkedIn from blocking hiQ, a Californian start-up, from accessing LinkedIn’s website through automated means.

The ongoing feud between LinkedIn and hiQ began a few years ago when LinkedIn sent hiQ a cease and deceased ...

Connecticut Enacts a New Data Privacy and Online Monitoring Act

Connecticut is the fifth state in the U.S. to enact a comprehensive privacy protection law, following California, Virginia, Colorado, and Utah. The new act on personal data privacy and online monitoring will enter into force in July 2023. Its provisions are similar to those of the corresponding acts in Virginia and Colorado.

The new Act applies to any person who ...

Dutch Privacy Regulator Fines Governmental Agencies for Significant GDPR Violations

The Dutch Privacy Protection Authority imposed an unprecedented fine of 4,750,000 Euros for significant violations of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). The regulator’s investigation found that the Dutch Tax Authority had unlawfully collected sensitive personal data of over 250,000 Dutch citizens and recorded it in its fraud signaling system for over six years. Some of the individuals whose data ...

New Report Indicates Significant Improvement in Privacy Compliance in Israel

The Israeli Privacy Protection Authority (PPA) published a summary report of its supervisory activities in 2018-2020. The report reviews the results of the supervisory activities performed in fourteen sectors (such as medical institutions, local authorities, and data storage and processing companies), and indicates an overall significant improvement in compliance with privacy laws and regulations.

Supervised organizations who were found in ...

North Carolina Prohibits Ransomware Payments by Public Agencies

North Carolina became the first state in the U.S. to enact a law that prohibits state and local public agencies from engaging with ransomware hackers demanding ransom, and from paying them any ransom. Under the new statute, upon an agency’s discovery of ransomware in its systems, it must report the incident to the North Carolina Department of Information Technology (DoIT) ...

The EU Plans to Impose Unprecedented Restrictions on Tech Giants

The European Council and the European Parliament reached a provisional political agreement on the Digital Services Act (DSA), which aims to combat the online publication of unlawful content. The DSA sets out strict and unprecedented rules on policing online content, effectively ending the era of self-regulation of content by online platforms.

The DSA will apply to all companies providing online ...

The Global Race to Regulate Cryptocurrency Accelerates

Countries around the world are shifting gears in the race to lead the world of cryptocurrency and NFT regulation.

In the UK, the British government announced its plans to launch a government NFT, as part of its broader plan to become a “world leader” in cryptocurrency. This plan includes, among other things, an expansion of existing regulation on electronic payments ...