News Alerts and Breach Report for Week of August 8, 2022
India Halts Progress on Data Privacy
Last week the Indian government withdrew its proposed privacy bill. India, which is the fastest growing market for new internet users, has been working on The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, for two years. The bill would have put new regulations on tech giants like Google and Meta, creating the sort of data privacy rights that have become standardized for consumers across the globe, including the right to know how personal data is processed and the right to have it deleted. According to the New York Times, privacy advocates and lawmakers alike complained that the bill “would have given the government broad powers to store, use and control the large amounts of data it gathered on its citizens, including fingerprints and iris scans…while exempting law enforcement agencies and public entities from the law’s provisions.” Meanwhile tech companies would have been hard-pressed to comply with localized storage requirements, as the bill would have required them to store data about Indian citizens locally. The Indian government says it will introduce a new privacy law to address many of these concerns.
IoT Security Progresses
For many years, privacy and security experts have been concerned about the threats and security concerns inherent to the Internet of Things (IoT). Increased attack surfaces—created by an ever-growing swatch of internet-connected sensors and devices—are one major cause of concern. Another is the ability for these devices to gather untold amounts of information about consumers’ habits and personal lives. But a recent study conducted by Wi-SUN Alliance shows that IoT professionals are getting on top of those issues from a tech perspective. The study surveyed 300 IoT project executives across the UK and US, within industries like energy and utilities, state and local government, construction, technology and telecoms, according to telecom publication Vanilla Plus. The outlet notes that, “organizations ranking security as one of their top three challenges when rolling out IoT fell from 58% in 2017 to just 24% in 2022. In addition, the proportion of respondents viewing security as a “technical challenge” also dropped from 65% in 2017 to 42% this year. However as security becomes less of a technical challenge for these organizations, respondents noted that regulations and budget cuts have driven an increase in concerns over compliance abilities.
3 Global Privacy Trends to Note
Don’t expect data privacy legislation to slow down. According to a survey of top privacy and policy experts conducted by The Drum, legislation will only continue to make compliance more complicated. Brazil and China have introduced legislation that will take effect or has taken effect, while the European Commission has introduced the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act to further regulate tech companies. Meanwhile a federal data privacy bill looks set to pass in the U.S. Collectively, many of these bills will prohibit targeted advertising to some degree, creating more hurdles for businesses built around using data to reach their customers in this manner. Other trends that will create obstacles to compliance include the increasing trend of data localization (storing data about citizens within their respective countries) and an increasing effort to address data privacy concerns by using antitrust laws to target tech giants.
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Peter Halprin, a partner in Pasich LLP’s New York office, joins Jody Westby on our Privacy and Cybersecurity podcast this week to discuss the lack of standardized applications, premium hikes no matter how good your cybersecurity program is, nation state-sponsored cyber-attacks and the war exclusion clause, and regulators running rampant. New Podcasts are generally released every Thursday and can be downloaded here. They can also be enjoyed on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Don’t forget to subscribe!