At a glance.
- FTC issues report on online surveillance and privacy concerns.
- Ukraine bans Telegram use for government and military personnel.
- Threat actor claims to have stolen seven terabytes of data from India's largest health insurer.
FTC issues report on online surveillance and privacy concerns.
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has published a staff report alleging that major social media platforms and streaming services have "engaged in vast surveillance of consumers in order to monetize their personal information while failing to adequately protect users online, especially children and teens." The report cites Amazon (owner of Twitch), Facebook (now Meta), YouTube, Twitter (now X), Snap, ByteDance (owner of TikTok), Discord, Reddit, and WhatsApp.
The FTC states, "The report found that the companies collected and could indefinitely retain troves of data, including information from data brokers, and about both users and non-users of their platforms. The staff report further highlights that many companies engaged in broad data sharing that raises serious concerns regarding the adequacy of the companies’ data handling controls and oversight. In particular, the staff report noted that the companies’ data collection, minimization, and retention practices were 'woefully inadequate.' In addition, the staff report found that some companies did not delete all user data in response to user deletion requests."
The report concludes with recommendations for policymakers and companies, calling for "federal privacy legislation to fill the gap in privacy protections provided by COPPA for teens over the age of 13."