The Israeli government attempted to transfer information to local authorities that would enable them to track the identity of people who have not received a COVID-19 vaccine. These health data transfers from the Health Ministry to local governments were approved by the Knesset last month, but last Tuesday, the High Court of Justice ruled them unconstitutional. The court held that the data transfer laws harmed constitutional right to privacy and issued a temporary injunction barring further data transfers. (link)
Google announced that will roll out Federated Learning of Cohorts as an replacement to 3rd party cookies. The announcement has generated a lot of Github arguments about how the new online activity tracking system may look like, and how it should look like. (link, link, link)
New York is expanding the use of its vaccine passport, the Excelsior Pass. Art venues will be able to use the pass to monitor whether visitors have been vaccinated and get authorization to open at increased capacity. STOP has reached out to the NY government regarding the Excelsior Pass’s privacy policy but has not received a response yet.
Verkada, a security camera startup, has been reported to possess a super admin view of their private customer cameras. The super admin view allows them to watch live footage from any of their tens of thousands of cameras. The news caused a security camera scandal. (link)
(compiled by student fellow Kevin Kuate Fodouop)