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A little-known data firm that created 48 million user profiles by scraping data from sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Zillow had been storing its profiles on Amazon cloud storage without password protection, leaving it open for anyone to download. “In a brief per curiam decision, the [Supreme Court] dismissed United States v.…

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a decision in Sandvig v. Sessions. The case pitted the First Amendment against data privacy concerns, and the decision has garnered interest and some criticism. Facebook says it will not apply  some GDPR protections to US citizens.…

The United States Department of Education issued a letter to Agora Charter Schools telling them that they cannot require parents to use an online service that would require them to waive their rights under FERPA. FISA section 702 was extended.…

Emiliano Falcon and Eli Siems contributed A recent Op-Ed in the New York Times assailed the academic community for being asleep at the wheel on the critical study of algorithms and technology more broadly. Meanwhile NYU officially launched the AInow Institute for the study of the social implications of AI.…

News Roundup, April 26 By Eli Siems   U.K. Parliament concluded an inquiry into algorithmic decision-making. James Davenport contributed. “Buzzfeed is building a team of writers to sell you stuff you didn’t know you wanted,” mainly by producing familiar lists and slideshows about products and linking to partners like Amazon.com.…

PRG NEWS ROUNDUP: APRIL 12 by Caroline Alewaerts A research from New York University and Michigan State University reveals that smartphone fingerprint sensors may not be as secure as we think. The researchers managed to digitally create fake fingerprints (“MasterPrints”) that could match real fingerprints up to 65% of the time.…

Kartik Prasad Information Privacy Law Professor Ira Rubinstein April 12, 2017 Transparency Reports and the FREEDOM Act. The Snowden revelations showcased how Sections 215 and 702 was abused by the NSA in bulk collection of phone metadata. The FREEDOM Act (the Act) sought to curtail this practice by banning the NSA from directly collecting the metadata.…

Junjie Yan Information Privacy Law Professor Ira Rubinstein April 13, 2017 Title of Blog Post: Implications of the upcoming repeal of Internet privacy protections Article: Brian Fung, The House just voted to wipe away the FCC’s landmark Internet privacy protections Wash.…

Ambar Bhushan Information Privacy Law Professor Ira Rubinstein April 13, 2017 Lone Wolf 4th Amendment Challenge To NSA Bulk Data Collection Put On Ice Tennessee lawyer Elliot Schuchardt’s lawsuit alleging that the NSA was collecting and storing “massive quantities of email and other data created by United States Citizens” has been removed from the District Court’s active docket, The Pennsylvania Record reports.…

Cecilia Coelho Romero Information Privacy Law Professor Ira Rubinstein April 12, 2017 The end of unrestrained bulk metadata collection after Snowden’s revelations The USA Patriot Act enacted in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks allowed through its Section 215 the bulk metadata collection, which generated much debate in American society about the proper balance between national security and civil liberties.…