The United Kingdom and the United States joined forces last week in an initiative to combat ransomware attacks by sanctioning seven Russian nationals believed to be members of a hacking network. Together with U.S. authorities, the UK’s Foreign Office has reportedly identified the individuals in question, frozen their assets and imposed travel bans in respect of them.
Ransomware is a type of malware that typically renders systems or data inaccessible, often due to the encryption of files. Devices are often locked, and data may be leaked, in addition to being encrypted or deleted, unless and until the victim pays a “ransom” to the actors who deployed the ransomware in return for decryption.
In news that is likely to concern individuals and privacy activists alike, it has been reported that the NHS booking system for COVID-19 vaccinations has led to complaints that it could be used to reveal the vaccination status of individuals through the use of simple personal information.
The European Commission (EC) may be set to propose extensive new legislation – potentially later this week – which, among other things, would ban the use of facial recognition technology for surveillance purposes and the use of algorithms that influence human behavior, according to recently leaked draft documents. The proposals would also introduce new rules regarding high-risk artificial intelligence (AI).
In encouraging news for UK-based organizations involved in the processing of personal data, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has adopted two Opinions on the draft UK adequacy decisions which, if approved, would allow the transfer of personal data from the European Economic Area (EEA) to the UK to continue freely.
The UK Information Commissioner (ICO) has launched a new toolkit for organizations which are planning to use personal data for data analytics as part of the ICO’s priority work on artificial intelligence (AI).
Organizations which fail to implement appropriate technical and organizational security measures to protect personal data and suffer personal data breaches as a result, increasingly may find themselves facing the double whammy of both enforcement action by the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), (which can include significant financial penalties) and potentially also group-style legal actions brought by data subjects.
On 17 December 2020, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) published its new Data Sharing Code of Practice, as required under the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA18).
Despite concerns expressed by regulators and privacy activists, the use of facial recognition technology appears to be on the rise and is becoming increasingly common in everyday life as a result of various different issues.