Source: New Zealand Privacy Commissioner – Blog
Check out some of the biggest recent news involving privacy from Aotearoa and around the world. Topics include Privacy Commissioner John Edwards leaving for a bigger role in the UK, WhatsApp amending its privacy policy following a $366m fine, and a deep look at some of the personal information held by Amazon.
John Edwards is off on a ‘late-life OE’ as UK privacy watchdog, and he’s not done with Facebook yet
New Zealand’s privacy commissioner is swapping that job for a similar role in the UK, but on a bigger scale and a much bigger stage.
He tells Toby Manhire about the new gig, what he achieved in New Zealand, and the attacks on Facebook that spread around the world. Read more here on the Spinoff news website.
WhatsApp privacy policy tweaked in Europe after record fine
Following an investigation, the Irish data protection watchdog issued a €225m fine ($366m) – the second-largest in history over GDPR – and ordered WhatsApp to change its policies.
The fine handed to WhatsApp was the result of a years-long investigation into whether the social media giant was transparent enough about how it handles user information. Read the latest news from the BBC.
A look at the intimate details Amazon knows about us
As a Virginia lawmaker, Ibraheem Samirah has studied internet privacy issues and debated how to regulate tech firms’ collection of personal data.
Still, he was stunned to learn the full details of the information Amazon.com has collected on him. The e-commerce giant had more than 1,000 contacts from his phone. Read more from Reuters here.
Privacy breach: Invercargill woman given someone else’s ACC file
An Invercargill woman is concerned about her privacy after ACC gave her someone else’s sensitive medical records.
It came one month after more than a dozen employees of Accident Compensation Corporation staff in Hamilton allegedly shared private client information over social media and weeks after two Dunedin staff were suspended for allegedly inappropriately sharing client information.
See the Otago Daily Times website for the full article.
GoDaddy security breach exposes WordPress users’ data
Web hosting company GoDaddy Inc said email addresses of up to 1.2 million active and inactive Managed WordPress customers had been exposed in an unauthorized third-party access.
The company said the incident was discovered on 17 November and the third-party accessed the system using a compromised password.
See the Reuters news site for more details.
