United Kingdom
The General Election and my personal data – what should I expect?
- The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) have written a blog post to address some of the common questions the organisation is asked during elections.
- With the General Election taking place on 4th July, many people will have questions about how their data may be used during election campaign.
- The ICO have listed expectations the public should have in this upcoming election.
United States
Live Nation probing Ticketmaster hack amid user data leak concerns
- Live Nation Entertainment said on Friday it was investigating a data breach at its Ticketmaster unit that it discovered on May 20.
- In a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Live Nation said it found “unauthorised activity” in a third-party cloud database that mainly contained Ticketmaster data.
- Last week, a little-known cybercrime group named ShinyHunters said it had stolen user data of over 500 million Ticketmaster customers, according to various media reports.
- The breach has not had and is unlikely to have a material impact on Live Nation’s business or financials.
US judge makes ‘unthinkable’ pitch to use AI to interpret legal texts
- A federal appeals court judge used a concurring opinion in an insurance dispute to lay out what he called an “unthinkable” proposal: that courts begin using artificial intelligence programs to help interpret words and phrases in legal texts.
- US Circuit Judge, Kevin Newsom, issued an unusual opinion during an appeals case, stating the facts of the case prompted him to consider whether generative AI programs like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Anthropic’s Claude might provide some benefits to courts interpreting the ordinary meaning of words in a text like an insurance contract.
- This opinion comes as courts across the US grapple with the rapid rise of AI programs and explore whether their use by lawyers should be regulated or prohibited.
Europe
Spanish police investigate whether hackers stole millions of drivers’ data
- Spanish police said on Friday they were investigating whether the private information of millions of vehicle drivers had been offered up for sale online after the traffic authority detected an attempted data breach earlier this month.
- The Directorate-General of Traffic (DGT) detected suspicious activity from users trying to access its database. This was blocked and the DGT alerted the Traffic Investigation and Analysis Group (GIAT), which opened an investigation.
- The DGT’s database contains detailed information, including license plate numbers and insurance data, for more than 27 million drivers registered in Spain.
EU in touch with Telegram as it nears criterion for EU tech rules
- EU tech regulators are in touch with messaging app Telegram as it nears a key usage criterion that could see it subject to more stringent requirements under a landmark EU online content legislation.
- The Digital Services Act (DSA) applies to all intermediaries and platforms, but with tougher obligations on Big Tech to do more to police illegal and harmful online content on their platforms.
- Telegram has 41 million EU users, which is below the DSA’s 45 million threshold which would see it labelled as a very large online platform (VLOP) required to comply with stricter obligations.
Greek authority fines interior ministry over voters’ emails leak
- Greece’s data protection authority has fined the interior ministry 400,000 euros for leaking the email addresses of thousands of expatriate voters in June 2023.
- An investigation was launched in March following dozens of complaints from voters who had received emails of political content from Greek European Parliament member Anna-Michelle Asimakopoulou ahead of the EU parliamentary action.
- The probe showed a document containing the contact information of more than 20,000 expats who voted in a 2023 national election, which was forwarded to people working outside the ministry.
International
OpenAI sets up safety committee as it starts training new model
- OpenAI has formed a Safety and Security Committee that will be led by board members, including CEO Sam Altman, as it begins training its next artificial intelligence model.
- The new committee will be responsible for making recommendations to the board on safety and security decisions for OpenAI’s projects and operations.
- The committee’s first task will be to evaluate and further develop OpenAI’s existing safety practices over the next 90 days, which it will share recommendations with the board.
- OpenAI did not provide further details on the new “frontier” model it is training, except that it would bring its systems to the “next level of capabilities on our path to AGI.”
