United Kingdom
Investigation after data breach affects thousands
- An investigation has been launched due to thousands of workers affected by a personal data breach.
- The cyber incident comprised data of the trade union Prospect Custodian Trustees Ltd in 2025. Since then, data protection authorities of Guernsey, Jersey, the Isle of Man, and the UK have launched an Inquiry.
- The Office of Data Protection (ODPA) said that the trade union had more than 160,000 members who work as scientists, engineers, tech experts and in other specialist roles.
- The organisation holds members’ personal information including financial data and sensitive data such as trade union membership, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, and religious belief, according to ODPA.
United States
US pauses implementation of $40 billion technology deal with Britain
- The United States is pausing the implementation of a $40 billion technology agreement with Britian, officials said. This follows concerns in Washington over ‘London’s approach to digital regulation and food standards.
- The deal called “Tech Prosperity Deal” covered artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and civil nuclear energy, was agreed during President Donald Trump’s state visit to Britain in September.
- The New York Time said that frustrations were growing amongst U.S. officials due to Britain’s ‘safety rules, digital services tax, and food safety restrictions.’
- The U.S. is Britian’s largest trading partner, and billions of dollars have already been invested by big tech companies in their UK operations. According to Reuters, both sides have agreed to continue further negotiations in January.
Can law enforcement access Google search data without a warrant? Pennsylvania says yes
- It has been held by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on December 16, 2025, that individuals do not have a ‘reasonable expectation’ of privacy in ‘general, unprotected Google search records.’
- In the case Commonwealth v Kurtz, No 98 MAP 2023, law enforcement obtained a so-called “reverse keyword search warrant” from Google for records of searches of a victim’s name and address made the week prior to an alleged assault. The resulting data tied a search to the defendant’s IP address.
- The majority held that entering a query into Google willingly “voluntarily turns over [the contents of the search] to third parties” and therefore ‘negates any constitutionally recognised privacy interest in those search records.’
- While law enforcement did have a warrant in this case, there was a large focus on whether privacy protection would apply even with no warrant.
- The Kurtz majority held that “when users enter search terms into Google or similar search engines without using additional privacy protections, Pennsylvania law treats those search queries as information that users knowingly and voluntarily share with a third party (the search provider). Because of this voluntary exposure, the Court found that individuals do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in that search data.”
Europe
- Around a month ago, the European Commission put forth proposals to reshape Europe’s digital future. The three-part package includes proposals for reforming key digital rules for privacy, cyber security, and artificial intelligence via two Digital Omnibus packages, a data Union Strategy and a robust digital identify program.
- Some of the omnibus implications include timing; the proposal would adjust implementation deadlines for high-risk AI systems no later than December 2027 for Annex III and August 2028 for Annex I.
- The Omnibus also proposal would expand acceptable use of personal data as it significantly broadens the ability for providers and deployers to allow providers and deployers of non-high-risk AI systems to use special categories of personal data to detect and correct bias.
- The proposal also intends to change the threshold from “strictly necessary” use of personal data to “necessary use”. They could hugely expand the scope of what is acceptable use of personal data for training AI systems.
International
Kenyan court suspends ‘landmark’ US health aid deal over data privacy concerns
- A Kenyan court has suspended the implementation of a $2.5bn (£1.9bn) health aid deal signed with the US last week over data privacy concerns. The interim ruling bars Kenyan authorities from taking any steps to put the deal in practice “insofar as it provides for or facilitates the transfer, sharing or dissemination of medical, epidemiological or sensitive personal health data”.
- This decision follows a case filed by a consumer rights lobby seeking to stop the alleged transfer and sharing of Kenyans’ personal data under the agreement.
- Health Minister Aden Duale said that the government would comply with the court’s ruling, but that the government would challenge it.
- Many Kenyans raised concerns that the deal could allow the US to view personal medical records such as their HIV status, TB treatment history, and vaccination data. President Willliam Ruto said that the attorney-general had gone through the agreement thoroughly to ensure that “the law that prevails on data that belongs to the people of Kenya is the Kenyan law”.
With freebies, OpenAI, Google vie for Indian users and training data
- OpenAI, Google and Perplexity are competing for artificial intelligence users in India. They are doing so by rolling out freebies in a strategy seen as a way to “harvest troves of multilingual training data in the world’s most populous nation”.
- In a bid to gain users, Google in November started giving its $400 Gemini AI Pro subscription for free for 18 months to 500 customers of Reliance Jio, India’s biggest telecom player.
- OpenAI has also made its ChatGPT Go plan, which offers extended but not unlimited usage compared with existing plans, free for a year. Perplexity, meanwhile, has made its Pro tool – priced at $200 a year globally – free for a year for users of Indian telecom company Airtel.
- Five AI analysts have said that the freebies strategy would help companies gain from India’s linguistic diversity to secure crucial data for AI training.
For the latest updates on Google search data privacy ruling, visit our Data Protection News hub covering global developments as courts, regulators and governments in the US, UK, EU and beyond examine who can access personal data and how AI uses it.
