WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Secret-spilling website WikiLeaks, a pivotal player in the email leaks that buffeted the 2016 U.S. presidential election, suffered a brief outage on Monday. Visitors to the site were met with an error message saying the security certific... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Chinese government-linked hackers have been targeting U.S. election infrastructure ahead of the 2020 presidential election, White House National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien said on Sunday, indicating a more active level of alleged Ch... More »
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s plan to regulate “non-personal” data has jolted U.S. tech giants Amazon, Facebook and Google, and a group representing them is preparing to push back against the proposals, according to sources and a letter seen by Reuters. A gove... More »
(Reuters) – Barclays Plc (BARC.L) is being probed by the United Kingdom’s privacy watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), over allegations that the British bank spied on its staff, the agency said on Sunday. Earlier this year, Barclays said it w... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Several Republican senators on Sunday backed a plan by China’s ByteDance to divest the U.S. operations of TikTok after President Donald Trump said on Friday he had decided to ban the popular short-video app. Senator John Cornyn, a Texas ... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia’s competition regulator on Monday accused Alphabet’s Google of misleading consumers to get permission for use of their personal data for targeted advertising, seeking a fine “in the millions” and aiming to establish a precedent. Th... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia is scrutinising the popular Chinese-owned social media TikTok platform for any risks it may pose to users from around potential foreign interference and data privacy issues, government sources told Reuters. Owned by Bytedance, TikT... More »
SHANGHAI/SEOUL (Reuters) – Some K-pop stars’ accounts have been blocked from view on TikTok’s China equivalent Douyin, Reuters’ checks showed on Friday, days after South Korea’s media regulator slapped fines on the short-video app for data privacy noncomplianc... More »
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Europe’s top court will on Thursday rule on the legality of tools companies use to transfer Europeans’ data around the world, in the latest clash between Facebook and Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems. If the court finds the mechanisms... More »
(Reuters) – China’s Huawei Technologies has requested a meeting with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to work out a deal to delay its potential removal from the country’s 5G phone network, the Sunday Times newspaper reported on Sunday. The Chinese telecoms equi... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Democratic U.S. senator says he has written to Attorney General William Barr outlining his concerns about potential “political interference” by the Trump administration in an investigation of a private espionage firm that targeted envi... More »
OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) – Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google upended plans by European media companies to block it from harvesting data about their readers and slash some of its dominance in online advertising, seven people involved in the talks said this month... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany on Tuesday becomes the latest European country to launch a smartphone app that seeks to break the chain of coronavirus infection by tracking encounters between people and issuing a warning should one of them test positive. A growing ... More »
OSLO (Reuters) – Norway will halt its COVID-19 track and trace app and delete all data collected so far after criticism from the Norwegian Data Protection Authority, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) said on Monday. The app was introduced by some... More »
(Reuters) – South Africa’s Life Healthcare said on Tuesday its southern African operation was hit by a cyber attack affecting its admissions systems, business processing systems and email servers, but is yet to determine the extent to which data has been compr... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) disclosed Monday it will no longer offer facial recognition or analysis software in a letter to Congress calling for new efforts to pursue justice and racial equity, new Chief Executive Office... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Attorney General William Barr said on Monday he does not expect a Justice Department review of the FBI’s handling of 2016 election interference to lead to criminal investigation of former President Barack Obama or former Vice Presid... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate will make a renewed attempt this week to extend parts of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Monday, two months after the divisive government surveillance tools... More »
PARIS (Reuters) – France’s state-supported “StopCOVID” contact-tracing app should enter its testing phase in the week of May 11 when the country starts to unwind its lockdown, a government minister said on Sunday. Minister for Digital Affairs Cedric O, a membe... More »
CHAMBLON, Switzerland (Reuters) – In the battle against coronavirus, Swiss soldiers are using smartphones to test a new contact tracing application that could prevent infections while also protecting users’ privacy. Switzerland hopes to launch the app on May 1... More »
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Citing grave dangers to privacy, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled on Sunday that the government must bring its use of mobile phone tracking deployed in the battle against the new coronavirus under legislation. Circumventing parliament in Marc... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany changed course on Sunday over which type of smartphone technology it wanted to use to trace coronavirus infections, backing an approach supported by Apple and Google along with a growing number of other European countries. Countries ... More »
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – U.S. states promoting apps that could prove essential to ending the coronavirus lockdown may be headed for a showdown with the two Silicon Valley companies that control key software on 99% of smartphones over the collection of sensiti... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – A rift has opened up over the design of smartphone apps to trace people in Europe at risk of coronavirus infection, potentially hindering efforts to curb the pandemic and ease crippling travel restrictions. Scientists and researchers from mo... More »
(Reuters) – Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google said on Friday that they will work together to create contact tracing technology that aims to slow the spread of the coronavirus by allowing users to opt into logging other phones they have bee... More »
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Singapore has suspended the use of video-conferencing tool Zoom by teachers after “very serious incidents” in the first week of a coronavirus lockdown that has seen schools move to home-based learning. One incident involved obscene images... More »
(Reuters) – At least two U.S. state attorneys have sought information from Zoom Video Communications Inc following multiple reports that questioned the privacy and security of the video-conferencing app. Zoom’s popularity has surged as employees at businesses,... More »
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Infectious disease researchers are using Facebook Inc mobile location data to provide daily updates to U.S. cities and states evaluating the effectiveness of social distancing orders aimed at slowing the novel coronavirus. The COVID-1... More »
(Reuters) – Microsoft Corp on Friday said it would sell its stake in AnyVision, an Israeli facial recognition startup, and said it no longer would make minority investments in companies that sell the controversial technology. The decision marks a policy change... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Alphabet Inc’s Google is exploring ways to use location information to slow the spread of the coronavirus by, for example, determining the effectiveness of social distancing. U.S. Senator Ed Markey, who has long championed consumer priva... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Federal Communications Commission confirmed on Friday it voted to propose fining four major U.S. wireless carriers more than $200 million for failing to protect consumers’ location information. The FCC is proposing to fine T-Mobile U... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai said on Friday the telecommunications regulator plans to take action against at least one unnamed wireless carrier over the apparent unauthorized sale of real-time location d... More »
MUNICH (Reuters) – European regulators have imposed 114 million euros ($126 million) in fines for data breaches since tougher privacy rules came into force in mid-2018, with approaches varying widely from country to country. A report by law firm DLA Piper said... More »
(Reuters) – The U.S. government is planning to permanently halt its civilian drone program due to the devices being made at least partly in China, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. The U.S. Department of the Interior is considering halting about 1,000 dr... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Facebook Inc on Wednesday said it would remove “deepfake” and other manipulated videos from its website to combat the spread of false information ahead of the 2020 presidential race, but lawmakers said those and other changes it has rece... More »
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems’ seven-year battle against Facebook reaches a crucial point on Dec. 17 when an adviser to Europe’s top court will issue his view on whether tools used by companies to transfer data abroad are legal or ... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. banking regulators said on Tuesday that lenders must have robust compliance tools in place to ensure “responsible use” of non-traditional sources of financial data to help determine whether a potential customer is credit worthy. In ... More »
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China on Sunday put into effect new regulations that require Chinese telecom carriers to scan the faces of users registering new mobile phone services, a move the government says is aimed at cracking down on fraud. The rules, first announc... More »
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – EU antitrust regulators are investigating Google’s collection of data, the European Commission told Reuters on Saturday, suggesting the world’s most popular internet search engine remains in its sights despite record fines in recent years.... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Some are backed by dollars. Others by gold. But this “stablecoin” isn’t tied to any major asset – it’s backed by another cryptocurrency. Stablecoins, such as Facebook’s (FB.O) Libra, are a new breed of cryptocurrencies that aim to escape the... More »
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Microsoft said on Monday it was updating the privacy provisions of its commercial cloud contracts after European regulators found its deals with European Union institutions failed to protect data in line with EU law. The EDPS, the EU’s dat... More »
MONTREAL (Reuters) – A June data breach that hit Canada’s Desjardins Group has affected all of the financial cooperative’s 4.2 million members, prompting government reforms to protect personal information in the Canadian province of Quebec, an official said on... More »
DUBAI (Reuters) – United Arab Emirates (UAE) telecoms company du saw no evidence of security concerns about Huawei’s 5G technology, the company’s chief technological officer Saleem Albalooshi told Reuters on Sunday. “Huawei is our partner in rolling out our 5G... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Alphabet Inc’s Google will spend up to $200 million to settle a Federal Trade Commission investigation into YouTube’s alleged violation of a children’s privacy law, a person briefed on the matter told Reuters. Politico reported the settl... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States and Poland may sign an agreement aimed at securing 5G networks when U.S. Vice President Michael Pence visits Warsaw in the coming days, a senior White House official said on Friday. Pence leaves on Saturday night on a t... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s cartel office said on Monday it would appeal a regional court decision to suspend restrictions it had placed on Facebook’s data collection practices to the country’s highest court. A court in Duesseldorf had earlier suspended a Feb... More »
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s state communications watchdog has asked Google (GOOGL.O) to stop advertising “illegal mass events” on its YouTube video platform, it said on Sunday. Tens of thousands of Russians staged what observers called the country’s biggest po... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump hit out at a prominent African-American critic on Saturday, calling him a “brutal bully” who should concentrate on cleaning up his “disgusting, rat and rodent infested” Baltimore district rather than criticizing th... More »
(Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump is looking to require next-generation 5G cellular equipment used in the United States to be designed and manufactured outside China, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter. As ... More »
(Reuters) – Facebook Inc is in talks with the U.S. derivatives regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), over the social media company’s plans for a digital currency, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. The regulator is in the early stage... More »
(Reuters) – U.S. real estate title insurance company First American Financial Corp said on Friday it had learned of a design defect in one of its production applications that had made possible unauthorized access to customer data. The statement was sent in res... More »
(Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc shareholders overwhelmingly rejected a proposal that the company stop selling facial recognition technology to government agencies, while a resolution to audit the service drew more support, a regulatory filing on Friday showed. Some... More »
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – The Swedish prosecutor heading an investigation into a rape allegation against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange filed a request with a local court on Monday for him to be detained in absentia. If granted, the court order would be the firs... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said on Sunday that U.S. officials should consider breaking up Facebook Inc, the world’s largest social media company, saying it is a utility that has gone unregulated. Harris, a U.S. senat... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Facebook Inc quickly rejected a call from co-founder Chris Hughes on Thursday to split the world’s largest social media company in three, while lawmakers urged the U.S. Justice Department to launch an antitrust investigation. Facebook ha... More »
HYDERABAD, India/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Over the past year, a team of as many as 260 contract workers in Hyderabad, India has ploughed through millions of Facebook Inc photos, status updates and other content posted since 2014. The workers categorize items ... More »
HYDERABAD, India/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc has thousands of content labelers around the world who categorize content with the aim of creating large datasets that can be more readily analyzed by humans and software. One project at outsourcing vendo... More »
(Reuters) – A British cyber security researcher hailed as a hero for neutralizing the global “WannaCry” ransomware attack in 2017 has pleaded guilty to U.S. charges of writing malware. Marcus Hutchins, who was charged on 10 counts in the United States, pleaded... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange repeatedly violated his asylum conditions and tried to use the Ecuadorian embassy in London as a center for spying, Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno told Britain’s Guardian newspaper. London police dragged As... More »
(Reuters) – Ahead of fresh high-level trade talks this week, China is not conceding to U.S. demands to ease curbs on technology companies, the Financial Times reported on Sunday, citing three people briefed on the discussions. U.S. Trade Representative Robert ... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Senator Elizabeth Warren vowed on Friday to break up Amazon, Google and Facebook if elected U.S. president to promote competition in the technology sector. Seeking to stand out in a crowded field vying to be the Democratic candidate for pr... More »
(Reuters) – Networking software company Citrix Systems Inc said on Friday it has taken action to fix incident involving unauthorized access, possibly by international cyber criminals, to its internal network. Citrix also said it was contacted by the U.S. Feder... More »
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – California Attorney General Xavier Becerra on Monday endorsed a state bill that would expand the state’s new privacy act to allow consumers to sue companies over their handling of personal data, despite months of tech lobbying against... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s federal cybersecurity agency is investigating whether China’s Huawei Technologies could be a security threat after warnings from other countries, the Funke group of newspapers reported on Friday, citing Economy Minister Peter Altma... More »
(Reuters) – Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg is planning to unify the underlying messaging infrastructure of the WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger services and incorporate end-to-end encryption into these apps, the New York Times reported ... More »
HANOI (Reuters) – Facebook has violated Vietnam’s new cybersecurity law by allowing users to post anti-government comments on the platform, state media said on Wednesday, days after the controversial legislation took effect in the communist-ruled country. Desp... More »
TORONTO (Reuters) – Russia’s Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) is again on the verge of suspension after a World Anti-Doping Agency inspection team visiting a Moscow laboratory was denied access to raw data to complete its full reinstatement, WADA said on Friday. Th... More »
ROME (Reuters) – The Italian parliament on Tuesday approved a package of measures to crack down on public sector corruption and improve the efficiency of the justice system, two problems which have long dogged the euro zone’s third largest economy. The bill ba... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia’s competition watchdog on Monday recommended tougher scrutiny and a new regulatory body to check the dominance of tech giants Facebook Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google in the country’s online advertising and news markets. The recommen... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia’s competition regulator says it has five investigations afoot as a result of its examination of the market power and public influence of tech giants such as Facebook Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google. “We have five investigations under... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Tech firms like Facebook (FB.O) should be made liable for “harmful and misleading” material on their websites and pay a levy so they can be regulated, British lawmakers said, warning of a crisis in democracy due to misuse of personal data. F... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration is working to develop consumer data privacy policies, and the Commerce Department is meeting with big companies like Facebook Inc, Comcast Corp and Alphabet Inc as it looks to eventually seeing the policies enshr... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Litigation funder IMF Bentham Ltd (IMF.AX) is preparing to potentially sue social media giant Facebook Inc (FB.O) in Australia over its sharing of users’ data with political consultancy Cambridge Analytica. The world’s largest social network... More »
(Reuters) – Four senior U.S. House Republicans sent letters on Monday to the chief executives of Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and Google parent Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) asking questions about location data and mobile phone privacy practices and the handling of customer da... More »
CHICAGO (Reuters) – (The writer is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.) Navigating Medicare can be complicated, but one big change recently introduced requires that you do absolutely nothing beyond opening an envelope. In fact, doing just ... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Facebook continues to be evasive in its answers to a British parliamentary committee examining a scandal over misuse of the social media company’s data by Cambridge Analytica, the committee’s chair said on Friday. Britain’s digital and media... More »
WASHINGTON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Financial watchdogs from North America, Britain and Asia are urgently seeking a formal exemption from the European Union’s tough new data privacy law to avoid hampering cross-border investigations, regulatory officials told Reut... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday named Rear Admiral Douglas Fears as his homeland security and counterterrorism adviser on the National Security Council, the White House said. “Doug Fears brings more than three decades of experience... More »
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple has approved an updated version of the Telegram messaging service, a day after Telegram complained that it had been prevented from getting software improvements into the hands of iPhone owners worldwide. Telegram Chief Executive... More »
(This May 25 story corrects first name of Capital Markets Authority CEO to Paul, not Peter, paragraph 29) By Maggie Fick and Omar Mohammed NAIROBI (Reuters) – Kenya built a reputation as a pioneer of financial inclusion through its early adoption of a mobile m... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain will tackle “the Wild West elements” on the internet from cyberbullying to online child exploitation by introducing new laws for social media companies, digital minister Matt Hancock said on Sunday. Launching a consultation on what m... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Donald Trump Jr., the U.S. president’s eldest son, met in August 2016 with an envoy representing the crown princes of United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. The meeting was first reported by the New York Times on Saturday and confirmed b... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Communications Commission said on Friday it was referring reports that a website flaw could have allowed the location of mobile phone customers to be tracked to its enforcement bureau to investigate. A security researche... More »
BOSTON (Reuters) – Several socially conscious investment firms are selling or rethinking their Facebook Inc holdings, unsatisfied by the company’s moves to strengthen personal data protection and online safety after scandals involving the improper sharing of u... More »
HANOI/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – A struggle over internet laws in Vietnam is pitting a government keen on maintaining tight control against U.S. technology companies trying to fight off onerous new rules – with the country’s online dissidents among the biggest lose... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Google is under investigation in Australia following claims that it collects data from millions of Android smartphones users, who unwittingly pay their telecom service providers for gigabytes consumed during the harvesting, regulators said o... More »
(Reuters) – Britain’s data privacy watchdog has ordered Cambridge Analytica to hand over all the personal information it holds on a U.S. academic, confirming the right of people abroad to seek data held by a UK firm. Data privacy activists say that it sets a p... More »
NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Most of Facebook’s U.S. users have remained loyal to the social network despite revelations that a political consultancy collected information about millions of accounts without owners’ permission, a Reuters/Ipsos poll releas... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. National Security Agency collected 534 million records of phone calls and text messages of Americans last year, more than triple gathered in 2016, a U.S. intelligence agency report released on Friday said. The sharp increase fro... More »
(Reuters) – The Missouri General Assembly will convene a special session on May 18 to consider impeachment or any other discipline that a special House investigative panel may recommend against Governor Eric Greitens, legislative leaders announced on Thursday.... More »
(Reuters) – Twitter Inc urged its more than 330 million users to change their passwords after a glitch caused some to be stored in readable text on its internal computer system rather than disguised by a process known as “hashing”. The social network disclosed... More »
JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia, like other emerging markets, has historically struggled to keep accurate records due to a lack of expertise and resources, but the public and private sectors are now looking at blockchain technology to overcome some of these chal... More »
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Researchers have found eight new flaws in computer central processing units that resemble the Meltdown and Spectre bugs revealed in January, a German computing magazine reported on Thursday. The magazine, called c’t, said it was aware of ... More »
BONN, Germany (Reuters) – That the personal data of tens of millions of Facebook (FB.O) users fell into the wrong hands is troubling politicians, but Germany’s top competition regulator is questioning the sheer volume of information that the social network har... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s financial firms need to pull together to fight cyber crime, working with government and law enforcement to attack criminals’ infrastructure and put them out of business, a report by KPMG and industry body UK Finance said on Monday.... More »
(Reuters) – Missouri Governor Eric Greitens, already facing an invasion-of-privacy trial next month in connection with an extramarital affair, was charged separately on Friday with felony computer tampering tied to his political fund-raising. The new case was ... More »
(Reuters) – British pubs group JD Wetherspoon closed all its social media accounts on Monday, saying it was taking a stand against an industry accused of misusing personal data and allowing bullying to run rife. Despite a global furor over the harvesting of pe... More »
MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippines’ privacy watchdog said on Friday it has started investigating Facebook Inc (FB.O) over a data breach involving British firm Cambridge Analytica that affected more than a million Filipino users of social media. The move follow... More »
(Reuters) – Missouri Governor Eric Greitens, charged with criminal invasion of privacy in connection with an admitted extramarital affair, faced mounting pressure to resign on Thursday after lawmakers presented detailed allegations of abuse and blackmail from ... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Facebook (FB.O) Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg’s No. 1 mission during his appearance before U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday and Wednesday will be to defend against calls to regulate internet-based companies. The prospect of new laws that rest... More »
