What's new in data privacy?

Yesterday, I announced the upcoming release of Data Reimagined - Building Trust One Byte At A Time for this October. It has been a labor of love that I have worked on alongside Justin Daniels. Over the last year, we?have spent our weekends, evenings, and carpool rides writing this, and we are almost ready to share it with the world.?

We are bringing our privacy, security and business knowledge together to help as many businesses as we can to leverage their privacy and security practices and build trust with customers. Click?here?to sign up for the waitlist to be the first to order your copy.

What’s Happening Now:?

Oracle’s ‘surveillance machine’ targeted in US privacy class action?

Oracle is facing a privacy class action lawsuit in the US based on the allegations that the company’s “worldwide surveillance machine” has built in-depth profiles on approximately 5 BILLION people. The company and its adtech/advertising are being accused of violating the privacy of “the majority of people on Earth.”?

With no comprehensive federal privacy law currently active in the United States the litigation team is facing a tricky environment to make a privacy case having to cite a patchwork of federal, constitutional, tort, state laws and more to attempt success in “acting on behalf of worldwide Internet users who have been subject to Oracle’s privacy violations”. For insight into the complaint and the key challenges of this case?read this thread?by Robert Bateman.?

The meat of the argument is based the allegations that Oracle has collected data from users without their consent and has used that data to build enriched profiles on individuals “threatening people’s privacy on a vast scale — including, per the allegations, by the use of proxies for sensitive data to circumvent privacy controls.”

Period and pregnancy tracking apps have bad privacy protections, report finds

?With the overturn of Roe v. Wade, weak privacy policies in health apps are even more of a concern! According to a new analysis from researchers at Mozilla, most popular period and pregnancy tracking apps don’t have strong have privacy protections in place. This is especially concerning now that abortion is illegal in many places in the US and the data collected and stored in these apps can “theoretically” be used to prosecute those getting abortions in states where the procedure is now illegal.?

Though the data collected from these period and pregnancy apps is currently not the most widely used form of evidence against those being prosecuted. There are still potential risks and concerns with how this data may be used and what may come if this data is not appropriately protected.?

“Companies collecting personal and sensitive health information need to be extra diligent when it comes to the privacy and security of the personal information they collect, especially now in our post-Roe vs Wade world in the U.S. Unfortunately, too many are not,” Jen Caltrider, the Mozilla?"Privacy Not Included"?guide lead, said in a statement.

You can find the full “Privacy Not Included”?guide?here?which labels apps that Mozilla has flagged for concerns about the apps’ privacy policies and around how they collect, share, and protect user data.

This Week’s Best Privacy Practice:?Seven Questions To Ask When Choosing A Privacy Management Software

Do you need to choose a privacy management software? It can be a confusing process... if you search “best privacy management software,” you’d get pages and pages of results with rankings, "best of" and "top 10" lists.

In our founder?Jodi Daniels' latest?Forbes?article, she shares seven questions you can use to pick the right privacy management software for you:?

1?? How easy is the program to use?

2?? Can it help build a data inventory?

3?? How does the software protect customer data?

4?? What kind of customer support is available?

5?? How customizable and automated are the discovery and classification functions?

6?? Does it have reporting and analytics capabilities?

7?? How many laws is it compliant with?

Dive into each of these questions and gain insight into what to look for when searching for the right privacy management software for you. These tips can guide your selection of a privacy compliance software to ensure you pick the best program for your needs. Using the best program for you makes establishing cost-effective, competent compliance a reality.

Read the full Forbes article?here.

How data compliant is your business? Take the quiz!?

Listen to episodes of She Said Privacy/He Said Security!?