Facebook, Wal-Mart and other companies planning to use facial-recognition scans for security or tailored sales pitches are working to build the rules for how images and online profiles can be used, according to Newsday. The U.S. Department of Commerce will start meeting with industry and privacy advocates in February to draft a voluntary code of conduct for using facial recognition products, and the draft will be ready by June.
The retail industry will lose an estimated $8.76 billion to return fraud this year, and $3.39 billion during the holiday season alone. Overall, 5.8 percent of holiday returns are fraudulent, up slightly from 4.6 percent last night.
Cyber threats are the “new normal” for the financial services industry, according to Booz Allen in its annual list of the “Top Financial Services Cyber Security Trends for 2014.”
Mobile shopping is expected to increase dramatically this holiday season – mobile commerce spending on smartphones and tablets in the U.S. increased $5.8 billion in Q3, however, during the same period, mobile malware threats increased 26 percent, making consumers more than more vulnerable to mobile cyber attacks.
New York financial regulators have surveyed more than 200 banks and other financial institutions about their cyber security and will soon expand their analysis to insurers with trillions of dollars of assets, according to an Associated Press report.