“There are only two types of companies: those that have been hacked, and those that will be.” When former FBI Director Robert Mueller spoke those words in 2012, he sounded hyperbolic. Almost a decade later, it seems prophetic.

Three in four Americans (75 percent) are thinking more about data privacy issues amid COVID-19, yet most are willing to share their personal information to keep others safe and to return to work faster, a pulse survey of 1,000 workers by KPMG found.

In early June, the California Attorney General filed final CCPA regulations with the California Office of Administrative Law. The final regulations were accompanied by a 59-page Final Statement of Reasons along with six appendices containing over 500 pages of comments on the regulations and the Attorney General’s responses to those comments. One of the many topics that the Attorney General’s office discussed was the final regulation’s requirements for drafting privacy policies. Given that the drafting of a privacy policy is a necessary part of CCPA compliance, it is worth analyzing those comments.

CenturyLink, Inc. announced that Hugo Teufel has joined the technology company as its new chief privacy officer. As a noted expert in the field, he will advise the company on privacy and security issues and will work closely with CenturyLink’s sales, IT and security teams to help design, implement and refine strategic privacy initiatives throughout the company.

More than 43,000 Russian schools will be equipped with facial recognition cameras ominously named “Orwell.”

Bahrain, Kuwait and Norway have rolled out some of the most invasive COVID-19 contact tracing apps around the world, putting the privacy and security of hundreds of thousands of people at risk, an Amnesty International investigation reveals.

Artificial Intelligence innovations that use biometrics data are on the rise - but issues can arise with this data use in view of newly enacted and developing data privacy laws and regulations.

Singapore is reportedly developing a wearable device that may be issued to every resident as a way to facilitate contact tracing during the COVID-19 pandemic. The move, however, has elicited concerns from the public about the lack of privacy associated with contact tracing devices. 

A new Kansas emergency bill passed earlier this week includes the COVID-19 Contact Tracing Privacy Act, which aims to protect the privacy of persons whose information is collected through contact tracing and the confidentiality of contact data.