European Union is on a route to simplify regulations. Some measures in the past decade have been criticised as overbroad. European Commission plans to modify the General Data Protection Regulation. Some of the changes are great, and may limit existing lack of clarity and simply useless things, or at least Read More
European Union is on a route to simplify the notorious rule that is annoying every EU citizen. Namely, the ever present “consent popups”. You know them for sure as most people need to go through lots of clicks that are simply a waste of time. This analysis is based on Read More
European Union is on a route to simplify regulations. Some measures in the past decade have been criticised as overbroad. However, the rush risks going too far and incoherently. According to a leaked draft, the European Commission plans to modify the General Data Protection Regulation. This analysis relies on that Read More
Protecting personal data when using blockchain technology is tricky, may be full of surprises, and cumbersome. According to the European Data Protection Board opinion, which this assessment and advice is inspired with, the inherent characteristics of blockchain—like immutability or decentralisation—pose serious compliance issues with the General Data Protection Read More
Pseudonymisation is a technical and organisational measure and a data protection measure under the GDPR. It is a risk-reduction measure that minimizes the likelihood and impact of data protection breaches. It allows for controlled re-identification through stored additional information (secret information). Unlike anonymisation, which irreversibly removes the ability to link Read More
The Background Sync API (alternatively, periodic) enables web apps to defer tasks until the user has a stable connection. It may be useful for apps processing data offline. It introduces curious capabilities in web platforms, so it's important to understand the security and privacy footprint. Here I explore Read More
Are risks related to the processing of personal data, as referenced in the GDPR, fixed and exhaustive? They are not. The regulation provides a non-exhaustive list of risks solely as a foundation for protecting fundamental rights. Administrators must assess and address additional, context-specific risks beyond those explicitly listed. This requires Read More
TLS is the fundamental protocol facilitating secure web browsing. Simply speaking it identifies the server identity and establishes an encrypted connection. That’s how we may securely use banking, do shopping, and do other things we take for granted. Establishing such a connection comes with a performance footprint because computation Read More
Data protection (GDPR) complaint against unlawful data processing by OpenAI's GPT. Infringement of data protection principles and data protection by design. Read More
Data protection assessment of Privacy Sandbox's Protected Audience API. It can be deployed and designed in compliance with GDPR. Read More
Some time ago I wrote about “how GDPR fines work”, be calculated, including what technical aspects may be considered during such a calculation, the article is here, and it is quite a case study. It’s still good and all, but this time, finally, EU data protection authorities agreed on Read More
User tracking technologies are ubiquitous on the web. In recent times web browsers try to fight abuses. This led to an arms race where new tracking and anti-tracking measures are being developed. The use of one of such evasion techniques, the CNAME cloaking technique is recently quickly gaining popularity. Our Read More
The last and final version of the ePrivacy Regulation was finally delivered by the Council of the European Union. The work will finally move forward. I tracked all relevant ePrivacy events since 2016. I also directly participated in the works as an expert and advisor. While this is likely the Read More
This post describes some of the technologies that are or may be used, as well as the ideas of improving the privacy stance of such a certificate/passports technology. Treat it as a standardisation and food-for-thoughts consideration, with a view towards privacy-preserving Covid19 health certificates or ‘passports’. It seems that Read More
The user’s Web browsing history is usually defined as a list of websites the user has visited, such as “google.com, facebook.com, reddit.com, bbc.co.uk, random-site.org, etcetc.org.uk”. On its own, it may seem innocuous. It turns out browsing history can be processed to Read More
Imagine tens of millions of users potentially receiving a popup asking the user to grant permission to be tracked, in September 2020. The striking news emerged from this year’s Apple WWDC conference. Apple will limit the use of the IDFA “tracking identifier”. This identifier allowed advertisers to track the Read More
I was hesitant to speak about contact tracing apps because so many people speak on the subject and the ratio of repeating the same cliches over and over is also high. Little insightful things are left to be said in this rather simple problem. But recently it emerged that a Read More
Chances are that you may have heard about General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by now. Even if not from expert circles, training or media reporting, then certainly you must have felt the remarkable experience from the reinforced cookie pop-ups (a fact not difficult to predict in advance). But more seriously, Read More
It is not often when a major product used by millions rolls out changes reducing the privacy posture. Google Chrome is a recent example. The newly released version 69 automatically signs-in users into the browser whenever the user logs into a Google Service (e.g. Gmail); the change also makes Read More
It is surprisingly difficult to find realistic, interesting and creative privacy case studies. It is perhaps even more difficult in the case of major software. There are no proper motivations for making this kind of work public (employees often paid to do some kind of work in-house; their compensation typically Read More
One of the most discussed and often introduced as controversial additions of the General Data Protection Regulations are the high fines. Maximum fines of €10.000.000 (or 2% annual worldwide turnover) or €20.000.000 (or 4%) are definitely significant. They could cripple an entire company. But can or Read More
Will soon all websites greet users with interrupting and blocking pop-ups requiring to read a consent form and click “I agree” - prior to allowing the actual using of a website? Will we all be expected click in tons? Let’s look at the worst scenario, and how we may Read More
Currently, it is the key question of cybersecurity and privacy strategic policy. The European Union is going through an overhaul of its privacy and cybersecurity regulatory frameworks. New regulations appear with remarkable frequency. Let’s mention merely the three: NIS Directive (“common level of network and information security“), General Data Read More
Websites, mobile apps, IoT devices, smartphones and just about any other products, systems or processes will, in a majority of cases, might soon need to redesign and re-engineer how user consent is being processed. Why? Because of the European General Data Protection Regulation. The GDPR makes consent a bit closer Read More
By now everyone should be familiar with the phenomenon of massive data breaches. It’s no longer news when you can read about private data leaks and breaches in daily press on a regular basis. It’s a trend that one must accept. It just happens. But I find it Read More