TikTok under privacy investigations by EU watchdog 

  • TikTok is under investigation by The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) over two privacy-related issues.
  • The watchdog is investigating potential GDPR-related issues on how TikTok processes children’s personal data.
  • This follows a similar investigation in October 2020 into how Instagram handles children’s data and TikTok’s previous fine.
  • The DCP’s investigation looks into how TikTok complies with EU laws about data transferring to other countries, like China, which the EU has not approved. TikTok is owned by a Chinese company, ByteDance and has repeatedly faced accusations of sharing data with Chinese companies, which the company denies.
  • Full story, here.

Welsh government launches smacking ban ad campaign before law change

  • An advertising campaign has been launched in Wales to make parents and carers aware of the upcoming law criminalising smacking children.
  • From March 2022, it will be illegal for anyone in Wales, including visitors, to use any type of physical punishment such as smacking, hitting, slapping, and shaking on children.
  • The government outlines that the law will give children the same protection from assault as adults.
  • The ad campaign called The Sound of Change was launched to raise awareness of the legislation.
  • The Welsh government has also announced that £2.9 million will be available to local authorities over four years to fund positive parenting support.
  • Full story, here.

Telegram emerges as new dark web for cybercriminals

  • New research shows that the end-to-end encrypted messaging platform, Telegram has served as a hub for cybercriminals looking to buy, sell and share stolen data and hacking tools.
  • The research conducted by cyber intelligence group, Cyberint for the Financial Times, found channels with thousands of subscribers sharing data leaks.
  • The rise of the platform occurred after changes to the privacy policy of Facebook-owned WhatsApp.
  • A post on a popular Telegram channel called ‘combolist’ with more than 47,000 subscribers offered 300,000 emails and passwords claimed to be useful for hacking video game platforms such as Minecraft, Origins and Uplay.
  • The channel was removed by Telegram, but others have been identified.
  • Full story, here.

Twitter Experiments with New Visual Editor

  • Twitter is incorporating a new visual editor for tweets that lets users add stickers and text to uploaded videos and images and attach them to tweets.
  • This follows the retirements of Twitter’s stories-like feature ‘Fleets’ last month.
  • The new visual editor will also allow users to publish visual texts with coloured backgrounds.
  • Twitter believes that this change will appeal to users of full-screen visual platforms like TikTok and that new visual options for tweets will encourage new usage.
  • For tips on staying safe on Twitter, check out our safety card.
  • Full story, here.