TikTok faces £27 million fine after UK rules the platform failed to protect children’s safety

  • The Information Commissioner’s Office said it had found the company may have breached UK data protection law by failing to protect children’s privacy when using the platform.
  • Between May 2018 and July 2020, TikTok may have processed the data of children under the age of 13 without appropriate parental consent.
  • The platform failed to provide information to its users in a transparent manner and processed special category data without legal grounds.
  • For more on this, visit the ITV website.

Ransomware attacks continue to increase

  • According to a study by Hornet Security, 20% of all reported ransomware attacks occurred in the last 12 months.
  • The study found that 6 in 10 attacks originated from phishing and 14% resulted in lost data.
  • Furthermore, it found that 25% of IT professionals either don’t know or don’t think that Microsoft 365 data can be affected by a ransomware attack.
  • For more on this study, please visit the Yahoo website.

Instagram testing a new way to use DMs as an alert for new posts

  • Instagram is experimenting with a new option that would allow users to share their latest posts as DMs, to boost engagement with new posts.
  • This is taking the form of a ‘Public’ folder in the DM inbox which would enable the user to ‘message or share your favourite posts directly with your followers.’
  • LinkedIn launched a similar feature when a user saved a post, but had to limit the prevalence of these notifications due to spammers misusing the option.
  • For more on this, visit the Social Media Today