Eagle Alpha's Legal Wrap: 17th December

Eagle Alpha rounds up some of the most relevant legal and compliance articles surrounding the alternative data space over the past week.

Ear to the Ground:

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have ordered Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, TikTok’s ByteDance along with several other social media companies to provide detailed information on how they collect data and use consumer’s personal data. This is a move to better understand Big Tech’s business model, how they use the data to pinpoint specific users and how it affects children and teens. You can view the article here.

Uber has been fined $59 million by Californian regulators for repeatedly refusing to hand over data on sexual assaults. Uber has said that it is protecting the privacy of the survivors, but the judge has ordered Uber to pay the fine and turn over the data within 30 days otherwise their license to operate in the state will be revoked. You can view the article here.

X-Mode Social, a data-broker that collects location data, has been banned by Apple and Google following reports that they sold user data to the US military. Developers have been warned to remove X-Mode’s code from their apps or they will be pulled from the app store. You can view the article here.

Facebook is preparing to move its data oversight for British users to the US to avoid EU privacy regulations. Coming into effect in 2021, Facebook’s decision follows a similar announcement made by Google in February. Facebook has said that there will be no change in privacy controls or other services they offer to UK users. You can view the article here.

The European Union and the United Kingdom have both warned companies to make preparations for a no-deal Brexit that will be coming into effect on the 1st January 2021. The UK will be known as a third-country for all GDPR and data-transfer purposes and companies will have to begin to implement measures in order to comply with EU data transfer rules. You can view the article here.

The French data protection regulator (CNIL) announced that it has fined Google and Amazon €135 million ($163 million) between them for using cookies without prior consent from users. Additionally, Amazon’s European branch was fined €35 million for active advertising cookies without user consent. You can view the article here.

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission has issued Twitter with a €45,000 ($547k) fine for failing to declare and document a data breach violating GDPR. The investigation that commenced in January 2019 is the first cross-border GDPR decision by the Irish watchdog. You can view the article here.