Eagle Alpha's Legal Wrap: 21st January

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:

Following a change in WhatsApp’s privacy policy, many users have abandoned the platform over worries that their data would be passed to Facebook, moving to competitors offering superior protection. Between 5th and 12th January SensorTower, a mobile analytics vendor, recorded that Signal saw 17.8m downloads and Telegram seeing 15.7m downloads. You can view the article here.

Last week, Gov. Cuomo announced a new law providing New York residents with increased transparency and control over their personal data. This new law states that companies that collect information on large numbers of New Yorkers disclose the purposes of any data collection and collect only data needed for those purposes. You can view the article here.

Google has confirmed its acquisition of fitness tracker Fitbit for $2.1bn following a year of scrutiny from data regulators and ongoing concerns from consumers of the brand. In a recent blog, Google outlined how Fitbit data would remain siloed and the purchase was “about the devices, not the data”. You can view the article here.

Belden Inc. is currently undergoing an investigation by Federman & Sherwood following a data breach incident which potentially involved unauthorized access and copying of job applicants and current employee data. You can view the article here.

Chinese tech giants have come under fire from a government-backed consumer group, accusing the nation’s tech giants of using their data-based algorithms to bully consumers. One particular concern of the China Consumers Association is “algorithmic price discrimination”, where personal data is used to calculate how much a consumer is charged based on what they might be willing to pay. You can view the article here.

China’s Guangdong Communications Administration has ordered 30 firms, including banks, financial institutions and FinTechs, to fix breaches in 201 of their mobile apps. Unauthorized access to users’ IP address, location data, camera and frequently demanding non-essential services after being rejected by users were included in the misconducts noted by the GDCA. You can view the article here.

Last October British Airways were fined £20m ($26m) by the Information Commissioner’s Office over a 2018 data breach exposing financial and personal data of more than 400,000 customers. Ahead of the March deadline, more than 16,000 customers have joined a consumer legal action where a London-based law firm believes that each 420,000 customers and staff are entitled to £2,000 in compensation. bringing the total bill to over £800m, ($1.09 billion). You can view the article here.