Retail News CRM

Tag: autralia

  • Facebook in legal battle with Australia over alleged user data breach

    Facebook in legal battle with Australia over alleged user data breach

    Last year, Facebook received a penalty of $5 billion by the American Federal Trade Commission for sharing personal information via a survey product called “This Is Your Digital Life”, which disclosed users’ Facebook data to a political consultant Cambridge Analytica. Now, an Australian privacy regulator is filing a lawsuit against the tech giant over the same survey, which this time is said to have shared the data of more than 300,000 Australians.

    The lawsuit is filed in regards to 311,127 users’ personal data being unlawfully shared, with the users not being aware of their data’s disclosure. According to Reuters, the lawsuit didn’t request any specific amount in damages, however, each breach of the privacy law can amount to around $1.1 million penalties at most. So in total, if each of the 311,127 instances is taken into consideration, the penalty facing Facebook could be up to a maximum $348 billion.

    The disclosed personal information could be used for monetization and political purposes and is considered a serious interference with the privacy of Australian individuals. However, Facebook did not provide any comment on the issue.

    Overall, until now, allegedly Facebook has unwillingly shared information of over 87 billion users via the aforementioned survey tool. According to the Australian lawsuit, Facebook was not aware of what data it shared with the program, but this is still considered a failure to protect user data.

  • Australia may require mobile network sharing

    Australia may require mobile network sharing

    Australian competition regulator ACCC has launched an inquiry into whether to mandate the establishment of a wholesale mobile roaming service, particularly in regional areas.

    The regulator is considering declaring a wholesale domestic mobile roaming service, which mobile providers could use to provide coverage in areas where they do not operate their own network.

    The inquiry will seek to evaluate how consumer demands for mobile service are evolving and whether this differs in regional and urban areas.

    In addition, the ACCC will evaluate the likely investment plans of established mobile operators absent a declaration, as well as whether there are any barriers to extending the reach of mobile networks.

    While the ACCC has previously considered mandating the provision of mobile roaming in regional areas in 1998 and 2005, ACCC chairman Rod Sims said much has changed since this time.

    “Network coverage is clearly a key feature of a mobile service, and each of the mobile network operators has extended its networks since we last looked at this issue in detail,” he said.

    “We do think it’s time we look at the issue again in detail, and examine some of these key matters, including consumer demand, network investment, and barriers to competition. We consider the most efficient way to do that is to consider all of the issues carefully through a declaration inquiry.”

    But he stressed that the regulator has not yet formed any opinion as to whether the declaration is needed, and that the inquiry could instead find that consumers would be harmed by the introduction of such a requirement because it could give mobile operators less incentive to invest in expanding their networks.

    Lees ook: