Enforcement + Litigation

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An Illinois appellate court has ruled that Apple’s biometric unlock features, including Touch ID fingerprint scanning and Face ID facial geometry scanning, do not violate the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). The case involved a group of Illinois residents who alleged that Apple’s Face ID feature impermissibly collects facial geometries from pictures stored in…

Epic Games $520 Million Settlement with FTC for Unfair Practices and COPPA Violations

In a recent agreement totaling $520 million, Epic Games, Inc. (Epic), maker of the popular Fortnite video game, settled allegations posed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that it violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The FTC’s complaint alleged that…

The Justice Department and the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) have charged eight men of using their social media clout to manipulate investors in a stock pump-and-dump scheme [view related]. The defendants allegedly took to Twitter and Discord to promote themselves as seasoned stock traders and, according to the SEC’s press release, fed their…

Chip manufacturer ARM reportedly won’t sell its latest Neoverse V series computer chips to Chinese tech giant Alibaba due to concerns over U.S. and UK export controls on certain classes of powerful chipsets. Among the most advanced chips on the market, sale of the Neoverse V chips would likely violate trade restrictions intended to keep…

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will categorically ban devices over national security concerns for the first time in history. Per a new order, the FCC will prohibit the import and sale of devices produced by Huawei and ZTE, and restrict the use of several other Chinese-produced devices for government and critical infrastructure purposes. Huawei…

A 34-page class action was filed against Blackhawk Network for a data breach that occurred on MyPrepaidCenter.com in September of this year. The plaintiffs allege that Blackhawk Network’s failure to prevent or detect this incident was “particularly egregious” since it operates a website where consumers can activate and manage prepaid gift cards, which requires collection…

The UK is reportedly considering legislation that would impose a ‘duty of care’ on social media companies to regulate harmful content on their platforms. This push for an online safety bill was triggered by the high-profile death of a 14-year-old by suicide. The child had been repeatedly exposed to online content encouraging viewers to engage…

This week, a lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts against the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for its use of a COVID-19 contact-tracing app for residents’ mobile phones. However, very few residents voluntarily downloaded the app. The solution? The lawsuit alleges that Massachusetts caused the app to be downloaded to certain residents’ mobile…

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Google for alleged “blatant defiance” of Texas’s biometric privacy law, which prohibits capturing biometric identifiers without prior consumer consent. The complaint alleges that several Google products, including Google Home, Nest, and Google Photos, collect and catalog biometric identifiers such as facial structure and voice print.

Texas…

A class action lawsuit, Seirafi et al v. Samsung Electronics America, Inc., Case 4:22-cv-05176-KAW, filed recently in the Northern District of California, alleges that Samsung’s unnecessary personal information collection, and failure to secure that information, violate the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). This lawsuit was inspired by two recent data breaches that allegedly included personal…