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☆ Amazon fined $35 million in France for tracking warehouse workers to the second
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-23 | by ( Anna Cooban | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

London CNN —A French regulator has fined the local operator of Amazon’s warehouses €32 million ($35 million) for using an “excessively intrusive” surveillance system to track the activities of its workers. Amazon said the data allowed its teams to “spot problems” that posed a risk to the firm’s operations or the safety of its employees. A third indicator used by Amazon signaled when a worker’s scanner was interrupted anywhere between one and 10 minutes, according to the CNIL. The regulator fined Amazon France Logistique in late December following several investigations into the firm’s practices in its warehouses and complaints from employees. In the United States, Amazon has long faced scrutiny for the working conditions inside its warehouses, with employees complaining of punishing hours and close surveillance by bosses.

Persons: Amazon Organizations: London CNN, French Data Protection Authority, Amazon France, European, Amazon Locations: France, United States

☆ French regulator fines Amazon unit $35 million for 'excessively intrusive' employee surveillance
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-23 | by ( Jenni Reid | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

An Amazon logistic site in Bretigny-sur-Orge, some 30 km south of Paris, pictured on November 22, 2023. A French regulator announced Tuesday it had fined the manager of Amazon's large warehouses in France 32 million euros ($34.7 million) for excessive monitoring of its employees. The French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) said Amazon France Logistique gave employees scanners in order to record workplace tasks such as removing items from shelves and packing. This data was then used to calculate the "quality, productivity and periods of inactivity of each employee." CNIL said Amazon France Logistique committed several breaches of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), specifically around data minimization and lawful processing.

Persons: Logistique, CNIL Organizations: French Data Protection Authority, Amazon, Data Protection, CNBC Locations: Bretigny, Paris, French, France

☆ Governments race to regulate AI tools
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-19 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

ITALY* Investigating possible breachesItaly's data protection authority plans to review artificial intelligence platforms and hire AI experts, a top official said in May. ChatGPT became available to users in Italy in April after being temporarily banned over concerns by the national data protection authority in March. The country's privacy watchdog said in June it had warned OpenAI not to collect sensitive data without people's permission. SPAIN* Investigating possible breachesSpain's data protection agency said in April it was launching a preliminary investigation into potential data breaches by ChatGPT. It has also asked the EU's privacy watchdog to evaluate privacy concerns surrounding ChatGPT.

Persons: Dado Ruvic, Ursula von der Leyen, CNIL, Ziv Katzir, Israel, ChatGPT, OpenAI, Antonio Guterres, Guterres, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Lawmakers, Joe Biden's, Beryl Howell, Alessandro Parodi, Amir Orusov, Kirsten Donovan, Mark Potter, Christina Fincher, Milla Nissi Organizations: REUTERS, Baidu, Microsoft, Markets Authority, Big Tech, Britain, HK, SenseTime, Israel Innovation Authority, EU, UNITED, . Security, International Atomic Energy Agency, United Nations, U.S, IBM, Nvidia, Washington D.C, U.S . Federal Trade Commission, Thomson Locations: AUSTRALIA, Australia, BRITAIN, CHINA, China, FRANCE, Italy, Hiroshima, Japan, IRELAND, ISRAEL, Israel, ITALY, JAPAN, U.S, SPAIN, New York, Washington, Gdansk

☆ Factbox: Scrutiny of iris-scanning crypto project Worldcoin grows
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-01 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Worldcoin has drawn criticism from privacy campaigners over its data collection. It has said the biometric data is either deleted or stored in encrypted form, and that it is "committed" to working with regulators. CNIL had previously said it was aware of the Worldcoin project and that the legality of its biometric data collection "seems questionable". GERMANYA German data watchdog has been investigating Worldcoin since late last year due to concerns over its large-scale processing of sensitive biometric data, it said. PORTUGALPortugal's data regulator, the CNPD, has inspected Worldcoin's local data collection operation and been in contact with the Bavarian data protection authority in Germany, a spokesperson said.

Persons: Annegret, Sam Altman, Altman, Worldcoin, CNIL, Elizabeth Howcroft, Tom Wilson, John Stonestreet Organizations: REUTERS, Agencia, Informacion Publica, Commissioner's, Communications Authority of, Data, Thomson Locations: cryptocurrency, Berlin, Germany, ARGENTINA, Argentina, Informacion, BRITAIN, FRANCE, Worldcoin's, GERMANY, Handelsblatt, KENYA, Kenya, Communications Authority of Kenya, PORTUGAL

REUTERS/Annegret Hilse/File Photo Acquire Licensing RightsSummaryCompanies CNIL's checks took place on WednesdayWorldcoin is new project of ChatGPT founderPARIS, Aug 31 (Reuters) - France's data watchdog carried out "checks" at Worldcoin's Paris office this week, amid global regulatory pressure on the digital currency firm co-founded by ChatGPT-founder Sam Altman. France's CNIL watchdog said in July it was investigating Worldcoin as the legality of its biometric data "seemed questionable". "Checks took place at the Worldcoin offices," a CNIL spokesperson said on Thursday, confirming an earlier Politico report that the visit took place on Wednesday. Worldcoin requires users to provide their iris scans in exchange for a digital ID and, in some countries, in exchange for free cryptocurrency. The Worldcoin Foundation, a Cayman Islands-based entity, told Reuters via email: "The team at Worldcoin welcomes any opportunity to address questions regarding the project’s purpose and technology."

Persons: Ricardo Macieira, Annegret, PARIS, Sam Altman, France's, Worldcoin, Sudip Kar, Martin Coulter, Alexander Smith, Mark Potter Organizations: REUTERS, ChatGPT, Politico, Worldcoin, Worldcoin Foundation, Microsoft, Thomson Locations: Europe, cryptocurrency, Berlin, Germany, Worldcoin's, Cayman Islands, London

LONDON, July 28 (Reuters) - France's privacy watchdog CNIL said on Friday it is aware of ChatGPT-founder Sam Altman's Worldcoin project and that the legality of its biometric data collection "seems questionable". CNIL, the French watchdog, said in response to a Reuters question on Worldcoin "The legality of this collection seems questionable, as do the conditions for storing biometric data." The Worldcoin Foundation is a Cayman Islands-based entity which describes itself as a "steward of the Worldcoin protocol". "The Worldcoin Foundation complies with all laws and regulations governing the processing of personal data in the markets where Worldcoin is available," it said. The project is supervised in the European Union by the Bavarian State Office for Data Protection Supervision, the Worldcoin Foundation said.

Persons: CNIL, Sam Altman's, Worldcoin, Elizabeth Howcroft, Amanda Cooper, Jane Merriman, Louise Heavens Organizations: Reuters, Bavarian, Worldcoin, European Union, Office, Data Protection, Thomson Locations: Bavarian, Germany, Cayman Islands, European

Kin Cheung | Pool | Getty ImagesLONDON — Two countries are jockeying for position as Europe's capital for artificial intelligence. So, who is leading the race to take Europe's AI crown? The European Union has its AI Act, which is set to be the first comprehensive set of laws focusing on artificial intelligence in the West. In contrast the EU's AI Act could make France "less attractive" for investment in artificial intelligence given that it lays down "a burdensome regulatory regime" for AI, Tanna said. Alexandre Lebrun, CEO of Nabla, an AI "copilot" for doctors, said the U.K. and France are "probably even" when it comes to attractiveness for starting an AI company.

Persons: Rishi Sunak, Emmanuel Macron, Kin Cheung, Macron, Karen Tso, Sunak, it's, Sajid Javid, Boris Johnson's, Simmons, Tanna, Anton Dahbura, Alexandre Lebrun, Lebrun, who've, Keir Starmer Organizations: British, Viva Tech, London Tech, Microsoft, U.S, CNBC, supercomputing, European Union, Johns Hopkins Institute, Autonomy, Google, Facebook, EU, Labour Locations: Europe, China, VivaTech, Paris, France, U.S, West, Germany, London

☆ Factbox: Governments race to regulate AI tools
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

CHINA* Planning regulationsThe Chinese government will seek to initiate AI regulations in its country, billionaire Elon Musk said on June 5 after meeting with officials during his recent trip to China. ITALY* Investigating possible breachesItaly's data protection authority plans to review other artificial intelligence platforms and hire AI experts, a top official said in May. ChatGPT became available again to users in Italy in April after being temporarily banned over concerns by the national data protection authority in March. SPAIN* Investigating possible breachesSpain's data protection agency said in April it was launching a preliminary investigation into potential data breaches by ChatGPT. The Biden administration earlier in April said it was seeking public comments on potential accountability measures for AI systems.

Persons: Alan Turing, Elon Musk, Margrethe Vestager, Vestager, CNIL, Dado Ruvic, Ziv Katzir, Israel, ChatGPT, OpenAI, Antonio Guterres, Guterres, Michael Bennet, Biden, Alessandro Parodi, Amir Orusov, Jason Neely, Kirsten Donovan, Milla Nissi Organizations: Microsoft, Authority, Reuters, EU, Key, European Consumer Organisation, Seven, REUTERS, Israel Innovation Authority, UNITED, International Atomic Energy Agency, United Nations, U.S . Federal Trade Commission's, Thomson Locations: AUSTRALIA, BRITAIN, Britain, CHINA, China, Beijing, U.S, FRANCE, Italy, Hiroshima, Japan, IRELAND, ISRAEL, Israel, ITALY, JAPAN, SPAIN, Gdansk

The European Union is at the forefront of drafting new AI rules that could set the global benchmark to address privacy and safety concerns that have arisen with the rapid advances in the generative AI technology behind OpenAI's ChatGPT. "If it's about protecting personal data, they apply data protection laws, if it's a threat to safety of people, there are regulations that have not been specifically defined for AI, but they are still applicable." Data protection authorities in France and Spain also launched in April probes into OpenAI's compliance with privacy laws. 'THINKING CREATIVELY'French data regulator CNIL has started "thinking creatively" about how existing laws might apply to AI, according to Bertrand Pailhes, its technology lead. "We are looking at the full range of effects, although our focus remains on data protection and privacy," he told Reuters.

☆ French police cleared to use drones for crowd monitoring
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

[1/2] French gendarmes stand in position during a demonstration in front of the Paris City Hall after French government's pension reform received the Constitutional Council's green light and can now be signed into law and enter into force swiftly, in Paris, France, April 14, 2023. REUTERS/Stephane MahePARIS, April 21 (Reuters) - French police is allowed from Friday to use drones equipped with cameras for a wide range of tasks including crowd monitoring and border control, following the publication of a decree in the Official Journal on Thursday. This comes just over a year before the Paris 2024 Olympics and at a time when opposition to President Emmanuel Macron's pension reform has triggered huge protests that at times turned violent. The drones can also be used for the prevention of terrorist acts, the regulation of transport flows, border surveillance, and rescuing people, the decree said. The decree details and implements in practice a security law voted by parliament last year.

☆ Factbox: Governments' efforts to regulate AI tools
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

April 12 (Reuters) - Italy's data protection agency said on Wednesday it would lift its temporary ban on OpenAI's ChatGPT artificial intelligence (AI) technology if the U.S. company complied with data protection and privacy demands by end-April. Rapid advances in AI such as Microsoft-backed OpenAI's ChatGPT are complicating governments' efforts to agree on laws governing the use of the technology. Lawmakers have proposed classifying different AI tools according to their perceived level of risk, from low to unacceptable. On Wednesday, its data protection agency set an end-April deadline for OpenAI to meet its demands on data protection and privacy before the service can be resumed in the country. SPAINSpain's data protection agency has asked the EU's privacy watchdog to evaluate privacy concerns surrounding ChatGPT, the agency told Reuters on April 11.

☆ French privacy watchdog investigating complaints about ChatGPT
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

PARIS, April 11 (Reuters) - France's privacy watchdog CNIL said on Tuesday it was investigating several complaints about ChatGPT after the chatbox was temporarily banned in Italy over a suspected breach of privacy rules. "The CNIL has received several complaints about ChatGPT and is investigating them," the watchdog said by email in response to a Reuters query. Reporting by Silvia Aloisi; Editing by GV De ClercqOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ France looks to AI-powered surveillance to secure Olympics
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Layli Foroudi | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

PARIS, March 23 (Reuters) - France's National Assembly on Thursday approved the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) video surveillance during the 2024 Paris Olympics, overlooking warnings from civil rights groups that the technology posed a threat to civil liberties. If formally adopted, France would become the first country in the European Union to legalise AI-powered surveillance. That would be setting a worrying surveillance precedent, a group of several dozen European lawmakers said last week. The plan to deploy AI surveillance has met strong resistance from rights groups such as Amnesty International and digital rights groups. Access Now's Leufer questioned the utility of AI in spotting would-be attackers because of the complexities in training algorithms on rare incidents.

☆ France fines TikTok $5.4 mln for online tracking shortcomings
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

PARIS, Jan 12 (Reuters) - France on Thursday fined TikTok 5 million euros ($5.4 million) for shortcomings linked to the short video platform's handling of online tracking known as "cookies", which the ByteDance-owned company said it had now addressed. The CNIL found that for tiktok.com's users, it was not as easy to refuse online trackers as to accept them. The authority also found that internet users were not sufficiently informed about TikTok's use of the cookies. "The CNIL itself highlighted our cooperation during the course of the investigation and user privacy remains a top priority for TikTok," the spokesperson added. Under European Union rules, websites must clearly ask for the prior consent of internet users for any use of cookies - small pieces of data stored while navigating on the Web.

☆ French privacy watchdog fines Apple over personalised ads
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-04 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

[1/2] The Apple Inc logo is seen at the entrance to the Apple store in Brussels, Belgium November 28, 2022. It added that the case, which dates back to 2021, concerned an old version of the phone's iOS operating software. Apple said after the announcement it was "disappointed with this decision" and that it would file an appeal. "Apple Search Ads goes further than any other digital advertising platform we are aware of by providing users with a clear choice as to whether or not they would like personalized ads", the company said. Apple's privacy updates, called App Tracking Transparency, give users the option to block apps from tracking activity across apps and websites owned by other companies.

☆ Microsoft Fined $64 Million in France Over Advertising Cookies
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( Sam Schechner | Mauro Orru | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The French privacy regulator said Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, hadn’t set up a system allowing users to refuse cookies as easily as accept them. PARIS—France’s privacy watchdog fined Microsoft Corp. for not making it easy enough for users of its Bing search engine to reject cookies used for online ads, as part of a broader increase of enforcing Europe’s privacy laws. France’s data-protection regulator, the CNIL, said Thursday that it fined a Microsoft subsidiary in Ireland 60 million euros, equivalent to almost $64 million. The company hadn’t—until earlier this year—offered users the option to reject so-called cookies alongside the button to accept them, the regulator said. Cookies are a type of digital identifier that websites can leave in web browsers, and which are often used to help target advertising.

☆ France's privacy watchdog fines Microsoft over cookies
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

PARIS, Dec 22 (Reuters) - France's CNIL privacy watchdog said it had imposed a 60 million euro ($63.88 million) fine against Microsoft (MSFT.O) Ireland, saying it sanctioned the company for not having put in place a mechanism to let people refuse cookies as easily as accepting them. ($1 = 0.9393 euros)Reporting by Tassilo Hummel; Editing by Sudip Kar-GuptaOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Apple should face 6 mln euro fine, adviser to French privacy watchdog says
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Mathieu Rosemain | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

PARIS, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Apple (AAPL.O) should face a 6 million euro ($6.3 million) fine for breach of privacy rules, the top adviser to French data protection authority's sanction body recommended on Monday. CNIL's sanction body is free to ignore the rapporteur's recommendations, but these typically carry a lot of weight regarding the watchdog's final decision. Apple's privacy updates, called App Tracking Transparency, give users the option to block apps from tracking activity across apps and websites owned by other companies. He added that changes made under a subsequent version of Apple's operating system, iOS 15, allowed for such prior consent. Gary Davis, Apple's head of privacy, contested the rapporteur's conclusions at the hearing, saying the U.S. firm was committed to the protection of users' privacy.

☆ France's CNIL watchdog fines Iliad's Free unit 300,000 euros for privacy failings
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

PARIS, Dec 8 (Reuters) - France's CNIL privacy watchdog on Thursday said it had fined 300,000 euros ($315,570.00) against Iliad's telecoms business 'Free' for failings over protecting their customers' personal data. "Checks have revealed several breaches, in particular with regard to privacy rights of concerned persons (...) and data security", said the watchdog in a statement. ($1 = 0.9507 euros)Reporting by Tassilo Hummel; Editing by Sudip Kar-GuptaOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Cookie-urile sunt fişierele care stochează informaţii despre utilizatori, browsere şi PC-uri, putând fi folosite de site-urile sau de aplicaţiile web pentru a ajusta experienţa în mediul online. Retailerul Amazon a primit o amendă de 35 de milioane de euro din aceeaşi cauză. Autoritatea pentru Protecţia Datelor din Franţa (CNIL) a aplicat sancţiunile întrucât cele două companii nu au primit acordul userilor înainte de a le salva cookie-urile, potrivit descopera.ro. În urmă cu aproape doi ani, Google a primit o amendă lansată de aceeaşi autoritate din Franţa, însă în prin intermediul legislaţiei GDPR. Atunci, compania a fost în baza unor acuzaţii legate de lipsa transparenţei şi lipsa unei modalităţi valide de consimţământ.

Organizations: Amazon, Google Locations: Franţa, Amazon

☆ Франция оштрафовала Google и Amazon на €135 млн
▼ + stars: | 2020-12-11 | by ( Mld Media Srl | ) noi.md time to read: +2 min

Нарушения, о которых идет речь, касаются cookie — файлов, расположенных на персональных компьютерах со служебной информацией для браузера и используемых сайтами для анализа действий пользователей в ходе предыдущих посещений ресурса. Google и Amazon не смогли предоставить пользователям четкую информацию о том, как компании намеревались использовать такие онлайн-трекеры и как посетители их французских веб-сайтов могут отказаться от использования файлов cookie, посчитали в CNIL. Примечательно, что предыдущий рекорд — 50 миллионов евро — был также установлен при наложении санкций против Google за нарушение правил конфиденциальности данных Европейского союза. Штрафы были выписаны в отношении Google LLC, Google Ireland Limited и Amazon Europe Core. Если они этого не сделают, им грозит дополнительный штраф в размере 100 тысяч евро за каждый день просрочки.

Organizations: Google, Национальная комиссия Locations: Франция, Европейский союз

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