Tag: Region Europe

Several senior Ukrainian officials, including front-line governors, lost their jobs Tuesday in a corruption scandal plaguing President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government as it grapples with the nearly 11-month-old Russian invasion. Ukraine’s biggest government shake-up since the war began came as U.S. officials said Washington was poised to approve supplying Kyiv with M1 Abrams tanks, with international reluctance eroding toward sending tanks…

As Joe Biden contemplated his next move in 2017 after decades in government, he considered a familiar path — creating a Washington-based think tank to focus on international affairs and diplomacy. It proved an easy sell and a lucrative one, too. Soft landings in the capital are common for officials with a resume like Biden’s, and the Penn Biden Center…

The U.S. took a big step in the development of a national artificial intelligence strategy with the release of the U.S. Department of Commerce National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework 1.0, Jan. 26.

Required under the National AI Act of 2020, the framework is the product of 15 months of work by NIST scientists who compiled public comments from more than 240 AI stakeholders through multiple listening sessions and workshops, while producing two previous drafts of the document last year. The framework is voluntary but will help organizations deploying AI systems to enhance their trustworthiness and reduce biases, while protecting individuals™ privacy.

Along with the framework document, the NIST also released the AI RMF Playbook, which is expected to be updated every six months as best practices for navigating the framework develop, according to Under Secretary of Commerce for Technology and NIST Director Laurie Locascio.

The fate of Meta’s data transfers to the U.S. could hinge on an Article 65 dispute resolution mechanism in the EU, after Ireland’s Data Protection Commission was unable to resolve objections from other EU data protection authorities to its draft enforcement decision. Politico reporter Vincent Manancourt originally broke the news, which was then confirmed by the DPC in an email…

Data anonymization is an important tool for organizations to protect the personal data of individuals, while averting the onerous requirements of the EU and U.K. General Data Protection Regulations. Unfortunately, guidance on this subject is often unclear, with standards for anonymization differing among jurisdictions. This article provides privacy practitioners with a concise guide to understanding these divergent approaches. It further…

Peru closed its famed tourist site Machu Picchu Saturday as authorities expelled protesters from a Lima university where they have been sheltering as they wage relentless anti-government demonstrations in the capital. Protests demanding the resignation of Peruvian President Dina Boluarte have been ongoing since early December, leaving 46 people dead and prompting the government to impose a state of emergency…

On January 4, 2023, the Irish Data Protection Commission (“DPC”) announced the conclusion of two inquiries into the data processing practices of Meta Platforms, Inc. (“Meta”) with respect to the company’s Instagram and Facebook platforms. As a result of the investigations, the DPC fined Meta a combined €390 million for breaches of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) and,…

A complaint was unsealed this morning in federal court in Brooklyn charging Anatoly Legkodymov, a Russian national and senior executive of Bitzlato Ltd. (Bitzlato), a Hong Kong-registered cryptocurrency exchange, with conducting a money transmitting business that transported and transmitted illicit funds and that failed to meet U.S. regulatory safeguards, including anti-money laundering requirements. Legkodymov was arrested last night in Miami…

Italy’s No. 1 fugitive, a Mafia boss convicted of helping to mastermind some of the nation’s most heinous slayings, was arrested Monday when he sought treatment at a private clinic in Sicily after three decades on the run. Matteo Messina Denaro was tried in absentia and convicted of dozens of murders, including helping to mastermind, along with other Cosa Nostra…

Britain’s government stood accused Wednesday of actively undermining talks with union leaders in a bid to encourage strike action and depress workers’ wages across the economy. The government was hoping for a public backlash, to justify newly introduced legislation that would force unions to provide a “minimum service” in public sectors, railway union leaders said. The allegation came as ambulance…

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) announced on January 4, 2023, that it has fined Meta a total of €390 million after finding that the company’s Facebook and Instagram platforms lacked proper legal grounds for processing millions of Europeans’ personal data for targeted advertising. In addition to posing challenges for Meta’s business model, the DPC’s two decisions reflect growing disagreement among…

On December 29, 2022, the French Data Protection Authority (the “CNIL”) announced that it imposed an €8,000,000 fine on Apple for violations of the French rules on targeted advertising and the use of cookies and similar tracking technologies. Background The CNIL received a complaint concerning Apple’s ad personalization practices on the App Store and carried out several investigations between 2021…

Two Dubai entities and several individuals were charged in an indictment unsealed in the District of Maryland recently for their roles in a multimillion-dollar scheme to export non-organic grain into the United States to be sold as certified organic. Hakan Agro DMCC and Hakan Organics DMCC, both based in Dubai, and Goksal Beyaz, Nuray Beyaz and Mustafa Cakiroglu, all of…

German authorities said on Thursday they had arrested an employee of its foreign intelligence service (BND) on suspicion of sharing state secrets with Russia this year and thereby committing treason. Police arrested the suspect, a German citizen identified as Carsten L, on Wednesday in Berlin, the federal prosecutors office said. It said police also raided his flat and workplace as…

Turkey on Tuesday lashed out at Sweden’s refusal to extradite a top reporter that Ankara has demanded in exchange for its ratification of Stockholm’s NATO membership bid. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants Sweden to return dozens of people that he suspects either of involvement in a failed 2016 coup or of membership of a banned Kurdish militia that Washington and…

Five individuals were sentenced yesterday for conspiring to defraud the U.S. Department of Education’s financial aid programs of over $12 million in federal funds. According to court documents, from around August 2010 through May 2018, the defendants created and ran an elaborate sham university – the Columbus, Georgia, satellite campus of Apex School of Theology (Apex Columbus). Anderson, the former…