TGIF. Here’s your last tech news round up for the week.
1. Privacy Commissioner looking at Medibank
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has said it is making preliminary inquiries with Medibank following its cyber incident, to ensure compliance with the requirements of the Notifiable Data Breaches (NDB) scheme. Earlier this week it was revealed that Medibank received messages from a group that “wishes to negotiate with the company regarding their alleged removal of customer data”. This negotiation is the hackers threatening to release the private medical information of high-profile Australians if a ransom isn’t paid. Medibank yesterday confirmed customer data has, in fact, been breached.
2. Texas sues Google
Texas has filed a lawsuit against Alphabet’s Google for allegedly collecting biometric data of millions of Texans without obtaining proper consent. As reported by Reuters, the complaint says that companies operating in Texas have been barred for more than a decade from collecting people’s faces, voices or other biometric data without advanced, informed consent and has alleged that Google was still undertaking the practice.
3. Google on iPhone
Still on Google, and brought to our attention by 9to5Mac, Google was caught publishing a tweet from an iPhone, not its own brand of smartphone, the Pixel. In the now deleted tweet (screenshotted below, thanks again, 9to5Mac), the Google Pixel team sent out a tweet mocking Apple last night while using “Twitter for iPhone.” The internet doesn’t forget. Google also announced it was turning the Messages app into its own bonafide variation on iMessages.
4. Real-time traffic updates in NSW
Transport for NSW has begun rolling out a new back-end system that will create a single view of the state’s traffic movements. Per iTnews, from this week, motorists can now view real-time traffic data across 22 local government areas (LGAs – a term we haven’t heard much since lockdown) with a further 106 councils expected to join in from next year.
5. Alleged monitoring of U.S. citizens by TikTok parent
It has been revealed by Forbes that a China-based team at TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, planned to use the TikTok app to monitor the personal location of some specific American citizens. The team primarily conducts investigations into potential misconduct by current and former ByteDance employees. The report notes, however, the citizens the company was allegedly tracking weren’t former staff. Forbes said the plan was to obtain location data from U.S. users’ devices.
BONUS ITEM: It’s been a meme-heavy morning following the resignation of UK PM Liz Truss.
@bbcnews The UK is once again looking for a new prime minister after Liz Truss’s resignation. What led to her downfall? #liztruss #ukpolitics #ukprimeminister #conservativeparty #bbcnews
Have a great weekend.