WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 300 million Americans’ Social Security data was put at risk after Department of Government Efficiency officials uploaded sensitive information to a cloud account not subject to oversight, according to a whistleblower disclosure submitted to the special counsel’s office Tuesday. Whistleblower Charles Borges, who worked as the chief data officer at […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials will be given access to the personal data of the nation’s 79 million Medicaid enrollees, including home addresses and ethnicities, to track down immigrants who may not be living legally in the United States, according to an agreement obtained by The Associated Press. The information will give ICE officials the […]

Privacy and hunger relief groups and a handful of people receiving food assistance benefits are suing the federal government over the Trump administration’s attempts to collect the personal information of millions of U.S. residents who use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C., on Thursday says the U.S. Department of Agriculture […]

Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange based in the U.S., said Thursday that criminals had improperly obtained personal data on the exchange’s customers for use in crypto-stealing scams and were demanding a $20 million payment not to publicly release the info. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said in a social media post that criminals had bribed some […]

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has signed a first-in-the-nation executive order to block the federal government from collecting personal health data related to autism, a direct rebuke to the Trump administration. Democrat Pritzker, who has been one of the more vocal critics of Trump’s second administration, signed the order last week, saying […]

Democratic attorneys general in several states vowed Thursday to file a lawsuit to stop Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing federal payment systems containing Americans’ sensitive personal information. Thirteen attorneys general, including New York’s Letitia James, said in a statement that they were taking action “in defense of our Constitution, our right to […]

ROME (AP) — Italy’s data protection watchdog said Friday it has fined OpenAI 15 million euros ($15.6 million) after wrapping up a probe into the collection of personal data by the U.S. artificial intelligence company’s popular chatbot ChatGPT. The country’s privacy watchdog, known as Garante, said its investigation showed that OpenAI processed users’ personal data […]

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — How do you remove children from the harms of social media? Politically the answer appears simple in Australia, but practically the solution could be far more difficult. The Australian government’s plan to ban children from social media platforms including X, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram until their 16th birthdays is politically popular. […]

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia’s communications minister said Wednesday the government won’t force social media users to hand over their personal information to tech companies, as children younger than 16 are set to be banned from the platforms. Michelle Rowland plans to introduce into Parliament on Thursday world-first legislation that would make X, TikTok, Facebook […]

The secret to avoiding red lights during rush hour in Utah’s largest city might be as simple as following a bus. Transportation officials have spent the past few years refining a system in which radio transmitters inside commuter buses talk directly to the traffic signals in the Salt Lake City area, requesting a few extra […]

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia election officials are encouraging people to use a state website to cancel voter registrations when someone moves out of state or dies, a nod to Republican concerns that there are invalid registrations on the rolls. But Monday’s rollout of the site by Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was marred by […]

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Commission did not allow the public enough access to information about COVID-19 vaccine purchase agreements it secured with pharmaceutical companies during the pandemic, the EU general court said Wednesday.  The decision came a day ahead of a vote at the European Parliament at which European Commission President Ursula von der […]