Canada among countries demanding social media companies prevent illegal data scraping

Canada’s Privacy Commissioner has joined counterparts from across the globe to demand social media companies shield the non-public data of their customers.

A selected concern is data scraping, which sees social media companies and web site operators robotically extract person data from the net. This data has been used for quite a lot of offences, together with focused cyberattacks, identification fraud, and spam calls.

A current instance contains Clearview AI’s assortment of photographs, together with these of youngsters, that resulted within the mass surveillance of Canadians.

The conglomerate of privateness officers has despatched social media companies a press release outlining the steps they will take to maintain person data secure.

One of the suggestions contains having companies assign a staff to determine, reply, and shield in opposition to scraping actions. Other suggestions embrace detecting bots and taking authorized motion when data scraping happens.

“The practices outlined in this joint statement reflect common global data protection principles and practices, and are designed to help protect against data scraping of personal information and mitigate against its privacy impacts,” the assertion reads.

The counterparts have shared the data with the mother or father companies of YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Threads, Facebook, LinkedIn, Weibo and Twitter X.

There are a number of issues customers can do themselves to maintain their privateness secure. Individuals can familiarize themselves with the best way these companies share private data, with a selected give attention to sharing and disclosure insurance policies. Users may take a while to handle and perceive their privateness settings.

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Source: Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada