In a recent Cybersecurity Law Report article, Thompson Coburn counsel Brittney Mollman shared insights on the evolving legal landscape surrounding data privacy, disclosure practices, and anonymization.
Following a San Francisco jury ordering Google to pay $425.7 million for collecting user data from third-party apps over eight years, Brittney said the disclosures to Google account holders were not clear or prominent enough for the jury. “In the current climate, Google’s defense definitely had a heavy lift,” she said. The public conversation around privacy has focused on Big Tech companies providing disclosures that let consumers control their data. “The level of scrutiny has been high coming into this trial,” she added.
“The issues around consumer control of data are definitely of the moment. I don’t see any signs of it slowing down with the increased use of AI,” she said.
Brittney also cautioned on the complexities of anonymization. People in companies sometimes discuss anonymization without understanding that multiple methods exist to de-personalize the data, she said. A company team should review how easy it is to undo the anonymization of its datasets and consider documenting that.
“Be wary of making broad statements like ‘we anonymize all of our data.’ Language like that could prompt its own claim of deception,” Brittney said.
Read the full article here (registration required).
