An AI entrepreneur bets on cryptocurrency to mitigate AI’s dangers
The EU smacked Meta with the largest fine it has ever issued on data protection grounds on Monday, demanding that the Silicon Valley giant, which brought in $116 billion in revenue in 2022, cough up $1.2 billion for moving EU Facebook users’ data into the U.S., in violation of Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation. The decision follows years of back-and-forth between Meta and EU data protection authorities over the company’s practice of moving user data in and out of territories where its infrastructure sits. ZDnet has a good breakdown of the backstory here.
Georgetown Law professor Anupam Chander pointed out on Twitter that the decision has a whole lot more to do with concerns about overly broad electronic surveillance by the U.S. government than it does with the improper handling of EU users’ data or with Meta specifically. Chander argued that it could pave the way to a global norm of so-called “data localization,” under which companies would be required to store data where they collect it. It might sound simple, but policies like this could really upend things for big companies like Meta and Google, whose business models rely on the ability to send data around the world quickly and to monetize it constantly.
In other EU privacy news, Spain is keen to outlaw end-to-end encryption, according to a bombshell document leak released earlier this week by WIRED. The key document is a survey of EU member states’ opinions on technical measures that might be taken to track down purveyors of child sexual abuse images. Of the 20 countries consulted, 15 expressed at least some interest in limiting end-to-end encryption, with Cyprus and Hungary showing special enthusiasm alongside Spain. If this were to happen, it could have serious implications for apps like Signal and WhatsApp, which allow users to communicate using a technical protocol that prevents anyone — even the company running the app — from reading the content of their messages. A few months back, when similar proposals arose amid deliberations on the U.K.’s Online Safety Act, the heads of both Signal and WhatsApp said they would stop offering service in the U.K. if the state were to try to weaken encryption there.
Signal president Meredith Whittaker elaborated on it in a blog post. “Let me be blunt,” she wrote, “encryption is either broken for everyone, or it works for everyone. There is no way to create a safe backdoor.” True that.