Events
Join The Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy, Library Futures, Theater of the Apes, and the Information Law Institute Public Domain Day presentation of Necromancers of the Public Domain. Wednesday, February 12 · 6:30 – 9:30pm EST
This week, we highlight Data Privacy Day, an annual awareness event observed on January 28th. Established in 2007 by the Council of Europe, it serves as a vital reminder of the importance of safeguarding personal information in our increasingly digital world. The day aims to raise awareness and promote best practices in data protection across various sectors, encouraging individuals, businesses, and governments to reflect on the progress made in data privacy and to commit to strengthening measures that ensure the security of personal data.
News
On January 23, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order titled “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence.” This directive revokes certain existing AI policies and directives that it describes as “barriers to American AI innovation”, in order to “clear a path for the United States to act decisively to retain global leadership in artificial intelligence”. The order mandates the development of an action plan within 180 days to achieve this policy, involving key advisors and department heads.
President Trump dismissed the three Democratic members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), an independent agency responsible for ensuring that government counterterrorism measures respect privacy and civil liberties. This action leaves the board with only one active member.
Daniel’s Law, enacted in New Jersey after the tragic 2020 attack on U.S. District Judge’s family resulting in her son’s murder, aims to protect judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement officers by allowing them to request the removal of personal information like home addresses from public databases. Since its enactment, the law has sparked a wave of lawsuits led by Atlas Data Privacy Corporation, which has filed more than 140 lawsuits against data brokers on behalf of approximately 19,000 “covered persons” under the law. These companies challenged the law’s constitutionality, but in the end of November 2024, a federal judge upheld Daniel’s Law, rejecting the defendants’ constitutional challenges.
Last week, the U.S. Copyright Office published the latest part of its report on legal and policy issues related to AI, following its August 2023 Notice of Inquiry. This installment focuses on the copyrightability of works created using generative AI. The first part, released in 2024, addressed digital replicas, while future sections will cover AI model training on copyrighted works, licensing, and liability issues.
The Chinese AI app DeepSeek, with over 2 million downloads since January 2025, has raised significant privacy concerns due to its storage of user data on Chinese servers, making it subject to Chinese cybersecurity laws. The app has also been accused of censoring sensitive topics, sparking fears of propaganda and misinformation. Italy’s data protection authority, Garante, has launched an inquiry into DeepSeek, requesting detailed information on its data collection practices, data storage locations, and the legal basis for processing personal data. The regulator has given DeepSeek 20 days to respond to these inquiries. Additionally, Texas has become the first U.S. state to ban DeepSeek on government-issued devices, citing concerns that Americans’ data could be accessed by foreign entities.
On January 17, 2025, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) adopted new guidelines on pseudonymisation during its plenary meeting. These guidelines clarify the definition and applicability of pseudonymisation under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), emphasizing that pseudonymised data – data that can be attributed to an individual using additional information – remains personal data and is subject to GDPR provisions. The EDPB highlights that pseudonymisation can mitigate risks and facilitate the use of legitimate interests as a legal basis for data processing, provided all GDPR requirements are met. The guidelines are open for public consultation until February 28, 2025, allowing stakeholders to provide feedback.
Romania – Romanian prosecutors are investigating allegations of election fraud linked to social media campaigns. The investigation centers on accusations of online manipulation, including a TikTok campaign reportedly funded by pro-Russian interests, aimed at rebranding Georgescu as a pro-Western candidate.
India – On January 23, 2025, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) suspended the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) order that restricted WhatsApp from sharing user data with Meta companies for advertising purposes over the next five years.
Israel – Moshe Nussbaum, an reporter who was diagnosed with ALS, a disease that impaired his ability to speak, appeared on television using an AI avatar based on his own voice and mimicked gestures. The AI technology was trained on recordings from his extensive career in journalism, allowing it to recreate his distinctive vocal tone and synchronize his lip movements with the generated speech. This innovative approach enabled Nussbaum to continue delivering news reports and commentary, despite the physical limitations caused by his condition.
(Compiled by Student Fellow Nofar Kadosh)