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Back to the week of news!

On this week of Serious Privacy, Paul Breitbarth, Ralph O’Brien of Reinbo Consulting, and Dr. K Royal discuss the topics of the week, Age Verification, Technical controls vs Educational controls, Freedom of speech and censorship, Greek, Italian and ICO enforcement, and yet more data breaches!

Sources:

• https://spectrum.ieee.org/online-safety-kids-ieee-standard
• https://www.girlonthenet.com/blog/age-verification-whats-the-harm/ (NSFW)
• https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj4wy21dwkwo
• https://www.techradar.com/computing/cyber-security/the-eu-could-be-scanning-your-chats-by-october-2025-heres-everything-we-know
• https://www.edpb.europa.eu/news/national-news/2025/greek-sa-imposition-fine-association-transmission-sensitive-data-failure_en
• https://nos.nl/artikel/2578338-datahack-bij-laboratorium-veel-groter-deel-gegevens-op-dark-web
• https://www.courthousenews.com/family-sues-roblox-discord-over-kidnapping-of-10-year-old-girl/

If you have comments or questions, find us on LinkedIn and Instagram @seriousprivacy, and on BlueSky under @seriousprivacy.eu, @europaulb.seriousprivacy.eu, @heartofprivacy.bsky.app and @igrobrien.seriousprivacy.eu, and email [email protected]. Rate and Review us!

From Season 6, our episodes are edited by Fey O'Brien. Our intro and exit music is Channel Intro 24 by Sascha Ende, licensed under CC BY 4.0. with the voiceover by Tim Foley.

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While we generally don't shy away from politics when it comes to data protection and privacy rights, the conflict in Gaza is not a topic that we would quickly raise on the podcast. Unless data protection plays a role, which it now does.

On this week of Serious Privacy, Paul Breitbarth, Ralph O’Brien of Reinbo Consulting, and Dr. K Royal enter a dimension not seen before on the podcast - a plea for human rights related to Israel and Gaza. The immediate reason for our discussion are two news reports: the registration requirement for humanitarian aid organisations imposed by the Israeli government, and the mass surveillance of phone communications in the Palestinian territories.

We recognise this topic is divise, and may not be to everyone's liking. If that is you, maybe skip this week's episode. 

Sources:

• https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/06/microsoft-israeli-military-palestinian-phone-calls-cloud
• https://autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl/en/current/ap-aid-organisations-cornered-due-to-israeli-requirement-to-provide-personal-data

If you have comments or questions, find us on LinkedIn and Instagram @seriousprivacy, and on BlueSky under @seriousprivacy.eu, @europaulb.seriousprivacy.eu, @heartofprivacy.bsky.app and @igrobrien.seriousprivacy.eu, and email [email protected]. Rate and Review us!

From Season 6, our episodes are edited by Fey O'Brien. Our intro and exit music is Channel Intro 24 by Sascha Ende, licensed under CC BY 4.0. with the voiceover by Tim Foley.

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On this week of Serious Privacy, Paul Breitbarth, Ralph O’Brien of Reinbo Consulting, and Dr. K Royal talk about a slew of breaches and what to do if your data is breached.

If you have comments or questions, find us on LinkedIn and Instagram @seriousprivacy, and on BlueSky under @seriousprivacy.eu, @europaulb.seriousprivacy.eu, @heartofprivacy.bsky.app and @igrobrien.seriousprivacy.eu, and email [email protected]. Rate and Review us!

From Season 6, our episodes are edited by Fey O'Brien. Our intro and exit music is Channel Intro 24 by Sascha Ende, licensed under CC BY 4.0. with the voiceover by Tim Foley.

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This episode covers a week in privacy which feels light and refreshing. Listen to co-hosts Paul Breitbarth, Ralph O'Brien, and Dr. K Royal. Topics include an emergency ban in Italy about publishing images about an autopsy, Germany's actions involving Meta, Poland's enforcement on a McDonald's data breach, UK's collaboration with OpenAI, UK's enforcement against spam/spoof scam calls, age-verification in MS, and more!

If you have comments or questions, find us on LinkedIn and Instagram @seriousprivacy, and on BlueSky under @seriousprivacy.eu, @europaulb.seriousprivacy.eu, @heartofprivacy.bsky.app and @igrobrien.seriousprivacy.eu, and email [email protected]. Rate and Review us!

From Season 6, our episodes are edited by Fey O'Brien. Our intro and exit music is Channel Intro 24 by Sascha Ende, licensed under CC BY 4.0. with the voiceover by Tim Foley.

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With Dr. K Royal off to Vegas, this week it's Paul Breitbarth and Ralph O’Brien of Reinbo Consulting catching up for the Serious Privacy podcast on all of the news. Two big topics this week: the hidden-until-now data breach of the UK ministry of Defence in Afghanistan and the mess that was the WeTransfer terms update (official blog post, Paul's Linkedin post). The guys also talk about this piece in the New York Times Wirecutter on disappearing from the internet.

If you have comments or questions, find us on LinkedIn and Instagram @seriousprivacy, and on BlueSky under @seriousprivacy.eu, @europaulb.seriousprivacy.eu, @heartofprivacy.bsky.app and @igrobrien.seriousprivacy.eu, and email [email protected]. Rate and Review us!

From Season 6, our episodes are edited by Fey O'Brien. Our intro and exit music is Channel Intro 24 by Sascha Ende, licensed under CC BY 4.0. with the voiceover by Tim Foley.

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With Paul away, Join K and Ralph on a riotous discussion of personal integrity and what positions we can work with and for - with regulators and industry cross pollinating individuals and resources.  Can regulators remain ethical and independent, when we rely on skills and abilities for industry?

Also, a week of news in Privacy and Data Protection with a round up of EU, UK, US and beyond news, cases, regulations and standards - including age verification, censorship, EU AI Act, privacy preserving advertising, freedom of speech laws and new developments across the globe!

If you have comments or questions, find us on LinkedIn and Instagram @seriousprivacy, and on BlueSky under @seriousprivacy.eu, @europaulb.seriousprivacy.eu, @heartofprivacy.bsky.app and @igrobrien.seriousprivacy.eu, and email [email protected]. Rate and Review us!

From Season 6, our episodes are edited by Fey O'Brien. Our intro and exit music is Channel Intro 24 by Sascha Ende, licensed under CC BY 4.0. with the voiceover by Tim Foley.

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Please join us for our 250th episode, celebrating 5 and a half years of privacy, data protection, cyber law education and hot topics with hosts Paul Breitbarth, Ralph O'Brien, and Dr. K Royal.

If you have comments or questions, find us on LinkedIn and Instagram @seriousprivacy, and on BlueSky under @seriousprivacy.eu, @europaulb.seriousprivacy.eu, @heartofprivacy.bsky.app and @igrobrien.seriousprivacy.eu, and email [email protected]. Rate and Review us!

From Season 6, our episodes are edited by Fey O'Brien. Our intro and exit music is Channel Intro 24 by Sascha Ende, licensed under CC BY 4.0. with the voiceover by Tim Foley.

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On this episode of Serious Privacy, Paul Breitbarth and Dr. K Royal connect with the Honorable Monique Priestley, Vermont Representative (website https://moniqueforvermont.com/). The topic - the Age Appropriate Design Code Act (VAADCA) just passed!

If you have comments or questions, find us on LinkedIn and Instagram @seriousprivacy, and on BlueSky under @seriousprivacy.eu, @europaulb.seriousprivacy.eu, @heartofprivacy.bsky.app and @igrobrien.seriousprivacy.eu, and email [email protected]. Rate and Review us!

From Season 6, our episodes are edited by Fey O'Brien. Our intro and exit music is Channel Intro 24 by Sascha Ende, licensed under CC BY 4.0. with the voiceover by Tim Foley.

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On this week of Serious Privacy, Paul Breitbarth, Ralph O’Brien of Reinbo Consulting, and Dr. K Royal connect on a week in privacy - almost too much to cover, so it’s a little long. Mainly we talk about the UK Data Use and Access Bill, the third extension of TikTok’s required sale, Meta deploying ads to Whatsapp, and noyb suing two data protection authorities over delayed investigation and enforcement. Lastly, big shoutout to Alexander White in his new appointment as Queensland’s new privacy commissioner.

If you have comments or questions, find us on LinkedIn and Instagram @seriousprivacy, and on BlueSky under @seriousprivacy.eu, @europaulb.seriousprivacy.eu, @heartofprivacy.bsky.app and @igrobrien.seriousprivacy.eu, and email [email protected]. Rate and Review us!

From Season 6, our episodes are edited by Fey O'Brien. Our intro and exit music is Channel Intro 24 by Sascha Ende, licensed under CC BY 4.0. with the voiceover by Tim Foley.

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It's been a while since we last talked about cross-border data transfers, but that does not mean that all issues have resolved themselves. And while the focus may still largely be on the EU-US relations for data transfers, the core developments actually relate to the Global Cross-Border Privacy Rules. 

Therefore, on this week of Serious Privacy, Paul Breitbarth, Ralph O’Brien of Reinbo Consulting, and Dr. K Royal connect with Noël Luke, chief assurance officer at TrustArc. She joined TrustArc in 2015 and is responsible for overseeing and enhancing TrustArc’s robust assurance programs, which include certifications under the Global and APEC cross-border privacy rules, as well as verifications under the respective Data Privacy Frameworks between the US and the EU, UK and Switzerland.

If you have comments or questions, find us on LinkedIn and Instagram @seriousprivacy, and on BlueSky under @seriousprivacy.eu, @europaulb.seriousprivacy.eu, @heartofprivacy.bsky.app and @igrobrien.seriousprivacy.eu, and email [email protected]. Rate and Review us!

From Season 6, our episodes are edited by Fey O'Brien. Our intro and exit music is Channel Intro 24 by Sascha Ende, licensed under CC BY 4.0. with the voiceover by Tim Foley.