The Federal Communications Commission commissioner is asking Google and Apple to ban TikTok, Tesla has begun a new round of layoffs, and the California Department of Justice suffers a data breach that exposed personal information.
It’s all the tech news that’s trending right now, welcome to Hashtag Trending. Today is Thursday, June 30, and I’m your host, Tom Li.
The FCC Commissioner has asked Google and Apple to ban the TikTok video app. Brendan Carr tweeted, along with a copy of the letter he sent to Apple and Google, asking the companies to remove TikTok from their app stores. The agency’s senior Republican commissioner referenced a BuzzFeed News article that showed leaked audio of 80 internal TikTok meetings. Leaked audio revealed that China-based employees of TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, repeatedly accessed private information about US users. In his letter to big tech companies, Carr listed other reports showing “worrying evidence” about TikTok’s data practices. Evidence included cases where researchers found the app could bypass Android and iOS protections to access sensitive data.
Source: Engadget
Tesla is making a new round of layoffs, targeting employees in its Autopilot division, according to Bloomberg. The electric car company laid off about 200 workers and closed an entire office in San Mateo, California. Some of the office workers have been moved. The news follows CEO Elon Musk saying he wanted to cut jobs due to a “super bad feeling” about the economy. Last week, two former Tesla employees in Nevada filed a lawsuit alleging the company broke the law by firing people without giving the notice required by the WARN Act. The law requires large companies, under certain circumstances, to give people 60 days notice of major layoffs.
Source: Business Intern
The personal information of all California concealed carry license holders has been released after the state Department of Justice suffered a data breach. NBC News reports that the county sheriff’s office learned of the violation from the California State Sherriff’s Association on Tuesday. The breach occurred as part of the California DOJ’s launch of its “2022 Firearms Dashboard Portal,” the sheriff’s office said in the statement. The state removed the site from the dashboard along with all related links after learning of the breach. Personal information included full names, age, address, criminal identification number and license type.
Source: BNC News
People are using deep fakes to impersonate someone else when interviewing for remote jobs. In a public announcement, the FBI said it had received an increase in complaints about people overlapping another person’s videos, images and audio recordings during job interviews. The complaints related to remote technical roles that allegedly allowed successful candidates to access sensitive data. The FBI revealed that the data could have included personally identifiable information, financial data and corporate computer databases. Deepfake technology has often been used for entertainment purposes, but the technology also enables new types of threats. The harm someone could suffer from impersonating someone is concerning, the FBI noted. According to Business Insider, the agency said anyone who identifies deep false attempts should report the cases on its complaint website.
Source: Business Intern
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