June 30 Trend Hashtag – FCC wants to ban TikTok.Tesla layoffs; California DOJ data breaches

The Federal Communications Commission commissioner has asked Google and Apple to ban TikTok, Tesla has launched another layoff round, and the California Department of Justice is suffering from data breaches that disclose personal information.

Here’s all the tech news that’s currently trending. Welcome to Hashtag Trends. It’s Thursday, June 30th. I’m your host, Tom Lee.

The FCC Commissioner has asked Google and Apple to ban the video app TikTok. Brendan Carr tweeted with a copy of the letter he sent to Apple and Google, asking the company to remove TikTok from the app store. Republican senior members referred to a BuzzFeed News article showing audio leaked from 80 TikTok internal meetings. The leaked voice revealed that a China-based employee of TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, had repeatedly accessed the personal information of users in the United States. In a letter to a major tech company, Kerr listed other reports showing “evidence” about TikTok’s data practices. Evidence included cases where researchers found that apps could circumvent Android and iOS safeguards to access sensitive data.

sauce: Engadget

According to Bloomberg, Tesla is conducting another round of layoffs for employees in the Autopilot division. The electric vehicle company has fired an estimated 200 workers and closed its entire office in San Mateo, California. Some of the workers in the office have moved. The news follows CEO Elon Musk’s statement that he wants to reduce his work because of “very bad feelings” about the economy. Last week, two former Tesla workers in Nevada filed a lawsuit alleging that the company violated the law by letting go of people without the notice required by the warning law. The law requires large companies to notify people 60 days in advance of a large layoff event in certain circumstances.

sauce: Business insider

The personal information of all hidden carry-gun permit holders in California was leaked after the California Department of Justice was hit by a data breach. According to NBC News, the county sheriff’s office on Tuesday learned of a breach from the California Sheriffs Association. The sheriff’s office said in a statement that the breach occurred as part of the launch of the “2022 Firearms Dashboard Portal” by the California Department of Justice. The state removed the dashboard site along with the relevant links after learning of the violation. Personal information included name, age, address, criminal identification index number, and license type.

sauce: NBC News

People are using deepfake to pretend to be someone else in a remote job interview. In a public announcement, the FBI said there was an increase in complaints about people superimposing others’ videos, images, and recordings on themselves during job interviews. Complaints were tied to the role of remote technology that would allow successful candidates access to sensitive data. The FBI has revealed that the data may include personal information, financial data, and corporate IT databases. Deepfake technology has often been used for entertainment purposes, but it also enables new types of threats. The FBI said there were concerns about the harm that someone could face by spoofing. According to Business Insider, the agency said anyone who identified a deepfake attempt should report the incident to the complaints website.

sauce: Business insider

Here’s all the tech news that’s currently trending. Hashtag trends are part of the ITWC podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash briefing or Google Home daily briefing. Sign up for the Daily IT Wire Newsletter to get all the important news directly in your inbox every day. It also catches the next episode of Hashtag Tendance, a weekly hashtag trend episode in French that drops every Thursday morning. If you have any suggestions or tips, please contact us in the comments or email. Thank you for listening, Tom Lee.