Social media firms urged to combat data scraping

Major social media firms Meta, ByteDance, Alphabet, Sina, Microsoft, and X, formerly known as Twitter, have been sought by a group of 12 nations, including Canada, Australia, and the UK, to stop the utilization of data scraping technologies increasingly exploited to obtain and process personal data that could later be leveraged in fraudulent activities and threat intelligence gathering efforts, ZDNET reports. "Social media companies and the operators of websites that host publicly accessible personal data have obligations under data protection and privacy laws to protect personal information on their platforms from unlawful data scraping. Mass data scraping incidents that harvest personal information can constitute reportable data breaches in many jurisdictions," said the nations in a joint statement. The statement also called for the adoption of multi-layered controls to avert data scraping risks in addition to the implementation of scraper detection measures. "Controls should be routinely stress-tested and updated to ensure they remain effective and keep pace with changing technologies," the statement added.