The Supreme People’s Court of China issued regulations Wednesday for use of facial recognition technology by private businesses. The guidelines require private businesses to receive consent from customers before collecting and processing their facial information. Under the new regulations, individuals have the right to reject the use of facial recognition technology for identity verification. They [...]

The New Zealand government introduced a bill in the country’s parliament Friday that criminalizes conversion practices targeted at LGBTQ+ people to deter the performance of such practices. The bill defines conversion practice as any action taken against a person because of that person’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, with the intention of changing [...]

The Council of the European Union Friday announced that it had adopted a framework for the imposition of sanctions against individuals and entities it determines have undermined the rule of law and democracy in Lebanon. In December of last year, the Council noted the “grave financial, economic, social and political crisis” in Lebanon and urged [...]

Germany’s Federal Court Thursday ruled that Facebook’s deletion of racist comments and the blocking of some user accounts was done improperly and ordered the comments reinstated. The ruling stems from incidents in 2018 in which two German Facebook users had certain posts deleted and their accounts temporarily suspended because the posts had violated Facebook’s community [...]

The top criminal court in Spain archived a case on Thursday involving genocide allegations against the leader of Western Sahara’s independence movement. The case involved a complaint filed in 2008 against thirteen Moroccan soldiers of the Polisario Front and their leader Brahim Ghali for genocide, murder, injuries, illegal detention, terrorism, torture, and abductions. These crimes [...]

Climate change is a serious challenge facing countries. Least developed countries (LDCs) are the most vulnerable to climate change impacts due to a lack of adequate resources, particularly technological resources, required to mitigate/adapt to climate change impacts within their territories. Some international agreements recognize this technology challenge faced by LDCs and thus provide for technology [...]

A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Thursday granted an order authorizing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to issue summonses demanding couriers and financial institutions produce information about US taxpayers who may have used the services of Panama Offshore Legal Services (POLS) and its affiliates (POLS group) [...]

The US Senate voted 67-32 on Wednesday in favor of a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill hours after President Joe Biden announced a bipartisan agreement on the details of “a once-in-a-generation investment in infrastructure.” Seventeen Republicans, including Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, joined Democrats in voting to move forward with HR 3684, the “INVEST in America Act,” [...]

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Department of Treasury on Wednesday imposed sanctions on eight prisons run by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s intelligence unit for human rights abuses against political prisoners and other detainees. Additionally, OFAC also sanctioned Syrian armed group Ahrar al-Sharqiya and two of its leaders for abuses against civilians [...]

Amazon is moving to recuse Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan from any antitrust investigation, adjudication, litigation, or other proceedings related to Amazon. The notion is that Chair Khan has made up her mind, according to Amazon’s motion: Chair Khan has made numerous and highly detailed public pronouncements regarding Amazon, including on market definition, [...]