MTN Nigeria Suffers Reprisals After Xenophobic Attacks, China to Launch Cryptocurrency, and Google Accused of Illegally Sharing User Data

Africa

MTN shuts Nigeria shops over xenophobia reprisal attacks

MTN Nigeria has closed its stores after it suffered reprisals following xenophobic attacks in South Africa, it has been reported. The telecoms giant said four of its outlets had been attacked in Nigeria over the past few days. “While we remain committed to providing uninterrupted services, the safety and security of our customers, staff and partners is our primary concern. MTN’s stores and service centres in Nigeria have therefore been closed as a precaution,” MTN said in a statement. Xenophobic attacks in South Africa have targeted foreign-owned shops and persons suspected to come from Nigeria. MTN has about 60 million subscribers in Nigeria alone.

Mobile money transactions reach GHC 140 billion

The total value of mobile money transactions in the first six months of 2019 hit GHC 140.2 billion, according to reports. This represents some 34% increase on the previous year’s value of GHC 104.6 billion. Mobile money transactions between wallets made possible by the interoperability framework raked in GHC 217.6 million in June 2019 as opposed to GHC 212.9 million in the 2018 figures. According to the Bank of Ghana data, mobile money transactions have overtaken cheque transactions, which fell some 15% from GHC 99.3 to GHC 84.5 billion over the same duration.

Asia

Chinese ‘deepfake’ face-swapping app raises privacy concerns

A Chinese app, ZAO, that allows you to swap faces in videos has raised privacy concerns according to Reuters. ZAO went viral just after it was released on Friday, leading to a near-crash on the company’s servers. The app allows users to upload their own faces and superimpose them on other people’s images. However, the terms of use of the app state that users surrender the intellectual property rights to their faces once they upload their images. When asked about the privacy concerns, Momo Inc., the company that published ZAO, said, “We thoroughly understand the anxiety people have toward privacy concerns. We have received the questions you have sent us. We will correct the areas we have not considered and require some time.”

China to launch digital currency

China has announced plans to launch its own digital currency similar to Facebook’s Libra, it has been revealed. The move, according to the People’s Bank of China, is meant to safeguard the country’s foreign exchange sovereignty as applications of the digital currency expand and become universal. “It is to protect our monetary sovereignty and legal currency status. We need to plan ahead for a rainy day,” the bank said. Mu Changchum, deputy director of the central bank, said the coins would be as safe as bank notes and could be used on WeChat and Alipay. Being backed by the government, the coin would be more stable and would be able to function without an internet connection. China intends to strike a balance between allowing anonymity and fighting money-laundering activities. Some outlets speculate the digital currency could be ready in by end of 2019.

Huawei to spend more than $300 million to fund universities

Huawei is planning on spending more than $300 million to fund university research, Reuters has reported. This was revealed by William Xu, president of Huawei’s Institute of Strategic Research. This comes despite the company’s continuous battles against US blacklisting that is affecting its ties with foreign companies, agencies, and institutions. MIT cut its ties with Huawei while Oxford stopped receiving research funds. Huawei seem unperturbed by those happenings, though, and Mr Xu expects the amount to increase over time. “This ($300 million a year) amount is only going to increase, not decrease from now on,” Xu is reported to have said. In addition, Huawei reportedly sold 200,000 5G network base stations to buyers across the world.

Europe

Google accused of secretly feeding user data to advertisers

Google has been accused of secretly sharing user data with its advertisers according to reports by the Financial Times. The claim was made by Johnny Ryan, chief policy and industry relations officer at rival search engine, Brave. The claim, which has been lodged at the offices of EU’s privacy watchdog in Ireland, says Google was allowing ad-tech partners to collect data of its users through 8.4 million websites. Brave has accused Google of working around the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR. Ryan said Google used push pages that were hidden to web users to collect information about their internet activity, making it easier for advertisers to easily identify targets for their ads. “This constant leaking of personal data, that seems to be happening constantly, needs to be urgently addressed by regulators,” Johnny Ryan told journalists in a separate report.

The Netherlands to start regulating crypto

The Dutch Central Bank has announced concrete plans to start regulating cryptocurrencies from January 2020, it has been reported. Regulation is set to start from January 10, sources have revealed. Firms that issue cryptocurrencies as well as platforms that allow users to exchange crypto for cash are expected to register with the central bank before January. “In concrete terms, firms offering services for the exchange between cryptos and regular money, and crypto wallet providers, must register with De Nederlandsche Bank,” the Central Bank said in a statement.

Deutsche Telekom 5G is live

Germany’s Deutsche Telekom just announced that its 5G network has gone live in 5 German cities, according to reports by Reuters. Deutsche Telekom bid €2.3 billion for the 5G spectrum and timed its unveiling to coincide with the IFA consumer electronics fair being held in Berlin. The five cities where 5G is live are Darmstadt, Cologne, Berlin, Munich, and Bonn. Deutsche Telekom is focusing on where data demand is strongest. As a result, twenty more cities will go live by end of 2020 starting with Leipzig and Hamburg.

The Americas

YouTube fined $170m for violating children’s privacy

Google’s YouTube has been fined $170 million over children’s privacy violations, the BBC has reported. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report indicted YouTube for collecting data on children under 13 years without the consent of their parents. YouTube then used said data to target ads to the children. Rohit Chopra, one of the commissioners at the FTC, said that Google used nursery rhymes to bait children. As part of the settlement, Google has agreed to clearly label content on their platform that is meant for young audiences. “Starting in four months, we will treat data from anyone watching children’s content on YouTube as coming from a child, regardless of the age of the user,” said YouTube CEO, Susan Wojcicki.

Microsoft and Facebook to combat deepfake videos through competition

Facebook is partnering Microsoft and other collaborators to help detect deepfake videos through contests, Reuters said. The collaborators include the Partnership on AI coalition and academics from different universities involved in artificial intelligence research. Facebook will invest $10 million to create a data set of deepfake videos which would serve as reference for detecting other deepfakes. The tech giant intends to use paid actors rather than real users. Deepfake is a technique that is used to superimpose foreign images and faces onto existing images in a video. The synthesis can appear real to unsuspecting eyes. Questions have been raised about the potential dangers of deepfakes ahead of the 2020 US elections. “They (deepfakes) lower the bar for an adversary that wants to create manipulated media,” Matt Turek who runs the Media Forensics programme of the United State’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA, said.