Al-Swaha, Leaders of Major Global Technology Companies Discuss Partnerships

Al-Swaha met with executives from Meta, Qualcomm, ServiceNow, Bhartinews, and Builder.ai in Davos. SPA
Al-Swaha met with executives from Meta, Qualcomm, ServiceNow, Bhartinews, and Builder.ai in Davos. SPA
TT

Al-Swaha, Leaders of Major Global Technology Companies Discuss Partnerships

Al-Swaha met with executives from Meta, Qualcomm, ServiceNow, Bhartinews, and Builder.ai in Davos. SPA
Al-Swaha met with executives from Meta, Qualcomm, ServiceNow, Bhartinews, and Builder.ai in Davos. SPA

Saudi Minister of Communications and Information Technology Eng. Abdullah bin Amer Al-Swaha held several meetings in Davos with leaders of major international technology companies to discuss the expansion of their projects and innovative solutions in the Kingdom.

The meetings came as part of the Kingdom's participation in the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Al-Swaha met with executives from Meta, Qualcomm, ServiceNow, Bhartinews, and Builder.ai.

Al-Swaha also held talks with Japanese Minister of Digital Transformation Taro Kano.

The ministers discussed strengthening the strategic partnership between the two friendly countries, joint initiatives, and ways to deepen cooperation in the areas of supporting the growth of the digital economy, innovation, digital entrepreneurship, and encouraging technical investments.

They also discussed the possibility of establishing joint programs to exchange expertise, support government digital transformation, and harness emerging technologies to support the digital economy.

Al-Swaha met separately with Indian Minister for Railways, Communications, and Electronics & Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw.
They discussed the progress made in digital and innovative initiatives within the Saudi-Indian Strategic Partnership Council, aimed at supporting the growth of the digital economy and stimulating innovation and entrepreneurship between the two countries.



South Korea Fines Meta about $15 Mln over Collection of User Data

A 3D printed Facebook's new rebrand logo Meta is placed on laptop keyboard in this illustration taken on November 2, 2021. (Reuters)
A 3D printed Facebook's new rebrand logo Meta is placed on laptop keyboard in this illustration taken on November 2, 2021. (Reuters)
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South Korea Fines Meta about $15 Mln over Collection of User Data

A 3D printed Facebook's new rebrand logo Meta is placed on laptop keyboard in this illustration taken on November 2, 2021. (Reuters)
A 3D printed Facebook's new rebrand logo Meta is placed on laptop keyboard in this illustration taken on November 2, 2021. (Reuters)

South Korea has ordered Facebook owner Meta Platforms to pay 21.62 billion won ($15.67 million) in fines after finding it had collected sensitive user data and given it to advertisers without a legal basis, Seoul's data protection agency said.

The US tech giant obtained information from about 980,000 South Korean Facebook users on issues such as their religion, political views and sexuality while failing to seek agreement from users, the Personal Information Protection Commission said in a statement on Tuesday.

The information was then used by some 4,000 advertisers, the agency said.

A Meta Korea official declined to comment.

"Specifically, it has been found that (Meta) analyzed user behavior data such as pages they liked and advertisements they clicked on Facebook and created and managed advertising themes related to sensitive information," the commission said.

This included users being categorized for example as being North Korean defectors or following a certain religion, the agency said.

Meta had also unfairly declined a request by users to access personal information and failed to prevent data on about 10 South Koreans from being leaked by hackers, the agency said.