Tech Roundup: Amazon iRobot Purchase, India Personal Data Protection Bill & More

[A recurring feature on the latest in Science & Technology.]

• India scraps the Personal Data Protection Bill that was tabled by the government in 2019 after it receives dozens of amendments and recommendations, necessitating that the contours of the regulation are thoroughly redrawn; announces it will be replaced a new "comprehensive framework."
• The bill set the rules for how personal data should be processed and stored, requiring businesses to inform users about their data collection practices and seek customers' consent, in addition providing a mechanism for erasing their data should the permissions be withdrawn. It notably exempted any government agency from any of the provisions of the legislation, giving it broad powers.
• Australia reportedly considering strengthening privacy laws in the country to tackle ByteDance-owned TikTok after the U.K. parliament closes its official account, decrying the Chinese-owned platform as a data harvester.
• Google releases ChromeOS 104 (formerly Chrome OS) with support for switching to a dark theme and automatically shifting its colour scheme between light and dark theme depending on the time of day, complete with matching wallpaper options.
• French ad-tech giant Criteo gets fined US$ 65 million for breaching European Union data protection laws by the country's national privacy watchdog in a preliminary decision following a four-year investigation; calls out the company for creating "highly invasive, granular profiles of people" without their consent.
• The Department of Motor Vehicles in the U.S. state of California accuses Tesla of engaging in deceptive practices around the marketing of its driver assistance systems; says the "Autopilot" and "Full Self-Driving Capability" labels and descriptions misleadingly represent that vehicles equipped with the ADAS features will operate autonomously.
• Meta tests a new livestreaming platform for influencers called "Super" that allows them to host livestreams, earn revenue and engage with viewers.
• The U.K. government plans to require migrants convicted of a criminal offence to scan their faces up to five times per day using smartwatches and have their locations tracked 24/7.
• Search engine DuckDuckGo says its privacy-focused browser will now block Microsoft (including LinkedIn) tracking scripts on third-party websites, which were formerly exempt due to a search syndication deal to serve ads on the service, contradicting its own claims about web tracking protections.
• Retail and entertainment giant Amazon signs an agreement to acquire Roomba maker iRobot in a US$ 1.7 billion all-cash deal.
• Fitbit to end desktop syncing for PC and macOS in October for devices Fitbit Versa, Versa 2, and Ionic; moves file transfers to its smartphone app, with music and playlist downloads now requiring a paid subscription to either Deezer or Pandora.