LONDON (Reuters) - Facebook, Twitter and TikTok face fines of up to 10% of turnover if they fail to remove and limit the spread of illegal content under laws proposed by Britain on Tuesday.

Tech platforms will also need to do more to protect children from being exposed to grooming, bullying and pornography, the government said, to ensure the safety of children online.

“We are entering a new age of accountability for tech to protect children and vulnerable users, to restore trust in this industry, and to enshrine in law safeguards for free speech,” Britain’s Digital Secretary Oliver Dowden said.

Governments globally are wrestling over measures to better control illegal or dangerous content on social media, with the European Union set to unveil its own package on Tuesday.

Britain’s new rules, which will be introduced in legislation next year, could lead to sites which break the rules being blocked and senior managers held liable for content.

Popular platforms will be required to have clear policies for content that, while not illegal, could cause harm such as disseminating misinformation about COVID vaccines.

Dowden said the framework would give large digital businesses “robust rules” to follow.

Facebook and Google said in February they would work with the government on the regulations. Both companies said they took safety extremely seriously and they had already changed their policies and operations to better tackle the issue.

British media regulator Ofcom will be given the power to fine companies up to 18 million pounds ($24 million) or 10% of global turnover, whichever is higher, for breaking the rules.

It will also be able to block non-compliant services from being accessed in Britain.

Online journalism and reader comments on news publishers’ websites will be exempt to safeguard freedom of expression.

(Reuters) - Apple Inc on Monday said it had begun the rollout of new labels about the privacy practices of apps for users to see before they are downloaded from its App Store.

Apple announced the labels, which seek to quickly convey information about several categories of data collection and somewhat resemble the nutrition labels on food products, at a developer conference in June. It started requiring developers to provide information for the labels last week as part of the review process for releasing or updating apps.

The labels will be introduced over time as developers submit their apps for approval to Apple, and users will see them before downloading or update an app. Apple will require disclosures of when apps gather data for what it deems “tracking” of users across unrelated apps or websites.

Developers will be able to offer explanations for the data collection, but users will have to click through two sets of links to see the explanation. Developers are responsible for the accuracy of the information, but Apple said compliance will be checked during the app review process, during random audits and in response to complaints.

The labels are part of a broader set of changes Apple rolled out this year to introduce more notifications and permission requirements for data collection on its devices.

A requirement for new notifications to users before any use of a digital advertising identifier prompted an outcry from companies such as Facebook Inc. Many digital advertisers said users would likely decline to have their data collected because of the new notification rule.

The rule was set to go into effect this year, but Apple said it would delay implementation until early 2021 to give developers more time to make changes to their apps.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Tech giants which control access and data to their platforms could be fined up to 10% of their annual turnover for violating rules aimed at curbing their power, a person familiar with the matter said on Monday.

The proposed rules, to be announced by EU digital chief Thierry Breton and EU antitrust czar Margrethe Vestager on Tuesday, are likely to affect Amazon.com, Apple, Facebook and Alphabet unit Google.

The rules, known as the Digital Markets Act, set out a list of dos and don’ts for online gatekeepers to ensure a level playing field for rivals and users.

That could include requiring dominant companies to share certain kinds of data with rivals and regulators, while practices such as companies favouring their own services could be outlawed.

Breton has previously said that gatekeepers can be ordered to change their practices or even be forced to break up their European businesses for repeated breaches of the rules.

The criteria for classifying which companies are gatekeepers are likely to be the number of users, either individual or business users on a pan-European level, a company’s presence in at least two business sectors and revenues, other sources have told Reuters.

The draft rules, which will need feedback from EU countries and the European Parliament, can still be modified before they are presented on Tuesday.

Bloomberg was first to report about a 10% fine for breaches.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) on Monday appealed for €100 million (US$121.5 million) to continue providing “urgent protection and critical assistance” to vulnerable migrants in specific African regions as related funding under the EU Trust Fund (EUTF) comes to an end.

The funds are urgently needed for vulnerable migrants from West and Central Africa along the Central and Western Mediterranean routes, the IOM said.

“The imminent end of this life-saving programme and the funding shortfall raise deep concerns about the fates of tens of thousands of vulnerable men, women and children,” IOM Director General António Vitorino was quoted as saying in the appeal.

“Through the EU-IOM Joint Initiative, we have been able to assist over 100,000 migrants who might otherwise have been left in conditions of great peril; in detention centres, stranded and left for dead in deserts, or living in extremely difficult environments conducive to trafficking and smuggling, with no safe alternatives to better their lives and those of their families,” he added.

Vitorino also highlighted the IOM’s concerns that “the advances made in terms of regional and international cooperation on improved migration management would be jeopardized.”

“Current funding for these critical humanitarian interventions is coming to an end, and the IOM will have to start phasing out assistance to vulnerable migrants after December 2020 in West and Central Africa,” the IOM said.

The fund was launched in 2016 under the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa as a joint Initiative with the IOM for migrant protection as well as reintegration which targeted 26 African countries of the Sahel and Lake Chad region, the Horn of Africa and North Africa.

Through the fund, the EU-IOM joint initiative aimed at “ensuring that migration is safer, more informed and better governed for both migrants, their communities and host countries,” according to the IOM’s report./aa

YPG/PKK terrorist organization on Monday raided villages in Deir ez-Zor province in eastern Syria to detain participants in demonstrations against the terror group, according to local sources.

The terrorist organization rounded up some 50 Syrian citizens in the last 40 days and placed them in a prison in the countryside of Deir ez-Zor, the sources said.

Since August, Arab residents of Deir ez-Zor province have staged demonstrations against the YPG/PKK terrorist group to protest discrimination against the local population, as well as poor living conditions and rampant corruption in the region.

Two civilians were killed from the YPG/PKK fire during the demonstrations so far.

Deir ez-Zor is a major link between Iran and Lebanon. Pipelines and trade routes from Iraq and Jordan also pass through the province.

Bordering the eastern bank of the Euphrates River, it is currently under the control of the YPG/PKK terrorist organization.

With the help of Russia and Iran-backed militias, the central and western parts of Deir ez-Zor fell to regime forces as Daesh/ISIS terrorists retreated in November 2017.

In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US, and EU -- has been responsible for the deaths of 40,000 people, including women, children and infants. The YPG is the PKK's Syrian offshoot./aa

Iran’s intelligence ministry has issued a statement saying it has dismantled a major illegal foreign currency trading group amid efforts in the country to control an exchange market where prices have fluctuated in recent months mainly over speculations about the future of Iran-US relations.

“Leading members of the extensive network of scam and disruption of the exchange system who had been involved in illegal economic activity have been identified and arrested in the province of Yazd,” said the statement which referred to a province in central Iran.

The statement said the group had used cover companies outside Iran to obtain 150 million euros of import funds from the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) to then resell the hard currency in the unofficial market at prices several times higher than the government-mandated rates.

It said the group had faked documents and paperwork related to commerce licenses while using third-party bank accounts and faking transportation documents to launder nearly 10 trillion rials ($40 million).

The statement said the suspects had bank accounts with a balance of nearly 300 trillion rials ($1.2 billion), adding that a raid on their properties led to the recovery of a considerable amount of hard currency notes, fake documents and stamps of foreign companies.

The arrests are part of wider efforts by the Iranian security agencies in recent months to restore calm to the Iranian exchange market.

The Iranian currency rial regained part of its lost value against the US dollar in early November after results of the US presidential elections became known.

The rial closed at 255,000 against the greenback on Sunday. However, a CBI-mandated price of 42,000 rials per dollar, used to finance basic goods imports, is increasingly used for rent-seeking as speculators believe the price gap would further narrow next year over hopes than a new government in the US might decide to changes its economic policy toward Iran.

Press TV

A sophisticated hacking group backed by a foreign government stole information from the U.S. Treasury Department and a U.S. agency responsible for deciding policy around the internet and telecommunications, according to people familiar with the matter.

The hack is so serious it led to a National Security Council meeting at the White House on Saturday, Reuters reported citing sources with knowledge of the incident.

"The United States government is aware of these reports and we are taking all necessary steps to identify and remedy any possible issues related to this situation," said National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot.

There is concern within the U.S. intelligence community that the hackers who targeted the Treasury Department and the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration used a similar tool to break into other government agencies, according to three people briefed on the matter.