#data

www.houstonpublicmedia.org

Gov. Abbott orders TCEQ to pause environmental permits for data centers until audit is complete

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to pause permits for new data centers until state regulators complete an audit of those projects. The order was the latest in a series of moves against proposed data centers by Abbott, who has raised concerns about water and power usage — but it marked an escalation affecting more projects than ever before. In early August, the governor directed the state's utility regulators and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which manages the state's power grid, to halt approvals for new data centers until an audit was complete. Sign up for the Hello, Houston! daily newsletter to get local reports like this delivered directly to your inbox. The governor touted his actions in August as a "pause" on all new data centers. But ERCOT said it only had the authority to stop grid connections for data centers requesting at least 75 megawatts of power, which is enough electricity to power nearly 19,000 homes. Smaller data centers, as well as projects that would not need to connect to the ERCOT grid because they were building their own power plants, were not included in the pause. Additionally, some...

www.bbc.com

Devon Data Centre will be 'blot' on landscape, say protesters

More than 100 people gathered to oppose of plans for a new £14bn data centre and battery energy storage scheme in north Devon. The company behind the project, Xlinks, said the data campus near Great Torrington would be designed to support the local environment and create hundreds of jobs. Campaigners at the protest at Caddsdown Business Support Centre Bideford, ahead of a Torridge District Council meeting on Monday, described the proposed Artificial Intelligence (AI) centre as "absolutely enormous" and a "blot on the landscape". A government spokesperson said new data centre developments must be considered through the planning system, assessing impacts on communities and the environment. Campaigner Rita Farmer said she had lived in Devon for more than 45 years and the data centre would be "absolutely awful". "It's just a total blot on the landscape. "It's our wildlife. It's everything." Xlinks said in its proposal for the site it would cover about 850 acres (about 345 hectares) but only a third would be developed. A company spokesperson said the data campus would be designed to support the local environment, while supporting economic growth in the area and bringing 650 to 1,200 permanent high-quality jobs. They said: "We will ensure...

www.theverge.com

California tightens rules on AI data center energy and water use

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed seven bills designed to prevent AI data centers from passing utility costs onto residents, as reported earlier by the Los Angeles Times. The package of laws requires the California Public Utilities Commission to introduce a new rate classification for data centers, while forcing them to pay for upgrades to local power grids and water systems. Other bills included in the package will require proposed data centers to disclose their estimated water use to local governments, along with information about energy efficiency and drought planning. They must also meet certain energy, water, and fuel consumption requirements before qualifying for a streamlined approval process. Last week, Newsom signed an executive order to speed up the creation of an AI “kill switch.” “While the Trump administration moves toward deregulation, communities are left to deal with the consequences — higher electricity demand, grid constraints, water use, and pollution,” Newsom says in the press release. “With these laws, we are ensuring that Californians remain in the driver’s seat — and that those profiting from data centers aren’t doing so at our expense.”...

www.unite.ai

BigID Debuts AgentIQ for Agent-Run Data Security and Compliance

BigID on September 21, 2026 announced the launch of AgentIQ, an agentic automation interface that lets customers operate their data security and compliance programs from a prompt or an AI agent, either inside BigID or directly from Claude, Copilot, GPT, or Gemini. What AgentIQ Does The release describes AgentIQ as a fully agentic automation interface to BigID. Customers can write custom prompts or use pre-built BigID agents to retrieve, report, respond, or remediate data and AI security and compliance violations, and BigID says running a query requires neither a new interface nor a security analyst. Custom enterprise agents and internal AI platforms are supported surfaces alongside BigID itself. BigID groups the product’s functions under a set of operating labels. Ask handles questions about the data and AI landscape, spanning cloud, SaaS, on-premises systems, databases, and files, with custom reporting returned. Investigate works data and access violations to determine who and what was impacted. Consult and Reason lets customers work with their model of choice on regulatory compliance, security frameworks, and industry best practices. Assess Risk ranks findings by sensitivity, exposure, activity, and business context. Act executes the response: revoking access, remediating exposure, applying retention, quarantining, enforcing policy, and fulfilling requests...

siliconangle.com

Google fined $462M in Ireland over location data collection practices

Ireland’s privacy watchdog today fined Google LLC €403 million, or about $462 million, for collecting users’ location data in breach of GDPR. The tracking was done by three Google features: Web & App Activity, Timeline and GLA. Web & App Activity is a Google account setting that collects user data when it’s enabled. The collected data includes, among others, the user’s location. Google relies on that information to personalize search results and ads. For example, it might display ads from stores near the user in a shopping-related search results page. Timeline, the second feature that drew regulatory scrutiny, is provided by Google on an opt-in basis. When it’s enabled, the feature periodically logs the location of the user’s device. Timeline turns the data into a map that enables users to check the places they’ve visited and the routes they took. Google collects location data with the help of an internal service called GLA, or Google Location Accuracy. The service is the third technology that was found to have breached GDPR. GLA logs the location of the user’s Android device with the help of the built-in GPS module. If GPS data is unavailable, which is often the case indoors, the service...

www.unite.ai

California Enacts Seven New Laws Targeting Data Center Power and Water Use

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed seven bills on September 21, 2026, imposing new state requirements on data centers that span electricity cost allocation, water use disclosure, energy reporting, local permitting, and environmental review. The governor’s office announced the signing from Sacramento, saying the laws require data centers to report on water and electricity use and give communities more information about the energy, water, workforce, and land use of proposed projects. The office described the package as the most comprehensive data center laws in the nation and contrasted it with the Trump administration’s moves toward deregulation. “With these laws, we are ensuring that Californians remain in the driver’s seat — and that those profiting from data centers aren’t doing so at our expense,” Newsom said. The package consists of AB 1577 by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda), AB 2383 by Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur (D-Hollywood), AB 2469 and AB 2619 by Assemblymember Diane Papan (D-San Mateo), SB 886 by Senators Steve Padilla (D-San Diego) and Jerry McNerney (D-Pleasanton), SB 887 by Padilla, and SB 1168 by McNerney. Electricity Tariffs and Rate Structures SB 886, the California Technology Innovation and Ratepayer Protection Act, requires the California Public Utilities Commission, by January 1, 2028,...