What’s Important to Know: Venezuela’s Supreme Court fined TikTok USD$10 million for failing to prevent viral video challenges that resulted in the deaths of three Venezuelan children. TikTok faced temporary blockades by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Venezuela for not paying the fine. ISPs used IP, HTTP, and DNS blocks to restrict access to TikTok Read more about Venezuela’s Internet Censorship Sparks Surge in VPN Demand[…]
What’s important to know: On March 25, 2024 Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law requiring age verification for accessing pornographic sites. This law, known as House Bill 3 (HB3), passed with bipartisan support and has caused quite a stir in the online community. HB3 was set to come into effect on January 1, 2025. Read more about VPN Demand Surge in Florida after Adult Sites Age Restriction Kicks In[…]
Google is tracking your online behavior in the name of advertising, reintroducing a data collection process that ingests all of your online signals (from IP address to complex browser information) and pinpoints unique users or devices, also known as “digital fingerprinting.” The company’s updated platform program policies include relaxed restrictions on advertisers and personalized ad Read more about Google brings back digital fingerprinting to track users for advertising[…]
A federal judge this week rejected Google’s motion to throw out a class-action lawsuit alleging that it invaded the privacy of users who opted out of functionality that records a users’ web and app activities. A jury trial is scheduled for August 2025 in US District Court in San Francisco. The lawsuit concerns Google’s Web Read more about Google goes to court for collecting data on users who opted out… again…[…]
Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that its voice assistant Siri routinely recorded private conversations that were then shared with third parties and used for targeted ads. In the proposed class-action settlement—which comes after five years of litigation—Apple admitted to no wrongdoing. Instead, the settlement refers to “unintentional” Siri Read more about Siri “unintentionally” recorded private convos on phone, watch, then sold them to advertisers; yes those ads are very targeted Apple agrees to pay $95M, laughs to the bank[…]
The advent of Bluetooth trackers has made it a lot easier to find your bag or keys when they’re lost, but it has also put inconspicuous tracking tools in the hands of people who might misuse them. Apple and Google have both implemented tracker alerts to let you know if there’s an unknown Bluetooth tracker Read more about Android will let you find unknown Bluetooth trackers instead of just warning you about them[…]
Singapore’s Land Transport Authority (LTA) estimated last week that by tracking all vehicles with GPS it will be able to increase road capacity by 20,000 over the next few years. The densely populated island state is moving from what it calls Electric Road Pricing (ERP) 1.0 to ERP 2.0. The first version used gantries – Read more about Singapore to increase road capacity by GPS tracking all vehicles. Because location data is not sensitive and will never be hacked *cough*[…]
The new terms come in on November 15th. 4.3 Generative AI Safety and Abuse. Google uses automated safety tools to detect abuse of Generative AI Services. Notwithstanding the “Handling of Prompts and Generated Output” section in the Service Specific Terms, if these tools detect potential abuse or violations of Google’s AUP or Prohibited Use Policy, Read more about Google changes Terms Of Service, now spies on your AI prompts[…]
If you’ve ever opted to rent a movie through a Redbox kiosk, your private info is out there waiting for any tinkerer to get their hands on it. One programmer who reverse-engineered a kiosk’s hard drive proved the Redbox machines can cough up transaction histories featuring customers’ names, emails, and rentals going back nearly a Read more about If You Ever Rented From Redbox, Your Private Info Is Up for Grabs[…]
The US government’s General Services Administration’s (GSA) facial matching login service is now generally available to the public and other federal agencies, despite its own recent report admitting the tech is far from perfect. The GSA announced general availability of remote identity verification (RiDV) technology through login.gov, and the service’s availability to other federal government Read more about Face matching now available on GSA’s login.gov, however it still doesn’t work in minimum 10% of the time[…]
[…] The one-and-done nature of Wiles’ experience is indicative of a core business problem with the once high-flying biotech company that is now teetering on the brink of collapse. Wiles and many of 23andMe’s 15 million other customers never returned. They paid once for a saliva kit, then moved on. Shares of 23andMe are now Read more about 23andMe is on the brink. What happens to all that genetic DNA data?[…]
At 8:22 am on December 4 last year, a car traveling down a small residential road in Alabama used its license-plate-reading cameras to take photos of vehicles it passed. One image, which does not contain a vehicle or a license plate, shows a bright red “Trump” campaign sign placed in front of someone’s garage. In Read more about License Plate Readers Are Creating a US-Wide Database of Cars – and political affiliation, planned parenthood and more[…]
Ecovacs robot vacuums, which have been found to suffer from critical cybersecurity flaws, are collecting photos, videos and voice recordings — taken inside customers’ houses — to train the company’s AI models. The Chinese home robotics company, which sells a range of popular Deebot models in Australia, said its users are “willingly participating” in a Read more about Insecure Robot Vacuums From Chinese Company Deebot Collect Photos and Audio to Train Their AI[…]
The Netherlands’ government and opposition are both against the latest version of the controversial EU regulation aimed at detecting online child sexual abuse material (CSAM), according to an official position and an open letter published on Tuesday (1 October). The regulation, aimed at detecting online CSAM, has been criticised for potentially allowing the scanning of private messages Read more about Dutch oppose Hungary’s approach to EU child sexual abuse regulation – or total surveillance of every smart device[…]
Someday soon, if Ford has its way, drivers and passengers may be bombarded with infotainment ads tailored to their personal and vehicle data. This sure-to-please-everyone idea comes via a patent application [PDF] filed by Ford Global Technologies late last month that proposes displaying ads to drivers based on their destination, route, who’s in the car, Read more about Ford wants to listen in on you in your car to serve you ads as much as possible[…]
Resistance to the Hungarian presidency’s approach to the EU’s draft law to combat online child sexual abuse material (CSAM) was still palpable during a member states’ meeting on Wednesday (4 September). The Hungarian presidency of the Council of the EU aims to secure consensus on the proposed law to combat online child sexual abuse material Read more about Resistance to Hungarian presidency’s new push for child sexual abuse prevention regulation – because it’s a draconian spying law asking for 100% coverage of digital comms[…]
Clearview AI is back in hot — and expensive — water, with the Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA) fining the company €30.5 million ($33.6 million) for violating the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The release explains that Clearview created “an illegal database with billions of photos of faces,” including Dutch individuals, and has failed to Read more about Dutch DPA fines Clearview €30.5 million for violating the GDPR[…]
Europe is going to talk again about the possibility of checking all chat messages of citizens for child abuse. On September 4, a (secret) consultation will take place, says Patrick Breyer , former MEP for the Pirate Party. A few years ago, the European Commission came up with the plan to monitor all chat messages Read more about Proposal to spy on all chat messages back on European political agenda[…]
Mozilla will soon remove its telemetry service Adjust from the Android and iOS versions of browsers Firefox and Firefox Focus. It appeared that the developer was collecting data on the effectiveness of Firefox ad campaigns without disclosing that. Mozilla, the developers of Firefox, until recently used the telemetry service Adjust to collect data from its Read more about Mozilla removes telemetry service Adjust from mobile Firefox versions – it was spying on you secretly it turns out[…]
Clearview’s status as an international pariah really hasn’t changed much over the past few years. It may be generating fewer headlines, but nothing’s really changed about the way it does business. Clearview has spent years scraping the web, compiling as much personal info as possible to couple with the billions of photos it has collected. Read more about Australian Regulators Decide To Write A Strongly Worded Letter About Clearview’s Privacy Law Violations, leave it at that[…]
Privacy authorities in the Netherlands have imposed a €290 million ($324 million) fine on ride-share giant Uber for sending driver data to servers in the United States – “a serious violation” of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). According to the Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA), Uber spent years sending sensitive driver information from Read more about Dutch officials fine Uber €290M for GDPR violations[…]
Last year Mozilla released a report showcasing how the auto industry has some of the worst privacy practices of any tech industry in America (no small feat). Massive amounts of driver behavior is collected by your car, and even more is hoovered up from your smartphone every time you connect. This data isn’t secured, often isn’t encrypted, Read more about Texas AG Latest To Sue GM For Covertly Selling Driver Data To Insurance Companies[…]
[…] EFF colleague, Katitza Rodriguez, about the Cybercrime Treaty, which is about to pass, and which is, to put it mildly, terrifying: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/07/un-cybercrime-draft-convention-dangerously-expands-state-surveillance-powers Look, cybercrime is a real thing, from pig butchering to ransomware, and there’s real, global harms that can be attributed to it. Cybercrime is transnational, making it hard for cops in any Read more about UN Cybercrime Treaty does not define cybercrime, allows any definition and forces all signatories to secretly surveil their own population on request by any other signatory (think totalitarian states spying on people in democracies with no recourse)[…]
Google won’t kill third-party cookies in Chrome after all, the company said on Monday. Instead, it will introduce a new experience in the browser that will allow users to make informed choices about their web browsing preferences, Google announced in a blog post. Killing cookies, Google said, would adversely impact online publishers and advertisers. This Read more about Google isn’t killing third-party cookies in Chrome after all in move that surprises absolutely no-one.[…]
Firefox finds itself in a tricky position at times, because it wants to be a privacy friendly browser, but most of its funding comes from Google, whose entire business is advertising. With Firefox 128, the browser has introduced ‘privacy-preserving ad measurement,’ which is enabled by default. Despite the name, the actual implications of the feature Read more about Firefox’s New ‘Privacy’ Feature Actually Gives Your Data to Advertisers – How and Why to Disable Firefox’s ‘Privacy-Preserving’ Ad Measurements[…]