A court has blocked a British government attempt to keep secret a legal case over its demand to access Apple Inc. user data in a victory for privacy advocates. The UK Investigatory Powers Tribunal, a special court that handles cases related to government surveillance, said the authorities’ efforts were a “fundamental interference with the principle Read more about UK Effort to Keep Apple Encryption Fight Secret Is Blocked[…]
The EU has shared its plans to ostensibly keep the continent’s denizens secure – and among the pages of bureaucratese are a few worrying sections that indicate the political union wants to backdoor encryption by 2026, or even sooner. While the superstate has made noises about backdooring encryption before, the ProtectEU plan [PDF], launched on Read more about EU: These are scary times – let’s backdoor encryption and make everyone unsafe![…]
T-Mobile sells a little-known GPS service called SyncUP, which allows users who are parents to monitor the locations of their children. This week, an apparent glitch in the service’s system obscured the locations of users’ own children while sending them detailed information and the locations of other, random children. 404 Media first reported on the Read more about T-Mobile SyncUP Bug Reveals Names, Images, and Locations of Random Children[…]
[…]Your TV wants your data The TV business traditionally included three distinct entities. There’s the hardware, namely the TV itself; the entertainment, like movies and shows; and the ads, usually just commercials that interrupt your movies and shows. In the streaming era, tech companies want to control all three, a setup also known as vertical Read more about Your TV is watching you watch and selling that data[…]
In a moment of clarity after initially moving forward a deeply flawed piece of legislation, the French National Assembly has done the right thing: it rejected a dangerous proposal that would have gutted end-to-end encryption in the name of fighting drug trafficking. Despite heavy pressure from the Interior Ministry, lawmakers voted Thursday night (article in Read more about A Win for human rights: France Rejects Backdoor Mandate[…]
China’s Cyberspace Administration and Ministry of Public Security has outlawed the use of facial recognition without consent. The two orgs last Friday published new rules on facial recognition and an explainer that spell out how orgs that want to use facial recognition must first conduct a “personal information protection impact assessment” that considers whether using Read more about China bans facial recognition without consent and in all public places. And it needs to be encrypted.[…]
23andMe has capped off a challenging few years by filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy today. Given the uncertainty around the future of the DNA testing company and what will happen to all of the genetic data it has collected, now is a critical time for customers to protect their privacy. California Attorney General Rob Bonta Read more about 23andMe files for bankruptcy: How to delete your data before it’s sold off[…]
Even by Amazon standards, this is extraordinarily sleazy: starting March 28, each Amazon Echo device will cease processing audio on-device and instead upload all the audio it captures to Amazon’s cloud for processing, even if you have previously opted out of cloud-based processing: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/everything-you-say-to-your-echo-will-be-sent-to-amazon-starting-on-march-28/ It’s easy to flap your hands at this bit of thievery Read more about Amazon annihilates Alexa privacy settings, turns on continuous, nonconsensual audio uploading[…]
process called Android System SafetyCore – which arrived in a recent update for devices running Android 9 and later. It scans a user’s photo library for explicit images and displays content warnings before viewing them. Google says “the classification of content runs exclusively on your device and the results aren’t shared with Google.” Naturally, it will Read more about How to stop Android from scanning your phone pictures for content and interpreting them[…]
Research from a leading academic shows Android users have advertising cookies and other gizmos working to build profiles on them even before they open their first app. Doug Leith, professor and chair of computer systems at Trinity College Dublin, who carried out the research, claims in his write up that no consent is sought for Read more about Android tracks you before you start an app – no consent required. Also, it scans your photos.[…]
On Wednesday we shared that we’re introducing a new Terms of Use (TOU) and Privacy Notice for Firefox. Since then, we’ve been listening to some of our community’s concerns with parts of the TOU, specifically about licensing. Our intent was just to be as clear as possible about how we make Firefox work, but in Read more about Mozilla updates updated TOS for Firefox and is now more confusing but does not look private[…]
In a recent blog post titled “It is no longer safe to move our governments and societies to US clouds,” Bert Hubert, an entrepreneur, software developer, and part-time technical advisor to the Dutch Electoral Council, articulated such concerns. “We now have the bizarre situation that anyone with any sense can see that America is no Read more about After Snowden and now Trump, Europe Finally begins to worry about US-controlled clouds[…]
Google’s purge of Manifest v2-based extensions from its Chrome browser is underway, as many users over the past few days may have noticed. Popular content-blocking add-on (v2-based) uBlock Origin is now automatically disabled for many in the ubiquitous browser as it continues the V3 rollout. […] According to the company, Google’s decision to shift to Read more about Google pulls plug on Ad blockers such as uBlock Origin by killing Manifest v2[…]
Gravy Analytics has been sued yet again for allegedly failing to safeguard its vast stores of personal data, which are now feared stolen. And by personal data we mean information including the locations of tens of millions of smartphones, coordinates of which were ultimately harvested from installed apps. A complaint [PDF], filed in federal court Read more about Gravy Analytics sued for data breach containing location data of millions of smartphones[…]
A coalition of labor organizations representing federal workers and retirees has sued the Department of the Treasury to block it from giving the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, controlled by Elon Musk, access to the federal government’s sensitive payment systems. After forcing out a security official who opposed the move, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Read more about Unions Sue to Block Elon Musk’s Access to Americans’ Tax and Benefits Records[…]
[…] While trying to fend off attacks on Section 215 collections (most of which are governed [in the loosest sense of the word] by the Third Party Doctrine), the NSA and its domestic-facing remora, the FBI, insisted collecting and storing massive amounts of phone metadata was no more a constitutional violation than it was a Read more about Phone Metadata Suddenly Not So ‘Harmless’ When It’s The FBI’s Data Being Harvested[…]
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[…]