As if things were not going badly enough for the UK’s COVID-19 test and trace service, it now seems police will be able to access some test data, prompting fear that the disclosure could deter people who should have tests from coming forward. As revealed in the Health Service Journal (paywalled), Department for Health and Read more about UK test and trace data can be handed to police, reveals memorandum – that mission crept quickly[…]

The world’s plague-time video meeting tool of choice, Zoom, says it’s figured out how to do end-to-end encryption sufficiently well to offer users a tech preview. News of the trial comes after April 2020 awkwardness that followed the revelation that Zoom was fibbing about its service using end-to-end encryption. As we reported at the time, Read more about Remember when Zoom was rumbled for lousy crypto? Six months later it says end-to-end is ready – but it’s not[…]

Members of the intelligence-sharing alliance Five Eyes, along with government representatives for Japan and India, have published a statement over the weekend calling on tech companies to come up with a solution for law enforcement to access end-to-end encrypted communications. The statement is the alliance’s latest effort to get tech companies to agree to encryption backdoors. Read more about Five Eyes governments, India, and Japan make new call for encryption backdoors – insist that democracy is an insecure police state[…]

There are few things as revealing as a person’s search history, and police typically need a warrant on a known suspect to demand that sensitive information. But a recently unsealed court document found that investigators can request such data in reverse order by asking Google to disclose everyone who searched a keyword rather than for Read more about Google is giving data to police based on search keywords: IPs of everyone who searched a certain thing. No warrant required.[…]

Europe’s top court has delivered another slap-down to indiscriminate government mass surveillance regimes. In a ruling today the CJEU has made it clear that national security concerns do not exclude EU Member States from the need to comply with general principles of EU law such as proportionality and respect for fundamental rights to privacy, data Read more about Europe’s top court confirms no mass surveillance without limits[…]

The body tasked with oversight of the IRS announced in a letter that it will investigate the agency’s use of location data harvested from ordinary apps installed on peoples’ phones, according to a copy of the letter obtained by Motherboard. The move comes after Senators Ron Wyden and Elizabeth Warren demanded a formal investigation into Read more about The IRS Is Being Investigated for Using Bought Location Data Without a Warrant – Wait there’s a company called Venntel that sells this and that’s OK?[…]

Facebook Chief Revenue Officer David Fischer said Tuesday that the economic models that rely on personalized advertising are “under assault” as Apple readies a change that would limit the ability of Facebook and other companies to target ads and estimate how well they work. The change to Apple’s identifier for advertisers, or IDFA, will give Read more about Facebook revenue chief says ad-supported model is ‘under assault’ – boo hoo, turns out people like their privacy[…]

Samsung brags to advertisers that “first screen ads”, seen by all users of its Smart TVs when they turn on, are 100 per cent viewable, audience targeted, and seen 400 times per TV per month. Some users are not happy. “Dear Samsung, why are you showing Ads on my Smart TV without my consent? I Read more about Who watches the watchers? Samsung does so it can fling ads at owners of its smart TVs[…]

Spain’s highways agency is using bulk mobile phone data for monitoring speeding hotspots, according to local reports. Equipped with data on customers handed over by local mobile phone operators, Spain’s Directorate-General for Traffic (DGT) may be gathering data on “which roads and at what specific kilometer points the speed limits are usually exceeded,” according to Read more about Spain’s highway agency is monitoring speeding hotspots using bulk phone location data – is that even allowed here?[…]

Mozilla recently announced that they would be dismissing 250 people. That’s a quarter of their workforce so there are some deep cuts to their work too. The victims include: the MDN docs (those are the web standards docs everyone likes better than w3schools), the Rust compiler and even some cuts to Firefox development. Like most Read more about Firefox usage is down 85% despite Mozilla’s top exec pay going up 400%[…]

Facebook has warned that it may pull out of Europe if the Irish data protection commissioner enforces a ban on sharing data with the US, after a landmark ruling by the European court of justice found in July that there were insufficient safeguards against snooping by US intelligence agencies. In a court filing in Dublin, Read more about Facebook says it may quit Europe over ban on sharing data with US[…]

Six million would-be U.S. immigrants face expanded collection of their biometric data, including iris scans, palm-, and voice-prints, facial recognition images, and DNA, under a proposed federal rule. The Department of Homeland Security also for the first time would gather that data from American citizens sponsoring or benefiting from a visa application. Years in the Read more about Trump Pushes to Reap Extensive Biometric Data From Immigrants, Americans, never delete them[…]

Facebook is again being sued for allegedly spying on Instagram users, this time through the unauthorized use of their mobile phone cameras. Bloomberg reports: The lawsuit springs from media reports in July that the photo-sharing app appeared to be accessing iPhone cameras even when they weren’t actively being used. Facebook denied the reports and blamed Read more about Facebook Accused of Watching Instagram Users Through Cameras. FB claims “bug”[…]

In an update to its Android Developer Program Policy, Google on Wednesday said stalkerware apps in its app store can no longer be used to stalk non-consenting adults. Stalkerware, which the web giant defines as “code that transmits personal information off the device without adequate notice or consent and doesn’t display a persistent notification that Read more about Google bans stalkerware apps from Android store. Which is cool but… why were they allowed in the first place?[…]

IBM and the Los Angeles city attorney’s office have settled a privacy lawsuit brought after The Weather Channel app was found to be selling user location data without proper disclosure. The lawsuit was filed last year, at which point the app had 45 million active users. IBM has changed the way that users are informed, Read more about The Weather Channel app settles suit over selling location data of 49m people without consent[…]

In June, Apple unveiled plans for an iOS 14 privacy update that forces developers to gather users’ consent before tracking their activities across third-party apps and websites. Needless to say, giving users more control over how their information is gathered and trafficked is expected to bruise advertisers—especially Facebook, which uses that information to narrow its Read more about After Facebook Balks, Apple Delays “Privacy” (ie only Apple spies on you) Feature[…]

A threat intelligence firm called HYAS, a private company that tries to prevent or investigates hacks against its clients, is buying location data harvested from ordinary apps installed on peoples’ phones around the world, and using it to unmask hackers. The company is a business, not a law enforcement agency, and claims to be able Read more about Private Intel Firm Buys Location Data to Track People to their ‘Doorstep’ sourced from innocuous seeming apps[…]

Google and Apple have updated their COVID-19 contact-tracing tool to make it possible to notify users of potential exposures to the novel coronavirus without an app. The new Exposure Notifications Express spec is baked into iOS 13.7, which emerged this week and will appear in an Android update due later this month. This is not, Read more about COVID-19 tracing without an app? Google and Apple will ram it down your throat[…]

The U.S. government has taken the opportunity during the global pandemic, when people aren’t traveling out of the country much, to roll out a new platform for storing information they believe they are entitled to take from people crossing the border. A new filing reveals how the U.S. Border Patrol will store data from traveler Read more about US Border Patrol Says They Can Create Central Repository Of Traveler Emails, calendar, etc, Keep Them For 75 Years[…]

it was such an unsecured database that the Comparitech researchers, led by Bob Diachenko, discovered on August 1, leaving the personal profile data of nearly 235 million Instagram, TikTok and YouTube users up for grabs. The data was spread across several datasets; the most significant being two coming in at just under 100 million each Read more about 235 Million Instagram, TikTok And YouTube User Profiles Exposed In Massive Data Leak[…]