The Liberal Democrats have pledged to end the “Orwellian nightmare” of mass-snooping powers in the Investigatory Powers Act ahead of their manifesto launch. They will propose to roll back state surveillance powers by ending the indiscriminate bulk collection of communications data and internet connection records. The party also committed to fighting Conservative attempts to undermine Read more about Lib Dems pledge to end ‘Orwellian’ snooping powers in manifesto[…]

The ever-expanding operations of Uber are defined by two interlocking and zealously guarded sets of information: the things the world-dominating ride-hailing company knows about you, and the things it doesn’t want you to know about it. Both kinds of secrets have been in play in the Superior Court of California in San Francisco, as Ward Read more about Uber Doesn’t Want You to See This Document About Its Vast Data Surveillance System[…]

uXDT is the practice of advertisers hiding ultrasounds in their ads. When the ad plays on a TV or radio, or some ad code runs on a mobile or computer, it emits ultrasounds that are picked up by the microphone of nearby laptops, desktops, tablets or smartphones. SDKs embedded in apps installed on those devices Read more about 234 Android Applications Are Currently Using Ultrasonic Beacons to Track Users[…]

The U.S. National Security Agency collected more than 151 million records of Americans’ phone calls last year, even after Congress limited its ability to collect bulk phone records, according to an annual report issued on Tuesday by the top U.S. intelligence officer. The report from the office of Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats was Read more about NSA collected Americans’ phone records (151 million of them!) despite law change[…]

How to easily unsubscribe your Gmail email address from mailing lists, newsletters, junk and other unsolicited bulk mail that is clogging up your Gmail inbox. Source: How to Easily Unsubscribe from Bulk Emails in Gmail – Unroll.me Alternative

ISPs may be forced to block sites which fail to do so, and the fact that many such sites are not based in the UK nor subject to British law shall pose plenty of difficulties for the law’s implementation, as will its provisions forcing ISPs to prohibit access to “non-conventional sex acts”, which has provoked Read more about UK gov forces porn sites to gather personal info and allows gov depts to share citizens data despite being hugely unsafe[…]

But a New York Times profile of Uber this weekend revealed, in passing, that Unroll.me, which is owned by a company called Slice Intelligence, isn’t just in the business of tidying up customers’ inboxes. Slice makes money by scanning its users’ email for receipts, then packaging that information into intel reports on consumer habits. Uber, Read more about How Did Unroll.me Get Users to Allow It to Sell Their Inbox Data?[…]

Google has been ordered by a US court to cough up people’s private Gmail messages stored overseas – because if that information can be viewed stateside, it is subject to American search warrants, apparently. During a hearing on Wednesday in California, magistrate judge Laurel Beeler rejected [PDF] the advertising giant’s objections to a US government Read more about Nuh-uh, Google, you WILL hand over emails stored on foreign servers, says US judge[…]

Now Windows 10 Home and Pro has, right now, two levels of data collection, Basic and Full. When a computer is in Basic mode, Microsoft says Win 10 takes a note of the state of your hardware and its specifications, your internet connection quality, records of crashes and hangs by software, any compatibility problems, driver Read more about What  information Windows 10 Creators Update will slurp from your PC[…]

The US House of Representatives has just approved a “congressional disapproval” vote of privacy rules, which gives your ISP the right to sell your internet history to the highest bidder. The measure passed by 215 votes to 205. This follows the same vote in the Senate last week. Just prior to the vote, a White Read more about Your internet history on sale to highest bidder: US Congress votes to shred ISP privacy rules[…]

The ability for companies to follow you from one platform to another — from your phone to your laptop to a physical store — is called cross-device tracking, and for businesses that want to market and sell stuff to you, it is basically the holy grail. With robust tracking, a company can follow you basically Read more about 5 Things We’ve Learned About How Companies Track You Online And Off[…]

A U.S. judge has ordered Google to comply with search warrants seeking customer emails stored outside the United States, diverging from a federal appeals court that reached the opposite conclusion in a similar case involving Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O). U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Rueter in Philadelphia ruled on Friday that transferring emails from a foreign server Read more about Google, unlike Microsoft, must turn over foreign emails: U.S. judge[…]

California electronics maker Vizio will cough up $2.2m after its smart TVs spied on millions of people. America’s trade watchdog, the FTC, said today the payment will settle a complaint filed by the state of New Jersey accusing Vizio of violating privacy regulations: the biz had collected the viewing habits of 11 million television sets Read more about Vizio coughs up $2.2m after its smart TVs spied on millions of families[…]

Previously, tourists, travelers and visa holders were warned they may have to hand over their online account names and handles so their public profiles can be studied by border agents and immigration officials. Now Kelly wants to take that further, by demanding passwords from some visa applicants so g-men can log into Twitter, Facebook, online Read more about Want to come to the US? Be prepared to hand over your passwords if you’re on Trump’s hit list[…]

Phone numbers, browser histories, and social media posts are all examples of the sort of data that could be mined from those entering the US under Trump’s “extreme vetting” policy, Department of Homeland Security secretary John Kelly said today. As Talking Points Memo reported, Kelly held a press conference this afternoon to discuss the president’s Read more about Trump’s ‘Extreme Vetting’ for US Visitors Could Involve Social Media Posts and Browser Histories[…]

Secret FBI rules allow agents to obtain journalists’ phone records with approval from two internal officials — far less oversight than under normal judicial procedures. The classified rules, obtained by The Intercept and dating from 2013, govern the FBI’s use of national security letters, which allow the bureau to obtain information about journalists’ calls without Read more about Secret Rules Make It Pretty Easy for the FBI to Spy on Journalists[…]

NEW YORK — The U.S. government quietly began requesting that select foreign visitors provide their Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts upon arriving in the country […] Since Tuesday, foreign travelers arriving in the United States on the visa waiver program have been presented with an “optional” request to “enter information associated with your Read more about U.S. government begins asking foreign travelers about social media[…]

Previously, when the NSA passed data it collected through its secretive, advanced, and sometimes illegal methods, an NSA analyst would strip the data that pertained to innocent people, and would only pass on what they deemed necessary. Now, when the NSA shares information with another intelligence agency, it will pass on the raw data, with Read more about Way More People Will Now Have Access to the NSA’s Raw, Unfiltered Data[…]

Microsoft offers two settings – on and almost off – and a dashboard of collected data Source: New Windows 10 privacy controls: Just a little snooping – or the max Incredibly MS just won’t listen and even more incredibly, I’m seeing a lot of windows 10 machines 🙁

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/28/amazon-refuses-to-let-police-access-suspects-echo-recordings Just to remind you, the more smart devices you have, the more they listen to you. It’s just a totalitarian state away from being used against you.