Privacy 👁

"Nobody should have to resort to a lawsuit simply to keep their name and their online presence clear of false child exploitation allegations: prevention is, as usual, better than cure. A large part of that responsibility falls on platforms simply to do a better job: to draw their child exploitation policies narrowly and precisely, and to involve humans before taking actions such as account bans or referrals to law enforcement.

RE: tech.lgbt/@Lydie/1158769984512WAIT! would it make sense to use an old microwave (unconnected, obviously) as a faraday cage for mobile phones?#privacy #geolocation #surveillance

"French lawmakers are preparing a renewed push to limit children’s online exposure, unveiling a proposal that would block anyone under 15 from using social media platforms.

"A courtroom drama over state surveillance in India took a striking turn when a Supreme Court judge suggested that people who live transparently should not be troubled by government monitoring.

"The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has a new definition of “reasonable expectation.” According to the justices, it’s no longer reasonable to assume that what you type into Google is yours to keep.

"I am standing on the corner of Harris Road and Young Street outside of the Crossroads Business Park in Bakersfield, California, looking up at a Flock surveillance camera bolted high above a traffic signal. On my phone, I am watching myself in real time as the camera records and livestreams me—without any password or login—to the open internet. I wander into the intersection, stare at the camera and wave. On the livestream, I can see myself clearly. Hundreds of miles away, my colleagues are remotely watching me too through the exposed feed.

"EU governments are pushing to widen data retention obligations for apps that citizens use every day – and the best VPN apps are among those targeted.

RE: flipboard.com/@gizmodo/tech-fkThis is an example of how far the surveillance capitalism has gone. IMHO there is no logic to your TV monitoring what you are watching. It is time for some serious legislation when it comes to what data can be collected and what it can be used for. IMHO companies should not be building profiles on their users.#Privacy #Surveillance #Politics

"Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued five large TV manufacturers yesterday, alleging that their smart TVs spy on viewers without consent. Paxton sued Samsung, the longtime TV market share leader, along with LG, Sony, Hisense, and TCL.

"...[F]irst, the Council’s position allows for “voluntary” detection, where tech platforms can scan personal messages that aren’t end-to-end encrypted. Unlike in the U.S., where there is no comprehensive federal privacy law, voluntary scanning is not technically legal in the EU, though it’s been possible through a derogation set to expire in 2026. It is unclear how this will play out over time, though we are concerned that this approach to voluntary scanning will lead to private mass-scanning of non-encrypted services and might limit the sorts of secure communication and storage services big providers offer. With limited transparency and oversight, it will be difficult to know how services approach this sort of detection.

"There is no single technological "silver bullet" solution to the serious problem of online CSAM. But that doesn't mean we must choose between "chat control" or nothing. As experts in child protection have long highlighted, fighting online CSAM requires a broad spectrum of solutions that encompass an all-of-society approach. Taking a socio-technical lens to the problem can also help us understand where technology can play an assistive role, whilst recognizing technology’s limits to tackle complex societal issues.

"The Baden-Württemberg state parliament has approved the use of Palantir's controversial "Gotham" software for police data analysis.

"A new bill sponsored by Sen. Hawley (D-MO), Sen. Blumenthal (D-CT), Sen. Britt (R-AL), Sen. Warner (D-VA), and Sen. Murphy (D-CT) would require AI chatbots to verify all users’ ages, prohibit minors from using AI tools, and implement steep criminal penalties for chatbots that promote or solicit certain harms. That might sound reasonable at first, but behind those talking points lies a sprawling surveillance and censorship regime that would reshape how people of all ages use the internet.

"Google was accused in a lawsuit of using its Gemini AI assistant to unlawfully track the private communications of users of its Gmail, instant messaging and videoconference programs.

"Just before a decisive meeting in Brussels, digital rights expert and former Member of the European Parliament Dr. Patrick Breyer is sounding the alarm. Using a “deceptive sleight of hand,” a mandatory and expanded Chat Control is being pushed through the back door, in a form even more intrusive than the originally rejected plan. The legislative package could be greenlit tomorrow in a closed-door EU working group session.

"Allowing the government to access such unfiltered exchanges and treat them as legal confessions would have a massive chilling effect. If every private thought experiment can later be weaponized in court, users of A.I. will censor themselves, undermining some of the most valuable uses of these systems. It will destroy the candid relationship that makes A.I. useful for mental health and legal and financial problem-solving, turning a potentially powerful tool for self-discovery and self-representation into a potential legal liability.

"Ahead of the new school year, a handful of tech companies issued grim warnings to American educators embracing artificial intelligence in the classroom: Chatbots, they said, could endanger students and lead to self-harm. Vigilance was paramount. “The risks of students using AI can literally be deadly,” one company cautioned. Another noted: “Student lives depend on it.”

"This year, when states began using an expanded Department of Homeland Security system to check their voter rolls for noncitizens, it was supposed to validate the Trump administration’s push to harness data from across federal agencies to expose illicit voting and stiffen immigration enforcement.

"The web was designed without the concept of personal identity at all, and without any tracking system built in. It was designed for anybody to be able to create what they want, and even for anybody to be able to make their own web browser. Not long after its invention, people came up with ideas like cookies and made different systems for logging in, and then big companies started coming in and realized that if they could control the browser, they'd control all the users and the ways of making money. Ever since, there's been a long series of battles over privacy versus monetization, but there's been some small protection for users, who benefitted from those smart original design choices back at the birth of the web.

"Today, noyb has filed a criminal complaint against Clearview AI and its managers. The facial recognition company is known for scraping billions of photos of Europeans and people around the world on the internet – and selling its facial recognition system to law enforcement and state actors. Several EU data protection authorities have already imposed fines and bans on Clearview AI. But the US company simply ignores these actions – given the lack of enforcement."

"The implications of this man’s handiwork are that people can no longer assume someone wearing Meta’s Ray-Bans are not filming them even if the light is off. Earlier this month, University of San Francisco Department of Public Safety officials warned students about a man with Meta Ray-Ban glasses recording women on campus and posting the videos to pick-up artist social media accounts. Now imagine that activity but without any indication the Ray-Bans user is recording. How to disable the light is a common topic of conversation on Reddit, YouTube, and TikTok, with some users promising workarounds. 404 Media traced likely buyers of the modified Meta Ray-Bans to California, North Carolina, Texas, and overseas.

"Over the last year, federal agents were struggling to uncover the identity of a darkweb child exploitation site, with little success. Then a possible avenue opened up, thanks to the suspect’s use of ChatGPT.

"A number of easy to access websites use facial recognition to let partners, stalkers, or anyone else uncover specific peoples’ Tinder profiles, reveal their approximate physical location at points in time, and track changes to their profile including their photos, according to 404 Media’s tests.Ordinarily it is not possible to search Tinder for a specific person. Instead, Tinder provides users potential matches based on the user’s own physical location. The tools on the sites 404 Media has found allow anyone to search for someone’s profile by uploading a photo of their face. The tools are invasive of anyone’s privacy, but present a significant risk to those who may need to avoid an abusive ex-partner or stalker. The sites mostly market these tools as a way to find out if their partner is cheating on them, or at minimum using dating apps like Tinder.

"The Paris public prosecutor has opened an investigation into Apple regarding the collection of recordings by its voice assistant Siri, the prosecutor’s office told POLITICO.

@eff #eff #privacy #surveillance #bigbrother eff.org/deeplinks/2025/10/floc

"A growing confrontation over major digital surveillance powers is unfolding within the European Union, as Denmark’s Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard stands accused of using false claims to pressure hesitant governments into backing the European Commission’s proposed Chat Control 2.0 regulation.

How effective are Reflectacles together with a mask be at blocking facial recognition?

Normalizing Facial Recognition Technology and The End of Obscurity

Ab 16.12.2025 wertet Meta KI-Chats für Feed-Empfehlungen aus. Wer mit »Meta AI« spricht, liefert neue Daten fürs Profiling – egal ob über Text oder Sprache. »Sensible Daten sollen tabu bleiben«, sagt Meta. Glaubwürdig? Kaum. KI-Personalisierung ist nichts anderes als feinere Überwachung unter neuem Label. 👇

"The initial order from January targeted the data of all Apple users. In August, the US claimed the U.K. withdrew the demand, but Apple did not re-enable Advanced Data Protection. The new order provides insight into why: the U.K. was just rewriting it to only apply to British users.

"The Amazon-owned Ring doorbell company launched a new feature on its Neighbors app earlier this month called Community Requests, which allows police officers to request camera footage and live-feed access from users.

"On Friday, IT security expert and hacker Janik Besendorf, with the support of the Chaos Computer Club (CCC), filed a lawsuit against the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) at the Administrative Court in Wiesbaden. He accuses the authority of unlawfully processing his biometric facial data and presumably also passing it on to third parties for trial runs of biometric facial recognition.

"the most striking trend in recent years has not been sousveillance of the powerful, but what — for want of a better word — I am going to call “peerveillance”. With the help of gadgets and subscriptions from technology companies, we are increasingly turning our gaze on each other, whether through cameras on our cycle helmets or our rapid adoption of camera doorbells such as Amazon’s Ring devices.

"There’s more drone technology to come. Skydio has a small indoor drone that adeptly flies around objects in tight spaces and can provide surveillance in a building or house, which could be useful for executing search warrants or during a fire. The company is working on a fixed-wing drone that flies farther and is launched with a robotic arm. Adam Bry, Skydio’s co-founder and chief executive officer, predicts this tracking drone will help reduce or even eliminate dangerous high-speed chases.One of the main privacy concerns about law enforcement drones is that they could randomly collect, use and share data from video, audio or even sensors, such as heat sensors, while they are airborne. Commitments to only collect and use data during a specific police or fire emergency call should be backed up by independent data audits and by providing the public continuous full transparency about when, where and why drone flights were made. This can all be done automatically and not burden officers with more paperwork.

"- Tools from surveillance capitalism now help build new ways of waging war and targeting people.

"The Mexican government passed a package of outrageously privacy-invasive laws in July that gives both civil and military law enforcement forces access to troves of personal data and forces every individual to turn over biometric information regardless of any suspicion of crime.

"To put it bluntly, the path currently being taken towards agentic AI leads to an elimination of privacy and security at the application layer. It will not be possible for apps like Signal—the messaging app whose foundation I run—to continue to provide strong privacy guarantees, built on robust and openly validated encryption, if device-makers and OS developers insist on puncturing the metaphoric blood-brain barrier between apps and the OS. Feeding your sensitive Signal messages into an undifferentiated data slurry connected to cloud servers in service of their AI-agent aspirations is a dangerous abdication of responsibility.

"If you live in Mississippi, you may have noticed that you are no longer able to log into your Bluesky or Dreamwidth accounts from within the state. That’s because, in a chilling early warning sign for the U.S., both social platforms decided to block all users in Mississippi from their services rather than risk hefty fines under the state’s oppressive age verification mandate.

"​​In an era of pervasive online surveillance, organizations have an important role to play in protecting their communities’ privacy. Millions of people browse the web on computers provided by their schools, libraries, and employers. By default, popular browsers on these computers leave people exposed to hidden trackers.

"With names like Investigative Case Management (ICM) and ImmigrationOS, the big data platforms Palantir provides for the Department of Homeland Security, and like those it offers the IDF, are fundamentally composed of four shared elements: the underlying data integrated into the system, the interpretation and modeling of that data through analytics, and the execution of automated actions – with or without human involvement. At every layer of this architecture, there are significant ethical questions regarding civil rights, data collection, data quality, bias, discrimination, accuracy, automation and, most importantly, accountability.

"When police have a warrant to search a phone, should they be able to see everything on the phone—from family photos to communications with your doctor to everywhere you’ve been since you first started using the phone—in other words, data that is in no way connected to the crime they’re investigating? The Michigan Supreme Court just ruled no.

"Commercial surveillance allows buyers to figure out the most an individual consumer will pay, and raise prices accordingly; and to calculate the lowest wage a worker will accept, and lower pay accordingly. Commercial surveillance allows companies to "optimize" their products to be nearly so enshtitified that we quit them, but not quite, maximizing the value they can shift from us to them.

"Two former Harvard students are launching a pair of “always-on” AI-powered smart glasses that listen to, record, and transcribe every conversation and then display relevant information to the wearer in real time.

"An appeals court on Friday blocked studios and record labels from using expedited subpoenas to identify internet users suspected of illegally sharing songs, movies and TV shows.

"The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has shown interest in using GeoSpy, a powerful AI tool that can pinpoint the location of photos based on features such as the soil, architecture, and other identifying features, according to emails obtained by 404 Media. The news also comes as GeoSpy’s founder shared a video showing how the tool can be used in relation to undocumented immigrants in sanctuary cities, and specifically Los Angeles.

"The change comes in response to the planned revision of the Ordinance on the Surveillance of Correspondence by Post and Telecommunications (OSCPT), introduced by the Swiss Federal Council in January 2025. As previously reported by CyberInsider, the proposal would compel telecom and “derived communication service” providers (FSCDs) to impose mandatory user identification once they reach 5,000 users, retain this data for six months after service ends, and, where encryption keys are held, decrypt communications on request. Larger providers with more than one million users or CHF 100 million in annual revenue would face round-the-clock compliance obligations and real-time interception capabilities.

"First, there’s the UK’s Investigatory Powers Act, introduced in 2016, which she describes as “deeply authoritarian”. Earlier this year, The Washington Post reported that the Home Office had used a “technical capability notice” under the Act to demand Apple provide access to a user’s encrypted messages and data. The leaked story caused a furore in Washington. Apple has appealed, and the Home Office looks set to back down. But for some, the episode has cast a shadow over the UK.

"Age verification has officially arrived in the UK thanks to the Online Safety Act (OSA), a UK law requiring online platforms to check that all UK-based users are at least eighteen years old before allowing them to access broad categories of “harmful” content that go far beyond graphic sexual content. EFF has extensively criticized the OSA for eroding privacy, chilling speech, and undermining the safety of the children it aims to protect. Now that it’s gone into effect, these countless problems have begun to reveal themselves, and the absurd, disastrous outcome illustrates why we must work to avoid this age-verified future at all costs.

"Privacy advocates and some cities around the country have expressed concern about Flock’s technology, saying the products provide customers access to vast surveillance capabilities.

"Hundreds of AI-powered automated license plate reading cameras paid for by Lowe’s and Home Depot and stationed in the hardware stores’ parking lots are being fed into a massive surveillance system that law enforcement can access, according to records obtained using a public records request.

"Meta has recently started using the personal data of Europeans for AI training. Contrary to its GDPR obligations, Meta hasn’t asked for consent in advance. Instead, the company claims to have a ‘legitimate interest’ outweighing the fundamental right to privacy. A key argument in favour of such a ‘legitimate interest’ is the reasonable expectations of users. This begs the question: do people want this to happen? To find out more, noyb has commissioned the Gallup Institute to conduct a study among 1,000 Meta users in Germany. The results are clear: While almost 75% of users heard of Meta’s plans, only 7% actually want their data to be used for AI training. This also means that at least 68 million people never heard about the change."

Social Media Apps: LoL! WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn - they're all in the same surveillance/data extracting business. At least, when you use their services through a web browser, you're in control. You can install PrivacyBadger and uBlock Origin. But with a smartphone app? You're being continuously exploited.

‘A million calls an hour’: Israel relying on Microsoft cloud for expansive surveillance of Palestinians

"By publishing its guidelines under Article 28 of the Digital Services Act, the European Commission has taken a major step towards social media bans that will undermine privacy, expression, and participation rights for young people that are already enshrined in international human rights law.

Interesting insight on how age verification measures are working in the UK and the various ways of getting around them. More importantly, these age verification measures are showcasing how people are taking their privacy seriously when facing potential roadblocks and limitations imposed by these laws.

"If authorities are willing to claim that Comey’s social media post is an emergency justifying warrantless real-time cellphone location tracking, it’s not hard to imagine that they could make a similar (bogus) claim about a suspected whistleblower or a journalist who reports critically on the administration. It wouldn’t be any more meritless than their claims that journalism is inciting crimes or threatening national security.

"The Trump administration is continuing its dangerous push to surveil and suppress foreign students’ social media activity. The State Department recently announced an unprecedented new requirement that applicants for student and exchange visas must set all social media accounts to “public” for government review. The State Department also indicated that if applicants refuse to unlock their accounts or otherwise don’t maintain a social media presence, the government may interpret it as an attempt to evade the requirement or deliberately hide online activity.