Privacy

UK revives plan to reform data protection rules with an eye on boosting the economy

Privacy /

A new data bill from the U.K. Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) aims to revive several measures that failed to pass under the prior government, while rowing back on some controversial post-Brexit reforms proposed by Conservative ministers. The government reckons the “Data (Use and Access) Bill” (DUA) stands to boost the U.K. economy […]

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A hidden microphone on a San Francisco street pole is spotting ‘bops’ in the wild

Privacy /

In San Francisco’s Mission district, good music is all around you. That’s why, high up on a street pole at an undisclosed location in the Mission, Riley Walz installed a solar-powered box containing an old Android phone running the song identifying service, Shazam, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The so called “Bop

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We are skeptical of VPN providers, and you should be, too

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VPNs are practically everywhere. In editorials, in advertorials, and featured by influencers on your favorite YouTube shows. There are ads for VPNs on websites, during television commercials, plastered on billboards, and on subway ads. There might even be a VPN ad somewhere on this very webpage right now.  VPNs, or virtual private networks, are a

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Meta fined $101.5M for 2019 breach that exposed hundreds of millions of Facebook passwords

Privacy /

Reset your clocks: Meta has been hit with yet another privacy penalty in Europe. On Friday Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) announced a reprimand and a €91 million fine — around $101.5M at current exchange rates — after concluding a multi-year investigation into a 2019 security breach by Facebook’s parent company. The DPC opened a

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Mozilla hit with privacy complaint in EU over Firefox tracking tech

Privacy /

Mozilla, the non-profit that develops the Firefox web browser, has been hit with a complaint by European Union privacy rights group noyb, which accuses it of violating the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by tracking Firefox users by default without their permission. It’s unusual to see a privacy complaint targeting Mozilla, an organization which

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Google’s revised ad targeting plan triggers fresh competition concerns in UK

Privacy /

What is going on with Google’s long-touted migration to an alternative adtech stack (aka its Privacy Sandbox proposal)? What indeed. The entire multi-year endeavour to reshape the commercial web looks dangerously close to being killed off after the latest intervention by the U.K.’s antitrust regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). This comes on top

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Telegram quietly enables users to report private chats to moderators after founder’s arrest

Privacy /

Telegram has quietly updated its policy to allow users to report private chats to its moderators following the arrest of founder Pavel Durov in France over “crimes committed by third parties” on the platform.  The messaging app, which serves nearly 1 billion monthly active users, has long maintained a reputation for minimal supervision of user

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Uber fined $324M over EU drivers data transfer breach

Privacy /

Ride-hailing platform Uber has been fined €290 million — around $324 million at current exchanges rates — by the Netherlands’ privacy watchdog for breaching the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The penalty is related to transfers of personal data of drivers out of the European Union to the US, where Uber’s main business

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Texas sues GM, saying it tricked customers into sharing driving data sold to insurers

Privacy /

Texas filed a lawsuit Tuesday against GM over years of alleged abuse of customers’ data and trust. New car owners were presented with a “confusing and highly misleading” process that was implied to be for their safety, but “was no more than a deceptively designed sales flow” that surrendered their data for GM to sell.

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