The companies asked by the consumer protection authority are

de ANWB, Nuon en Oxfam Novib. De Bijenkorf stopte hier al eerder mee. Essent heeft toegezegd binnenkort te stoppen en KLM en Transavia heroverwegen hun aanpak. De Bankgiroloterij, FBTO, KPN/Telfort, Postcodeloterij, Vakantieveilingen, Vriendenloterij en de Persgroep blijven gewoon doorgaan. Van Heerlijk.nl, HelloFresh en Hotels.nl

To be fair, some were giving the data away encrypted.

Many people worried that Google was scanning users’ documents in real time to determine if they’re being mean or somehow bad. You actually agree to such oversight in Google G Suite’s terms of service.

Those terms include include personal conduct stipulations and copyright protection, as well as adhering to “program policies.” Who knows what made the program that checks for abuse and other violations of the G Suite terms of service to go awry. But something did.

And it’s not just Google that has such terms. Chances are you or your employees have signed similar terms in the many agreements that people accept without reading.

The big concern from enterprises this week was not being locked out of Google Docs for a time but the fact that Google was scanning documents and other files. Even though this is spelled out in the terms of service, it’s uncomfortably Big Brother-ish, and raises anew questions about how confidential and secure corporate information really is in the cloud.  

This is part of a workshop I have given several times: many companies do this happily. Oddly enough you won’t find their invasions in the privacy policy, but in their terms of service is where you find the interesting maneuvering. It’s actually worse than above: you generally give away copyright to all your documents as well 🙂

An investigation by 24 data protection regulators from around the world – led by the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office – concluded that ‘there is significant room for improvement in terms of specific details contained in privacy communications’.The privacy notices, communications and practices of 455 websites and apps in sectors including retail, finance and banking, travel, social media, gaming/gambling, education and health were assessed to consider whether it was clear from a user’s perspective exactly what information was collected, for what purpose, and how it would be processed, used and shared.Overall, the Global Privacy Enforcement Network (GPEN) came to the following conclusions: Privacy communications across the various sectors tended to be vague, lacked specific detail and often contained generic clauses. The majority of organisations failed to inform the user what would happen to their information once it had been provided. Organisations were generally quite clear on what information they would collect from the user. Organisations generally failed to specify with whom data would be shared. Many organisations failed to refer to the security of the data collected and held – it was often unclear in which country data was stored or whether any safeguards were in place. Just over half the organisations examined made reference to how users could access the personal data held about them.

Source: GPEN Sweep 2017 – International enforcement operation finds website privacy notices are too vague and generally inadequate | Global Privacy Enforcement Network

Google snuck a questionable feature into the operating system with a recent update. A new permission called “activity recognition” may be tracking your physical activity and sharing it with third-party apps, and there’s no easy way to stop it.
What Is Activity Recognition?

The “activity recognition” permission was shared on Reddit earlier this week. Basically, it allows Google to track your physical activity (biking, running, standing still) using your phone’s built-in sensors and then share that information with third-party apps.
Imgur

SoundHound and Shazam both appear to be using the permission, though it’s unclear why. Activity recognition is also categorized in the list of “other” permissions, so it won’t show up when an app updates on your phone. The only way to check is to go into each app on your device and look at all of its permissions.
How to Deal With It

There’s also no way to revoke this specific permission either across the board or on an app-by-app basis. If it’s an app you don’t use that often you could always delete it off your phone to avoid sharing your personal information. One Reddit user also suggested preventing those apps from running in the background.

Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to deal with activity recognition for now. Hopefully Google will offer a fix eventually, but until then you may just have to accept that owning a smartphone means giving up a bit of your privacy.

Source: Android Is Quietly Sharing Your Physical Activity with Other Apps

Google is getting more and more invasive, with Google Maps tracking your location all the time and the Google play store, Inbox and Google Play services (among others) requiring microphone and body sensors permissions for proper operations. Why? Because privacy is dead to Google as well.

When you spit in a test tube in in hopes of finding out about your ancestry or health or that perfect, genetically optimized bottle of wine, you’re giving companies access to some very intimate details about what makes you, you. Your genes don’t determine everything about who you are, but they do contain revealing information about your health, relationships, personality, and family history that, like a social security number, could be easily abused. Not only that—your genes reveal all of that information about other people you’re related to, too.
[…]
Gizmodo slogged though every line of Ancestry.com, 23andMe, and Helix’s privacy, terms of service, and research policies with the help of experts in privacy, law and consumer protection. It wasn’t fun. We fell asleep at least once. And what we found wasn’t pretty.

“It’s basically like you have no privacy, they’re taking it all,” said Joel Winston, a consumer protection lawyer. “When it comes to DNA tests, don’t assume you have any rights.”
[…]
here’s what you need to know before giving away your genetic information.

Testing companies can claim ownership of your DNA

It’s unclear who has access to your DNA, or for what

Your anonymous genetic information could get leaked

If you sue and lose, you’re screwed

If companies get rich off your DNA, you get nothing

Source: What DNA Testing Companies’ Terrifying Privacy Policies Actually Mean

A very good article examining the privacy clauses of some genetic testing companies followed up by an analysis of what this means for the consumer. Be scared.