Ring, the maker of internet-connected video doorbells and security cameras, said in its latest transparency report that it turned over a record amount of doorbell footage and other information to U.S. authorities last year.

The Amazon-owned company said in two biannual reports covering 2021 that it received 3,147 legal demands, an increase of about 65% on the year earlier, up from about 1,900 legal demands in 2020.

More than 85% of the legal demands processed were by way of court-issued search warrants, allowing Ring to turn over both information about a Ring user and video footage from those accounts. Ring said it turned over user content in response to about four out of 10 demands it received during the year.

Transparency reports allow U.S. companies to disclose the number of legal law orders they are given over a particular time period, often six-months or a year. But Ring has been criticized for having unusually cozy relationships with about 2,200 police departments around the United States, latest figures show, allowing police to request video doorbell camera footage from homeowners.

Ring said it also notified 648 users during the year that their user information had been requested by law enforcement. According to its law enforcement guidelines, Ring notifies users before disclosing their user information, such as name, address, email address and billing information, unless it is prohibited by way of a secrecy order.

In a new breakout, Ring also revealed it received 2,774 preservation orders, which allow police departments and law enforcement agencies to ask Amazon — not demand — to preserve a user’s account for up to six months to allow the requesting agency to gather enough information to a court-issued order, such as a search warrant.

Amazon executive Brian Huseman told lawmakers in a letter published Wednesday that Ring shared doorbell footage at least 11 times with U.S. authorities so far in 2022 without the consent of the device’s owner, reports Politico. According to the letter, Amazon said it “made a good-faith determination that there was an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to a person requiring disclosure of information without delay.” Under emergency disclosure orders, companies can respond with data when a requesting agency doesn’t have the time to obtain a court order.

Ring has not yet revealed how many times it has disclosed user data under emergency circumstances in previous years, including its most recent transparency report.

Source: Amazon’s Ring gave a record amount of doorbell footage to the government in 2021 | TechCrunch

[…]

The Cyberspace Administration of China’s (CAC) policy was first floated in October 2021 and requires businesses that transfer data offshore to conduct a security review. The requirements kick in when an organization transfers data describing more than 100,000 individuals, or information about critical infrastructure – including that related to communications, finance and transportation. Sensitive data such as fingerprints also trigger the requirement, at a threshold of 10,000 sets of prints.

A Thursday announcement added a detail to the policy: the cutoff date after which the CAC will start counting towards the 100,000 and 10,000 thresholds. Oddly, that date is January 1 … of 2021.

A state official explained in Chinese state-owned media on Thursday that the efforts were necessary due to the digital economy expanding cross-border data activities, and that differences in international legal systems have increased data export security risks, thereby affecting national security and social interest.

The official detailed that the security review should occur prior to signing a contract that includes exporting data overseas. Any approved data export will be valid for two years, at which point the entity must apply again.

[…]

Source: China’s cyberspace regulator details data export rules • The Register

[…]

LIBE committee member and Pirate Party MEP Patrick Breyer said that during the meeting last week, the committee discovered that the UK – and three EU member states, though their identities were not revealed – had already signed up to reintroduce US visa requirements which grant access to police biometric databases.

In the UK, the Home Office declined the opportunity to deny it was signing up for the scheme. A spokesperson said: “The UK has a long-standing and close partnership with the USA which includes sharing data for specific purposes. We are in regular discussion with them on new proposals or initiatives to improve public safety and enable legitimate travel.”

Under UK law the police can retain an individual’s DNA profile and fingerprint record for up to three years from the date the samples were taken, even if the individual was arrested but not charged, provided the Biometrics Commissioner agrees. Police can also apply for a two-year extension. The same applies to those charged, but not convicted.

According to reports, the US Enhanced Border Security Partnership (EBSP) initiative will be voluntary initially but is set to become mandatory under the US Visa Waiver Program (VWP), which allows visa-free entry into the United States for up to 90 days, by 2027.

MEP Breyer said that when asked exactly what data the US wanted to tap into, the answer was as much as possible. When asked what would happen at US borders if a traveler was known to the police in participating states, it was said that this would be decided by the US immigration officer on a case-by-case basis.

[…]

“If necessary, the visa waiver program must be terminated by Europe as well. Millions of innocent Europeans are listed in police databases and could be exposed to completely disproportionate reactions in the USA.

“The US lacks adequate data and fundamental rights protection. Providing personal data to the US exposes our citizens… to the risk of arbitrary detention and false suspicion, with possible dire consequences, in the course of the US ‘war on terror’. We must protect our citizens from these practices,” Breyer said.

Source: UK signs US border deal to share police biometric database • The Register

In yet another example of T-Mobile being The Worst with its customer’s data, the company announced a new money-making scheme this week: selling its customers’ app download data and web browsing history to advertisers.

The package of data is part of the company’s new “App Insights” adtech product that was in beta for the last year but formally rolled out this week. According to AdExchanger, which first reported news of the announcement from the Cannes Festival, the new product will let marketers track and target T-Mobile customers based on the apps they’ve downloaded and their “engagement patterns”—meaning when or how

These same “patterns” also include the types of domains a person visits in their mobile web browser. All of this data gets bundled up into what the company calls “personas,” which let marketers microtarget someone by their phone habits. One example that T-Mobile’s head of ad products, Jess Zhu, told AdExchanger was that a person with a human resources app on their phone who also tends to visit, say, Expedia’s website, might be grouped as a “business traveler.” The company noted that there’s no personas built on “gender or cultural identity”—so a person who visits a lot of, say, Christian websites and has a Bible app or two installed won’t be profiled based on that.

“App Insights transforms this data into actionable insights. Marketers can see app usage, growth, and retention and compare activity between brands and product categories,” a T-Mobile statement read.

T-Mobile (and Sprint, by association) certainly aren’t the only carriers pawning off this data; as Ars Technica first noted last year, Verizon overrode customer’s privacy preferences to sell off their browsing and app-usage data. And while AT&T had initially planned to sell access to similar data nearly a decade ago, the company currently claims that it exclusively uses “non-sensitive information” like your age range and zip code to serve up targeted ads.

But T-Mobile also won’t stop marketers from taking things into their own hands. One ad agency exec that spoke with AdExchanger said that one of the “most exciting” things about this new ad product is the ability to microtarget members of the LGBTQ community. Sure, that’s not one of the prebuilt personas offered in the App Insights product, “but a marketer could target phones with Grindr installed, for example, or use those audiences for analytics,” the original interview notes.

[…]

Source: T-Mobile Is Hawking Your App and Web History to Advertisers

Riot Games will begin background evaluation of recorded in-game voice communications on July 13th in North America, in English. In a brief statement (opens in new tab) Riot said that the purpose of the recording is ultimately to “collect clear evidence that could verify any violations of behavioral policies.”

For now, however, recordings will be used to develop the evaluation system that may eventually be implemented. That means training some kind of language model using the recordings, says Riot, to “get the tech in a good enough place for a beta launch later this year.”

Riot also makes clear that voice evaluation from this test will not be used for reports. “We know that before we can even think of expanding this tool, we’ll have to be confident it’s effective, and if mistakes happen, we have systems in place to make sure we can correct any false positives (or negatives for that matter),” said Riot.

Source: Valorant will start listening to your voice chat in July | PC Gamer

Oh, not used for reports. That’s ok then. No problem invading your privacy there then.

Numerous companies, including Facebook, Marketo, Olytics, and HubSpot, utilize custom URL query parameters to track clicks on links.

For example, Facebook appends a fbclid query parameter to outbound links to track clicks, with an example of one of these URLs shown below.

https://www.example.com/?fbclid=IwAR4HesRZLT-fxhhh3nZ7WKsOpaiFzsg4nH0K4WLRHw1h467GdRjaLilWbLs

With the release of Firefox 102, Mozilla has added the new ‘Query Parameter Stripping’ feature that automatically strips various query parameters used for tracking from URLs when you open them, whether that be by clicking on a link or simply pasting the URL into the address bar.

Once enabled, Mozilla Firefox will now strip the following tracking parameters from URLs when you click on links or paste an URL into the address bar:

• Olytics: oly_enc_id=, oly_anon_id=
• Drip: __s=
• Vero: vero_id=
• HubSpot: _hsenc=
• Marketo: mkt_tok=
• Facebook: fbclid=, mc_eid=

[…]

To enable Query Parameter Stripping, go into the Firefox Settings, click on Privacy & Security, and then change ‘Enhanced Tracking Protection’ to ‘Strict.’

However, these tracking parameters will not be stripped in Private Mode even with Strict mode enabled.

To also enable the feature in Private Mode, enter about:config in the address bar, search for strip, and set the ‘privacy.query_stripping.enabled.pbmode‘ option to true, as shown below.

It should be noted that setting Enhanced Tracking Protection to Strict could cause issues when using particular sites.

If you enable this feature and find that sites are not working correctly, just set it back to Standard (disables this feature) or the Custom setting, which will require some tweaking.

Source: New Firefox privacy feature strips URLs of tracking parameters

[…]

EU privacy group NOYB (None of your business), set up by privacy warrior Max “Angry Austrian” Schrems, said on Tuesday it appealed a decision of the Spanish Data Protection Authority (AEPD) to support Virgin Telco’s refusal to provide the location data it has stored about a customer.

In Spain, according to NOYB, the government still requires telcos to record the metadata of phone calls, text messages, and cell tower connections, despite Court of Justice (CJEU) decisions that prohibit data retention.

A Spanish customer demanded that Virgin reveal his personal data, as allowed under the GDPR. Article 15 of the GDPR guarantees individuals the right to obtain their personal data from companies that process and store it.

[…]

Virgin, however, refused to provide the customer’s location data when a complaint was filed in December 2021, arguing that only law enforcement authorities may demand that information. And the AEPD sided with the company.

NOYB says that Virgin Telco failed to explain why Article 15 should not apply since the law contains no such limitation.

“The fundamental right to access is comprehensive and clear: users are entitled to know what data a company collects and processes about them – including location data,” argued Felix Mikolasch, a data protection attorney at NOYB, in a statement. “This is independent from the right of authorities to access such data. In this case, there is no relevant exception from the right to access.”

[…]

The group said it filed a similar appeal last November in Austria, where that country’s data protection authority similarly supported Austrian mobile provider A1’s refusal to turn over customer location data. In that case, A1’s argument was that location data should not be considered personal data because someone else could have used the subscriber phone that generated it.

[…]

Location data is potentially worth billions. According to Fortune Business Insights, the location analytics market is expected to bring in $15.76 billion in 2022 and $43.97 billion by 2029.

Outside the EU, the problem is the availability of location data, rather than lack of access. In the US, where there’s no federal data protection framework, the government is a major buyer of location data – it’s more convenient than getting a warrant.

And companies that can obtain location data, often through mobile app SDKs, appear keen to monetize it.

In 2020, the FCC fined the four largest wireless carriers in the US for failing to protect customer location data in accordance with a 2018 commitment to do so.

Source: Spain, Austria not convinced location data is personal • The Register

Facebook is collecting ultra-sensitive personal data about abortion seekers and enabling anti-abortion organizations to use that data as a tool to target and influence people online, in violation of its own policies and promises.

In the wake of a leaked Supreme Court opinion signaling the likely end of nationwide abortion protections, privacy experts are sounding alarms about all the ways people’s data trails could be used against them if some states criminalize abortion.

A joint investigation by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting and The Markup found that the world’s largest social media platform is already collecting data about people who visit the websites of hundreds of crisis pregnancy centers, which are quasi-health clinics, mostly run by religiously aligned organizations whose mission is to persuade people to choose an option other than abortion.

[…]

Reveal and The Markup have found Facebook’s code on the websites of hundreds of anti-abortion clinics. Using Blacklight, a Markup tool that detects cookies, keyloggers and other types of user-tracking technology on websites, Reveal analyzed the sites of nearly 2,500 crisis pregnancy centers – with data provided by the University of Georgia – and found that at least 294 shared visitor information with Facebook. In many cases, the information was extremely sensitive – for example, whether a person was considering abortion or looking to get a pregnancy test or emergency contraceptives.

[…]

Source: Facebook and Anti-Abortion Clinics Are Collecting Highly Sensitive Info on Would-Be Patients – Reveal

A large Covid-19 testing provider is being investigated by the UK’s data privacy watchdog over its plans to sell swabs containing customers’ DNA for medical research.

Cignpost Diagnostics, a government-approved supplier trading as ExpressTest, said it intended to analyse the samples to “learn more about human health”, to develop drugs and products or to sell information to third parties, company documents show.

[…]

Source: Testing firm can profit from sale of Covid swabs | News | The Sunday Times

Amazon is installing AI-powered cameras in delivery vans to keep tabs on its drivers in the UK.

The technology was first deployed, with numerous errors that reportedly denied drivers’ bonuses after malfunctions, in the US. Last year, the internet giant produced a corporate video detailing how the cameras monitor drivers’ driving behavior for safety reasons. The same system is now being rolled out to vehicles in the UK.

Multiple cameras are placed under the front mirror. One is directed at the person behind the wheel, one faces the road, and two are located on either side to provide a wider view. The cameras do not record constant video, and are monitored by software built by Netradyne, a computer-vision startup focused on driver safety. This code uses machine-learning algorithms to figure out what’s going on in and around the vehicle. Delivery drivers can also activate the cameras to record footage if they want to, such as if someone’s trying to rob them or run them off the road. There is no microphone, for what it’s worth.

Audio alerts are triggered by some behaviors, such as if a driver fails to brake at a stop sign or is driving too fast. Other actions are silently logged, such as if the driver doesn’t wear a seat-belt or if a camera’s view is blocked. Amazon, reportedly in the US at least, records workers and calculates from their activities a score that affects their pay; drivers have previously complained of having bonuses unfairly deducted for behavior the computer system wrongly classified as reckless.

[…]

Source: Now Amazon to put ‘creepy’ AI cameras in UK delivery vans • The Register

Twitter has agreed to pay a $150 million fine after federal law enforcement officials accused the social media company of illegally using peoples’ personal data over six years to help sell targeted advertisements.

In court documents made public on Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice say Twitter violated a 2011 agreement with regulators in which the company vowed to not use information gathered for security purposes, like users’ phone numbers and email addresses, to help advertisers target people with ads.

Federal investigators say Twitter broke that promise.

“As the complaint notes, Twitter obtained data from users on the pretext of harnessing it for security purposes but then ended up also using the data to target users with ads,” said FTC Chair Lina Khan.

Twitter requires users to provide a telephone number and email address to authenticate accounts. That information also helps people reset their passwords and unlock their accounts when the company blocks logging in due to suspicious activity.

But until at least September 2019, Twitter was also using that information to boost its advertising business by allowing advertisers access to users’ phone numbers and email addresses. That ran afoul of the agreement the company had with regulators.

[…]

Source: Twitter will pay a $150 million fine over accusations it improperly sold user data : NPR

The United Kingdom has had it with creepy facial recognition firm Clearview AI. Under a new enforcement rule from the U.K.’s Information Commissioner’s office, Clearview must cease the collection and use of publicly available U.K. data and delete all data of U.K. residents from their database. The order, which will also require the company to pay a £7,552,800 ($9,507,276) fine, effectively calls on Clearview to purge U.K. residents from its massive face database reportedly consisting of over 20 billion images scrapped from publicly available social media sites.

The ICO ruling which determined Clearview violated U.K. privacy laws, comes on the heels of a multi-year joint investigation with the Australian Information Commissioner. According to the ICO ruling, Clearview failed to use U.K. resident data in a way that was fair and transparent and failed to provide a lawful reason for collecting the data in the first place. Clearview also failed, the ICO notes, to put in place measures to stop U.K resident data from having their data collected indefinitely and supposedly didn’t meet higher data protection standards outlined in the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.

[…]

Source: Clearview AI Ordered to Purge U.K. Face Scans, Pay Fine