In June, Apple unveiled plans for an iOS 14 privacy update that forces developers to gather users’ consent before tracking their activities across third-party apps and websites. Needless to say, giving users more control over how their information is gathered and trafficked is expected to bruise advertisers—especially Facebook, which uses that information to narrow its Read more about After Facebook Balks, Apple Delays “Privacy” (ie only Apple spies on you) Feature[…]

A threat intelligence firm called HYAS, a private company that tries to prevent or investigates hacks against its clients, is buying location data harvested from ordinary apps installed on peoples’ phones around the world, and using it to unmask hackers. The company is a business, not a law enforcement agency, and claims to be able Read more about Private Intel Firm Buys Location Data to Track People to their ‘Doorstep’ sourced from innocuous seeming apps[…]

Google and Apple have updated their COVID-19 contact-tracing tool to make it possible to notify users of potential exposures to the novel coronavirus without an app. The new Exposure Notifications Express spec is baked into iOS 13.7, which emerged this week and will appear in an Android update due later this month. This is not, Read more about COVID-19 tracing without an app? Google and Apple will ram it down your throat[…]

The U.S. government has taken the opportunity during the global pandemic, when people aren’t traveling out of the country much, to roll out a new platform for storing information they believe they are entitled to take from people crossing the border. A new filing reveals how the U.S. Border Patrol will store data from traveler Read more about US Border Patrol Says They Can Create Central Repository Of Traveler Emails, calendar, etc, Keep Them For 75 Years[…]

it was such an unsecured database that the Comparitech researchers, led by Bob Diachenko, discovered on August 1, leaving the personal profile data of nearly 235 million Instagram, TikTok and YouTube users up for grabs. The data was spread across several datasets; the most significant being two coming in at just under 100 million each Read more about 235 Million Instagram, TikTok And YouTube User Profiles Exposed In Massive Data Leak[…]

Babel Street is a shadowy organization that offers a product called Locate X that is reportedly used to gather anonymized location data from a host of popular apps that users have unwittingly installed on their phones. When we say “unwittingly,” we mean that not everyone is aware that random innocuous apps are often bundling and Read more about US Secret Service Bought Access to Bable Street’s Locate X Spy Tool for warrantless surveillance[…]

Toyota already operates a “Mobility Services Platform” that it says helps it to “develop, deploy, and manage the next generation of data-driven mobility services for driver and passenger safety, security, comfort, and convenience”. That data comes from a device called the “Data Communication Module” (DCM) that Toyota fits into many models in Japan, the USA Read more about New Toyotas will upload data to AWS to help create custom insurance premiums based on driver behaviour, send your data to others too[…]

The U.S. Department of Commerce and the European Commission have initiated discussions to evaluate the potential for an enhanced EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework to comply with the July 16 judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union in the Schrems II case. This judgment declared that this framework is no longer a valid Read more about Privacy Shield no longer valid: Joint Press Statement from U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and European Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders[…]

A group of nearly a dozen lawmakers led by member of Congress Anna Eshoo wrote to the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) on Wednesday looking for answers on how and why the organization sells the personal data of residents. The letter comes after Motherboard revealed last year that the DMV was making $50 million Read more about Lawmakers Ask California DMV How It Makes $50 Million a Year Selling Drivers’ Data[…]

The nation’s largest private equity firm is interested in buying your DNA data. The going rate: $261 per person. That appears to be what Blackstone, the $63 billion private equity giant, is willing to pay for genetic data controlled by one of the major companies gathering it from millions of customers. Earlier this week, Blackstone Read more about Private equity wants to own your DNA – Blackstone buys Ancestry at $250,- per person[…]

Your Google Home speaker may have been quietly recording sounds around your house without your permission or authorization, it was revealed this week. The Chocolate Factory admitted it had accidentally turned on a feature that allowed its voice-controlled AI-based assistant to activate and snoop on its surroundings. Normally, the device only starts actively listening in Read more about Whoops, our bad, we just may have ‘accidentally’ left Google Home devices recording your every word, sound, sorry[…]