In a new privacy-related fuckup, Google told users today that it might’ve accidentally imported your personal photos into another Google user’s account. Whoopsie! First flagged by Duo Security CTO Jon Oberheide, Google seems to be emailing users who plugged into the company’s native Takeout app to backup their videos, warning that a bug resulted in Read more about Google’s Takeout App Leaked Videos To Unrelated Users[…]
Dasha Metropolitansky and Kian Attari, two students at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, recently built a tool that combs through vast troves of consumer datasets exposed from breaches for a class paper they’ve yet to publish. “The program takes in a list of personally identifiable information, such as a Read more about Researchers Find ‘Anonymized’ Data Is Even Less Anonymous Than We Thought[…]
There is now a special page in the Firefox browser where users can see what telemetry data Mozilla is collecting from their browser. Accessible by typing about:telemetry in the browser’s URL address bar, this new section is a recent addition to Firefox. The page shows deeply technical information about browser settings, installed add-ons, OS/hardware information, Read more about Firefox now shows what telemetry data it’s collecting about you (if any)[…]
Alias is a teachable “parasite” that gives you more control over your smart assistant’s customization and privacy. Through a simple app, you can train Alias to react to a self-chosen wake-word; once trained, Alias takes control over your home assistant by activating it for you. When you’re not using it, Alias makes sure the assistant Read more about Alias Privacy “Parasite” 2.0 Adds a Layer of Security to Your Home Assistant[…]
When it comes to ways to learn about your DNA, Promethease’s service seemed like one of the safest. They promised anonymity, and to delete your report after 45 days. But now that MyHeritage has bought the company, users are being notified that their DNA data is now on MyHeritage. Wait, what? It turns out that Read more about Don’t use online DNA tests! If You Ever Used Promethease, Your DNA Data Might Be on MyHeritage – and so will your family’s[…]
A very questionable facial recognition tool being offered to law enforcement was recently exposed by Kashmir Hill for the New York Times. Clearview — created by a developer previously best known for an app that let people put Trump’s “hair” on their own photos — is being pitched to law enforcement agencies as a better Read more about Social media scrapers Clearview Lied About Its Crime-Solving Power In Pitches To Law Enforcement Agencies[…]
Clearview AI, the facial recognition company that claims to have amassed a database of more than 3 billion photos scraped from Facebook, YouTube, and millions of other websites, is scrambling to deal with calls for bans from advocacy groups and legal threats. These troubles come after news reports exposed its questionable data practices and misleading Read more about Clearview AI Told Cops To “Run Wild” With Its Creepy Face database, access given away without checks and sold to private firms despite claiming otherwise[…]
At the USENIX Enigma conference on Tuesday, representatives of four browser makers, Brave, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla, gathered to banter about their respective approaches to online privacy, while urging people not to ask for too much of it. Apple, which has advanced browser privacy standards but was recently informed that its tracking defenses can be Read more about Brave, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla gather together to talk web privacy… and why we all shouldn’t get too much of it. Only FF and Brave will give you some.[…]
Ubiquiti Networks is once again under fire for suddenly rewriting its telemetry policy after changing how its UniFi routers collect data without telling anyone. The changes were identified in a new help document published on the US manufacturer’s website. The document differentiates between “personal data”, which includes everything that identifies a specific individual, and “other Read more about Ubiquiti says UniFi routers will beam performance data back to mothership without consent automatically, no opt-out.[…]
In a blog post earlier today, the famously privacy-conscious Mark Zuckerberg announced that—in honor of Data Privacy Day, which is apparently a thing—the official rollout of a long-awaited Off-Facebook Activity tool that allows Facebook users to monitor and manage the connections between Facebook profiles and their off-platform activity. “To help shed more light on these Read more about Facebook Enables Confusing ‘Off-Facebook Activity’ Privacy Tool, which won’t stop any tracking whatsoever[…]
An antivirus program used by hundreds of millions of people around the world is selling highly sensitive web browsing data to many of the world’s biggest companies, a joint investigation by Motherboard and PCMag has found. Our report relies on leaked user data, contracts, and other company documents that show the sale of this data Read more about Leaked AVAST Documents Expose the Secretive Market for Your Web Browsing Data: Google, MS, Pepsi, they all buy it – Really, uninstall it now![…]
An investigation by EFF of the Ring doorbell app for Android found it to be packed with third-party trackers sending out a plethora of customers’ personally identifiable information (PII). Four main analytics and marketing companies were discovered to be receiving information such as the names, private IP addresses, mobile network carriers, persistent identifiers, and sensor Read more about Ring Doorbell App Gives Away your data to 3rd parties, without your knowledge or consent[…]
A lawsuit — seeking class-action status — was filed this week in Illinois against Clearview AI, a New York-based startup that has scraped social media networks for people’s photos and created one of the biggest facial recognition databases in the world. The secretive startup was exposed last week in an explosive New York Times report Read more about Class-action lawsuit filed against creepy Clearview AI startup which scraped everyones social media profiles[…]
The dystopian nightmare begins. Today, London’s Metropolitan Police Service announced it will begin deploying Live Facial Recognition (LFR) tech across the capital in the hopes of locating and arresting wanted peoples. […] The way the system is supposed to work, according to the Metropolitan Police, is the LFR cameras will first be installed in areas Read more about London Police Will Start Using Live Facial Recognition Tech Now, Big Brother becomes a computer watching you[…]
What if a stranger could snap your picture on the sidewalk then use an app to quickly discover your name, address and other details? A startup called Clearview AI has made that possible, and its app is currently being used by hundreds of law enforcement agencies in the US, including the FBI, says a Saturday Read more about Clearview has scraped all social media sites illegally and vs TOS, has all your pictures in a massive database (who knows how secure this is?) and a face recognition AI. Is selling access to it to cops, and who knows who else.[…]
It should come as little surprise that any content you offer to the web for public consumption has the potential to be scraped and misused by anyone clever enough to do it. And while that doesn’t make this weekend’s report from The New York Times any less damning, it’s a great reminder about how important Read more about So Clearview has you, even if it violates TOS. How to stop the next guy from getting you in FB – maybe.[…]
An app that is supposed to be a fun activity for dashcam users to broadcast their camera feeds and drives is actually allowing people to scrape and store the real-time location of drivers across the world. BlackVue is a dashcam company with its own social network. With a small, internet-connected dashcam installed inside their vehicle, Read more about BlackVue dashcam shows anyone everywhere you are in real time and where you have been in the past[…]
A Microsoft programme to transcribe and vet audio from Skype and Cortana, its voice assistant, ran for years with “no security measures”, according to a former contractor who says he reviewed thousands of potentially sensitive recordings on his personal laptop from his home in Beijing over the two years he worked for the company. The Read more about Skype and Cortana audio listened in on by workers in China with ‘no security measures’[…]
A database containing the personal details of 56.25m US residents – from names and home addresses to phone numbers and ages – has been found on the public internet, served from a computer with a Chinese IP address, bizarrely enough. The information silo appears to belong to Florida-based CheckPeople.com, which is a typical people-finder website: Read more about Checkpeople, why is a 22GB database containing 56 million US folks’ aggregated personal details sitting on the open internet using a Chinese IP address?[…]
Michiel Jonker from Arnhem has sued a cinema that has moved location and since then refuses to accept cash at the cash register. All payments have to be made by pin. Jonker feels that this forces visitors to allow the cinema to process personal data. He tried something of the sort in 2018 which was Read more about Lawsuit against cinema for refusing cash – and thus slurping private data[…]
Amazon’s Ring home security camera biz says it has fired multiple employees caught covertly watching video feeds from customer devices. The admission came in a letter [PDF] sent in response to questions raised by US Senators critical of Ring’s privacy practices. Ring recounted how, on four separate occasions, workers were let go for overstepping their Read more about Amazon fired four workers who secretly snooped on Ring doorbell camera footage[…]
The Trump administration’s plan to collect DNA evidence from migrants detained in U.S. Customs and Borders Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities will commence soon in the form of a 90-day pilot program in Detroit and Southwest Texas, CNN reported on Monday. News of the plan first emerged in October, when the Read more about DHS Plan to Collect DNA From Migrant Detainees Will Begin Soon – because centralised databases with personally sensitive data in them are a great idea. Just ask the Jews how useful they were during WWII[…]
Every minute of every day, everywhere on the planet, dozens of companies — largely unregulated, little scrutinized — are logging the movements of tens of millions of people with mobile phones and storing the information in gigantic data files. The Times Privacy Project obtained one such file, by far the largest and most sensitive ever Read more about Twelve Million Phones, One Dataset (no, not your phone companies’), Zero Privacy – The New York Times[…]
Remote access, collaboration and password manager provider LogMeIn has been sold to a private equity outfit for $4.3bn. A consortium led by private equity firm Francisco Partners (along with Evergreen, the PE arm of tech activist investor Elliott Management), will pay $86.05 in cash for each LogMeIn share – a 25 per cent premium on Read more about Private equity buys Lastpass owner LogMeIn – will they start monetising your logins?[…]
Infrared cameras detect people and other objects by the heat they emit. Now, researchers have discovered the uncanny ability of a material to hide a target by masking its telltale heat properties. The effect works for a range of temperatures that one day could include humans and vehicles, presenting a future asset to stealth technologies, Read more about Camouflage made of quantum material could hide you from infrared cameras[…]