Contractors working for Microsoft have listened to audio of Xbox users speaking in their homes in order to improve the console’s voice command features, Motherboard has learned. The audio was supposed to be captured following a voice command like “Xbox” or “Hey Cortana,” but contractors said that recordings were sometimes triggered and recorded by mistake. Read more about Microsoft Contractors Listened to Xbox Owners (mainly kids) in Their Homes – since 2013[…]

On Wednesday, Google, Apple, and Mozilla said their web browsers will block the Kazakhstan root Certificate Authority (CA) certificate – following reports that ISPs in the country have required customers to install a government-issued certificate that enables online spying. According to the University of Michigan’s Censored Planet project, the country’s snoops “recently began using a Read more about Google, Apple, Mozilla end Kazakhstan internet by blocking root CA[…]

Facial recognition is being extensively deployed on privately owned sites across the UK, according to an investigation by civil liberties group Big Brother Watch. It found an “epidemic” of the controversial technology across major property developers, shopping centres, museums, conference centres and casinos in the UK. The investigation uncovered live facial recognition in Sheffield’s major Read more about facial recognition ‘epidemic’ across UK private sites in conjunction with the police[…]

Facebook outsourced contractors to listen in on your audio messenger chats and transcribe them, a new report reveals. Bloomberg reports that the contractors were not told why they were listening in or why they were transcribing them. Facebook confirmed the reports but said they are no longer transcribing audio. “Much like Apple and Google, we Read more about Also Facebook Admits Yes, It Was Listening To Your Private Conversations via Messenger[…]

In a presentation at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas James Pavur, a PhD student at Oxford University who usually specialises in satellite hacking, explained how he was able to game the GDPR system to get all kinds of useful information on his fiancée, including credit card and social security numbers, passwords, and Read more about Talk about unintended consequences: GDPR is an identity thief’s dream ticket to Europeans’ data[…]

Simple Opt Out is drawing attention to opt-out data sharing and marketing practices that many people aren’t aware of (and most people don’t want), then making it easier to opt out. For example: Target “may share your personal information with other companies which are not part of Target.” Chase may share your “account balances and Read more about Deep links to opt-out of data sharing by 60+ companies – Simple Opt Out[…]

If you use Skype’s AI-powered real-time translator, brief recordings of your calls may be passed to human contractors, who are expected to listen in and correct the software’s translations to improve it. That means 10-second or so snippets of your sweet nothings, mundane details of life, personal information, family arguments, and other stuff discussed on Read more about Skype, Cortana also have humans listening to you. The fine print says it listens to your audio recordings to improve its AI, but it means humans are listening.[…]

The cards that are used to connect families in provinces in the Benelux as well as the family trees are published online are hugely anonymous, which means it’s nearly impossible to connect the dots as you don’t know when someone was born. Pictures and documents are being removed willy nilly from archives, in contravention of Read more about Genealogists running into AVG[…]

according to a new report, Ring is also instructing cops on how to persuade customers to hang over surveillance footage even when they aren’t responsive to police requests. According to a police memo obtained by Gizmodo and reported last week, Ring has partnerships with “over 225 law enforcement agencies,” Ring is actively involved in scripting Read more about Amazon’s Ring Is Teaching Cops How to Persuade Customers to Hand Over Surveillance Footage[…]

Authorities in the United Kingdom have made unauthorized copies of data stored inside a EU database for tracking undocumented migrants, missing people, stolen cars, or suspected criminals. Named the Schengen Information System (SIS), this is a EU-run database that stores information such as names, personal details, photographs, fingerprints, and arrest warrants for 500,000 non-EU citizens Read more about UK made illegal copies and mismanaged Schengen travelers database, gave it away to unauthorised 3rd parties, both business and countries[…]

Organisations that deploy Facebook’s ubiquitous “Like” button on their websites risk falling foul of the General Data Protection Regulation following a landmark ruling by the European Court of Justice. The EU’s highest court has decided that website owners can be held liable for data collection when using the so-called “social sharing” widgets. The ruling (PDF) Read more about It’s official: Deploying Facebook’s ‘Like’ button on your website makes you a joint data slurper, puts you in GDPR danger[…]

Basically they don’t like data being shared with third parties doing predictive profiling with the data and they don’t like all the telemetry being sent everywhere, nor do they like MS being able to view and running through content such as text, pictures and videos. Source: Ministerie van justitie: Stop met gebruik Office 365 – Read more about Dutch ministry of Justice recommends to Dutch gov to stop using office 365 and windows 10[…]

First Amazon, then Google, and now Apple have all confirmed that their devices are not only listening to you, but complete strangers may be reviewing the recordings. Thanks to Siri, Apple contractors routinely catch intimate snippets of users’ private lives like drug deals, doctor’s visits, and sexual escapades as part of their quality control duties, Read more about Apple Contractors Reportedly Overhear Sensitive Information and Sexy Times Thanks to Siri[…]

A report (PDF), released today by Big Brother Watch and eight other civil rights groups, has argued that complainants are being subjected to “suspicion-less, far-reaching digital interrogations when they report crimes to police”. It added: “Our research shows that these digital interrogations have been used almost exclusively for complainants of rape and serious sexual offences Read more about UK cops want years of data from victims phones for no real reason, but it is being misused[…]

Researchers at Imperial College London published a paper in Nature Communications on Tuesday that explored how inadequate current techniques to anonymize datasets are. Before a company shares a dataset, they will remove identifying information such as names and email addresses, but the researchers were able to game this system. Using a machine learning model and Read more about Researchers Reveal That Anonymized Data Is Easy To Reverse Engineer[…]

Being able to access porn on the internet might be convenient, but according to researchers it’s not without its security risks. And they’re not just talking about viruses. Researchers at Microsoft, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pennsylvania analyzed 22,484 porn sites and found that 93% leak user data to a third party. Normally, Read more about Google and Facebook might be tracking your porn history, researchers warn[…]

Android app developers intentionally delayed updating their applications to work on top of Android 6.0, so they could continue to have access to an older permission-requesting mechanism that granted them easy access to large quantities of user data, research published by the University of Maryland last month has revealed. The central focus of this research Read more about Permission-greedy apps delayed Android 6 upgrade so they could harvest more user data[…]

Schools in the central German state of Hesse have been have been told it’s now illegal to use Microsoft Office 365. The state’s data-protection commissioner has ruled that using the popular cloud platform’s standard configuration exposes personal information about students and teachers “to possible access by US officials”. That might sound like just another instance Read more about Microsoft Office 365: Banned in German schools over privacy fears[…]

Through a public record request, Motherboard has obtained a user manual that gives unprecedented insight into Palantir Gotham (Palantir’s other services, Palantir Foundry, is an enterprise data platform), which is used by law enforcement agencies like the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center. The NCRIC serves around 300 communities in northern California and is what is Read more about Palantir’s Top-Secret User Manual for Cops shows how easily they can find scary amounts of information on you and your friends[…]

Google admitted on Thursday that more than 1,000 sound recordings of customer conversations with the Google Assistant were leaked by some of its partners to a Belgian news site. […] “We just learned that one of these language reviewers has violated our data security policies by leaking confidential Dutch audio data,” Google product manager of Read more about Google admits leaked private voice conversations, decides to clamp down on whistleblowers, not improve privacy[…]

Not only is your Google Home device listening to you, a new report suggests there might be a Google contractor who’s listening as well. Even if you didn’t ask your device any questions, it’s still sending what you say to the company, who allow an actual person to collect data from it. […] VRT, with Read more about Google contractors are secretly listening to your Assistant and Home recordings[…]

An industry group of internet service providers has branded Firefox browser maker Mozilla an “internet villain” for supporting a DNS security standard. The U.K.’s Internet Services Providers’ Association (ISPA), the trade group for U.K. internet service providers, nominated the browser maker for its proposed effort to roll out the security feature, which they say will Read more about Internet group brands Mozilla ‘internet villain’ for supporting DNS privacy feature which may also allow users access to porn in the UK, make it hard for the great filter there to see where everyone is surfing[…]