Google tracks a lot of what you buy, even if you purchased it elsewhere, like in a store or from Amazon. Last week, CEO Sundar Pichai wrote a New York Times op-ed that said “privacy cannot be a luxury good.” But behind the scenes, Google is still collecting a lot of personal information from the Read more about Google Gmail tracks purchase history through gmail, puts them on https://myaccount.google.com/purchases[…]

When Amazon launched its kid’s version of the Echo Dot smart speaker a year ago, we hoped it would be a technological blessing, rather than a curse. But as further proof that private information is no longer sacred, a complaint filed yesterday with the Federal Trade Commission alleges that the devices are unlawfully storing kids’ Read more about Your Kid’s Echo Dot May Be Storing Data Even After You ‘Delete’ It[…]

Human Rights Watch got their hands on an app used by Chinese authorities in the western Xinjiang region to surveil, track and categorize the entire local population – particularly the 13 million or so Turkic Muslims subject to heightened scrutiny, of which around one million are thought to live in cultural ‘reeducation’ camps. By “reverse engineering” the Read more about China’s Mass Surveillance App Hacked; Code Reveals Specific Criteria For Illegal Oppression of specific minorities[…]

Google I/O Google, the largest handler of web cookies, plans to change the way its Chrome browser deals with the tokens, ostensibly to promote greater privacy, following similar steps taken by rival browser makers Apple, Brave, and Mozilla. At Google I/O 2019 on Tuesday, Google’s web platform director Ben Galbraith announced the plan, which has Read more about Google gives Chrome 3rd party cookie control – which allows it to track you better, but rivals to not be able to do so[…]

The European Parliament has voted by a significant margin to streamline its systems for managing everything from travel to border security by amassing an enormous information database that will include biometric data and facial images—an issue that has raised significant alarm among privacy advocates. This system, called the Common Identity Repository (CIR), streamlines a number Read more about EU Votes to Amass a Giant Centralised Database of Biometric Data with 350m people in it[…]

An Amazon.com Inc. team auditing Alexa users’ commands has access to location data and can, in some cases, easily find a customer’s home address, according to five employees familiar with the program. The team, spread across three continents, transcribes, annotates and analyzes a portion of the voice recordings picked up by Alexa. The program, whose Read more about Is Alexa Listening? Amazon Employees Can Access Home Addresses, telephone numbers, contacts[…]

“Free apps marketed to people with depression or who want to quit smoking are hemorrhaging user data to third parties like Facebook and Google — but often don’t admit it in their privacy policies, a new study reports…” writes The Verge. “You don’t have to be a user of Facebook’s or Google’s services for them Read more about ‘They’re Basically Lying’ – (Mental) Health Apps Caught Secretly Sharing Data[…]

Websites met informatie over gevoelige onderwerpen lappen de privacywet massaal aan hun laars. Dat zegt de Consumentenbond. Veel sites plaatsen zonder toestemming cookies van advertentienetwerken, waardoor die zeer persoonlijke informatie over de bezoekers in handen krijgen. Onderzoekers van de Consumentenbond zochten in maart en april op onderwerpen binnen de categorieën geloof, jeugd, medisch en geaardheid. Read more about Personal information on sites about faith, illness, sexual orientation, addiction, schools in NL is directly passed on to advertisers without GDPR consent.[…]

Smart cities are designed to make life easier for their residents: better traffic management by clearing routes, making sure the public transport is running on time and having cameras keeping a watchful eye from above. But what happens when that data leaks? One such database was open for weeks for anyone to look inside. Security Read more about Security lapse exposed a Chinese smart city surveillance system[…]

On Thursday, at just about the same time as the most highly anticipated government document of the decade was released in Washington D.C., Facebook updated a month-old blog post to note that actually a security incident impacted “millions” of Instagram users and not “tens of thousands” as they said at first. Last month, Facebook announced Read more about Facebook uploaded the contacts of 1.5m people without permission[…]

The Information Commissioner’s Office has fined commercial pregnancy and parenting club Bounty some £400,000 for illegally sharing personal details of more than 14 million people. The organisation, which dishes out advice to expectant and inexperienced parents, has faced criticism over the tactics it uses to sign up new members and was the subject of a Read more about Pregnancy and parenting club Bounty fined £400,000 for shady data sharing practices of more than 14 million people[…]

Sonos stands accused of seeking to obtain “excessive” amounts of personal data without valid consent in a complaint filed with the UK’s data watchdog. The complaint, lodged by tech lawyer George Gardiner in a personal capacity, challenges the Sonos privacy policy’s compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation and the UK’s implementation of that law. Read more about Sonos finally blasted in complaint to UK privacy watchdog – lets hope they do something with it[…]

Seven people, described as having worked in Amazon’s voice review program, told Bloomberg that they sometimes listen to as many as 1,000 recordings per shift, and that the recordings are associated with the customer’s first name, their device’s serial number, and an account number. Among other clips, these employees and contractors said they’ve reviewed recordings Read more about A Team At Amazon Is Listening To Recordings Captured By Alexa[…]

While the ethics around data collection and consumer privacy have been questioned for years, it wasn’t until Facebook’s Cambridge Analytics scandal that people began to realize how frequently their personal data is shared, transferred, and monetized without their permission. Cambridge Analytica was by no means an isolated case. Last summer, an AP investigation found that Read more about Does Google meet its users’ expectations around consumer privacy? This news industry research says no[…]

Of course the US can look in, under CLOUD rules, because Google is an American company. The move of the files has been done without consent from the patients by Medical Research Data Management, a commercial company, because (they say), the hospitals have given permission. Also, hospitals don’t need to ask for patient permission, because Read more about Dutch  medical patient files moved to Google Cloud – MPs want to know if US intelligence agencies can view them[…]

WASHINGTON — The Drug Enforcement Administration secretly collected data in bulk about Americans’ purchases of money-counting machines — and took steps to hide the effort from defendants and courts — before quietly shuttering the program in 2013 amid the uproar over the disclosures by the National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, an inspector general report Read more about D.E.A. Secretly Collected Bulk Records of Money-Counter Purchases[…]

Many other cars download and store data from users, particularly information from paired cellphones, such as contact information. The practice is widespread enough that the US Federal Trade Commission has issued advisories to drivers warning them about pairing devices to rental cars, and urging them to learn how to wipe their cars’ systems clean before Read more about Tesla Model 3 records data unknown to you, sends it to Tesla without your knowledge and keeps a whole load of other data  too.[…]

Researchers in Canada, the U.S., and Australia teamed up for the study, published Wednesday in the BMJ. They tested 24 popular health-related apps used by patients and doctors in those three countries on an Android smartphone (the Google Pixel 1). Among the more popular apps were medical reference site Medscape, symptom-checker Ada, and the drug Read more about Researchers Create Fake Profiles on 24 Health Apps and Learn Most Are Sharing Your Data[…]

About 1,600 people have been secretly filmed in motel rooms in South Korea, with the footage live-streamed online for paying customers to watch, police said Wednesday. Two men have been arrested and another pair investigated in connection with the scandal, which involved 42 rooms in 30 accommodations in 10 cities around the country. Police said Read more about Hundreds of South Korean motel guests were secretly filmed and live-streamed online[…]

This time, the Silicon Valley giant has been caught red-handed using people’s cellphone numbers, provided exclusively for two-factor authentication, for targeted advertising and search – after it previously insinuated it wouldn’t do that. Folks handing over their mobile numbers to protect their accounts from takeovers and hijackings thought the contact detail would be used for Read more about When 2FA means sweet FA privacy: Facebook admits it slurps mobe numbers for more than just profile security[…]

Shazam, the song identification app Apple bought for $400M, recently released an update to its iOS app that got rid of all 3rd party SDKs the app was using except for one. The SDKs that were removed include ad networks, analytics trackers, and even open-source utilities. Why, you ask? Because all of those SDKs leak Read more about Apples’ Shazam for iOS Sheds 3rd Party SDKs. Keeps pumping your data through on Android.[…]

Facebook receives highly personal information from apps that track your health and help you find a new home, testing by The Wall Street Journal found. Facebook can receive this data from certain apps even if the user does not have a Facebook account, according to the Journal. Facebook has already been in hot water concerning Read more about Facebook receives personal health data from apps, even if you don’t have a FB account[…]

A viral photo showing a camera in a Singapore Airlines in-flight TV display recently caused an uproar online. The image was retweeted hundreds of times, with many people expressing concern about the privacy implications. As it turns out, some seat-back screens in American Airlines’ premium economy class have them, too. Sri Ray was aboard an Read more about Some American Airlines In-Flight TVs Have Cameras In Them watching you, just like Singapore Airlines and Google Nest[…]

Given Singapore’s reputation for being an unabashed surveillance state, a passenger on a Singapore Airlines (SIA) flight could be forgiven for being a little paranoid. Vitaly Kamluk, an information security expert and a high-ranking executive of cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab, went on Twitter with concerns about an embedded camera in SIA’s inflight entertainment systems. He Read more about why does Singapore Airlines have an embedded camera looking at you on the inflight entertainment system? Just like the Google Nest spy, they say it’s ummm all ok, nothing to see here.[…]