ISPs may be forced to block sites which fail to do so, and the fact that many such sites are not based in the UK nor subject to British law shall pose plenty of difficulties for the law’s implementation, as will its provisions forcing ISPs to prohibit access to “non-conventional sex acts”, which has provoked Read more about UK gov forces porn sites to gather personal info and allows gov depts to share citizens data despite being hugely unsafe[…]

But a New York Times profile of Uber this weekend revealed, in passing, that Unroll.me, which is owned by a company called Slice Intelligence, isn’t just in the business of tidying up customers’ inboxes. Slice makes money by scanning its users’ email for receipts, then packaging that information into intel reports on consumer habits. Uber, Read more about How Did Unroll.me Get Users to Allow It to Sell Their Inbox Data?[…]

Google has been ordered by a US court to cough up people’s private Gmail messages stored overseas – because if that information can be viewed stateside, it is subject to American search warrants, apparently. During a hearing on Wednesday in California, magistrate judge Laurel Beeler rejected [PDF] the advertising giant’s objections to a US government Read more about Nuh-uh, Google, you WILL hand over emails stored on foreign servers, says US judge[…]

Now Windows 10 Home and Pro has, right now, two levels of data collection, Basic and Full. When a computer is in Basic mode, Microsoft says Win 10 takes a note of the state of your hardware and its specifications, your internet connection quality, records of crashes and hangs by software, any compatibility problems, driver Read more about What  information Windows 10 Creators Update will slurp from your PC[…]

The US House of Representatives has just approved a “congressional disapproval” vote of privacy rules, which gives your ISP the right to sell your internet history to the highest bidder. The measure passed by 215 votes to 205. This follows the same vote in the Senate last week. Just prior to the vote, a White Read more about Your internet history on sale to highest bidder: US Congress votes to shred ISP privacy rules[…]

The ability for companies to follow you from one platform to another — from your phone to your laptop to a physical store — is called cross-device tracking, and for businesses that want to market and sell stuff to you, it is basically the holy grail. With robust tracking, a company can follow you basically Read more about 5 Things We’ve Learned About How Companies Track You Online And Off[…]

A U.S. judge has ordered Google to comply with search warrants seeking customer emails stored outside the United States, diverging from a federal appeals court that reached the opposite conclusion in a similar case involving Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O). U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Rueter in Philadelphia ruled on Friday that transferring emails from a foreign server Read more about Google, unlike Microsoft, must turn over foreign emails: U.S. judge[…]

California electronics maker Vizio will cough up $2.2m after its smart TVs spied on millions of people. America’s trade watchdog, the FTC, said today the payment will settle a complaint filed by the state of New Jersey accusing Vizio of violating privacy regulations: the biz had collected the viewing habits of 11 million television sets Read more about Vizio coughs up $2.2m after its smart TVs spied on millions of families[…]

Previously, tourists, travelers and visa holders were warned they may have to hand over their online account names and handles so their public profiles can be studied by border agents and immigration officials. Now Kelly wants to take that further, by demanding passwords from some visa applicants so g-men can log into Twitter, Facebook, online Read more about Want to come to the US? Be prepared to hand over your passwords if you’re on Trump’s hit list[…]

Phone numbers, browser histories, and social media posts are all examples of the sort of data that could be mined from those entering the US under Trump’s “extreme vetting” policy, Department of Homeland Security secretary John Kelly said today. As Talking Points Memo reported, Kelly held a press conference this afternoon to discuss the president’s Read more about Trump’s ‘Extreme Vetting’ for US Visitors Could Involve Social Media Posts and Browser Histories[…]

Secret FBI rules allow agents to obtain journalists’ phone records with approval from two internal officials — far less oversight than under normal judicial procedures. The classified rules, obtained by The Intercept and dating from 2013, govern the FBI’s use of national security letters, which allow the bureau to obtain information about journalists’ calls without Read more about Secret Rules Make It Pretty Easy for the FBI to Spy on Journalists[…]

NEW YORK — The U.S. government quietly began requesting that select foreign visitors provide their Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts upon arriving in the country […] Since Tuesday, foreign travelers arriving in the United States on the visa waiver program have been presented with an “optional” request to “enter information associated with your Read more about U.S. government begins asking foreign travelers about social media[…]

Previously, when the NSA passed data it collected through its secretive, advanced, and sometimes illegal methods, an NSA analyst would strip the data that pertained to innocent people, and would only pass on what they deemed necessary. Now, when the NSA shares information with another intelligence agency, it will pass on the raw data, with Read more about Way More People Will Now Have Access to the NSA’s Raw, Unfiltered Data[…]

Microsoft offers two settings – on and almost off – and a dashboard of collected data Source: New Windows 10 privacy controls: Just a little snooping – or the max Incredibly MS just won’t listen and even more incredibly, I’m seeing a lot of windows 10 machines 🙁

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/28/amazon-refuses-to-let-police-access-suspects-echo-recordings Just to remind you, the more smart devices you have, the more they listen to you. It’s just a totalitarian state away from being used against you. 

Now, instead of plugging in an address, you can sync up your contacts and choose a friend’s name. The lucky buddy will receive a request from Uber—via push notification if they’re an Uber user, and via text message if they’re not—to provide their location. If they accept, their location is then transmitted to the driver, Read more about Uber’s Latest Update seeks location and phone info from non Uber-using friends[…]

Privacy Badger is a browser extension that automatically blocks hidden third-party trackers that would otherwise follow you around the web and spy on your browsing habits. Privacy Badger now has approximately 900,000 daily users and counting. Third-party tracking—that is, when advertisers and websites track your browsing activity across the web without your knowledge, control, or Read more about The New and Improved Privacy Badger 2.0 Is Here | Electronic Frontier Foundation[…]

Instantly get a list of all your accounts, matched with direct links to delete them Source: deseat.me

Maps and database of 802.11 wireless networks, with statistics, submitted by wardrivers, netstumblers, and net huggers. Source: WiGLE: Wireless Network Mapping Can be used to find the physical address of someone’s wifi ssid

The app update (it’s 3.222.4, for those keeping track) changes the way Uber collects location data from its users. Previously, Uber only collected location information while a user had the app open – now, Uber asks users to always share their location with the ride-hailing company. Uber says that, even though it can harvest your Read more about Uber begins collection of rider location data – whether using the app or not[…]

While the UK was obsessing with Brexit and its aftermath, parliament quietly passed a contentious snooping law that gives authorities, everyone from police and spies to food regulators, fire officials and tax inspectors, the right to legally look at the internet browsing records of everyone in the country. […] Which government agencies have access to Read more about These Are The 48 Organizations That Now Have Access To Every Brit’s Browsing History[…]