The names of more than 120 companies secretly served FBI subpoenas for their customers’ personal data were revealed on Friday, including a slew of U.S. banks, cellphone providers, and a leading antivirus software maker. Known as national security letters (NSL), the subpoenas are a tool commonly used by FBI counterterrorism agents when seeking individuals’ communication Read more about FBI Served Valve, Symantec, 120 companies with secret surveillance National Security Letters[…]

Cities in China are under the heaviest CCTV surveillance in the world, according to a new analysis by Comparitech. However, some residents living in cities across the US, UK, UAE, Australia, and India will also find themselves surrounded by a large number of watchful eyes, as our look at the number of public CCTV cameras Read more about The world’s most-surveilled cities – China, US, UK, UAE, Australia and India: you are being spied on![…]

Smart-home devices, such as televisions and streaming boxes, are collecting reams of data — including sensitive information such as device locations — that is then being sent to third parties like advertisers and major tech companies, researchers said Tuesday. As the findings show, even as privacy concerns have become a part of the discussion around Read more about Smart TVs, smart-home devices found to be leaking sensitive user data to all kinds of companies[…]

Spotify knows a lot about its users — their musical tastes, their most listened-to artists and their summer anthems. Spotify will also want to know where you live or to obtain your location data. It’s part of an effort to detect fraud and abuse of its Premium Family program. Premium Family is a $15-a-month plan Read more about Spotify wants to know where you are and will be checking in[…]

Medical images and health data belonging to millions of Americans, including X-rays, MRIs, and CT scans, are sitting unprotected on the Internet and available to anyone with basic computer expertise. The records cover more than 5 million patients in the United States and millions more around the world. In some cases, a snoop could use Read more about Millions of Americans’ medical images and data are available on the Internet[…]

Period tracker apps are sending deeply personal information about women’s health and sexual practices to Facebook, new research has found. UK-based advocacy group Privacy International, sharing its findings exclusively with BuzzFeed News, discovered period-tracking apps including MIA Fem and Maya sent women’s use of contraception, the timings of their monthly periods, symptoms like swelling and Read more about Period Tracker Apps: Maya And MIA Fem Are telling Facebook when you last had sex and more[…]

The UK government is planning to collect “targeted and personalized information,” on anyone who visits the government’s various websites, according to a new report from BuzzFeed News. Politicians in the UK are being told that it’s a “top priority” and that the information is needed to prepare for Brexit, the UK’s departure from the European Read more about UK Government Plans to Collect ‘Targeted and Personalized’ Data on Internet Users to Prepare For Brexit: Report[…]

For years the antisocial media giant has claimed it doesn’t track your location, insisting to suspicious reporters and privacy advocates that its addicts “have full control over their data,” and that it does not gather or sell that data unless those users agree to it. No one believed it. So, when it (and Google) were Read more about Facebook: Remember how we promised we weren’t tracking your location? Psych! Can’t believe you fell for that[…]

If you’re at all concerned about the privacy of your data, you don’t want to leave the default settings in place on your devices—and that includes anything that runs Windows 10. Microsoft’s operating system comes with a variety of controls and options you can modify to lock down the use of your data, from the Read more about The Windows 10 Privacy Settings You Should Check Right Now[…]