Egocentric cameras are being worn by an increasing number of users, among them many security forces worldwide. GoPro cameras already penetrated the mass market, and Google Glass may follow soon. As head-worn cameras do not capture the face and body of the wearer, it may seem that the anonymity of the wearer can be preserved even when the video is publicly distributed.We show that motion features in egocentric video provide biometric information, and the identity of the user can be determined quite reliably from a few seconds of video. Biometrics are extracted by training Convolutional Neural Network CNN architectures on coarse optical flow.Egocentric video biometrics can prevent theft of wearable cameras by locking the camera when worn by people other than the owner. In video sharing services, this Biometric measure can help to locate automatically all videos shot by the same user. An important message in this paper is that people should be aware that sharing egocentric video will compromise their anonymity.

via [1411.7591] Egocentric Video Biometrics.

The European Parliament has reached a deal with national ministers to introduce a mandatory “eCall” system for all new cars from April 2018.

However, although the system would automatically call the 112 emergency number in the event of a crash, euro lawmakers say that cars will not be continuously tracked.

“It will be illegal to use eCall to track a driver’s movements or to misuse location data, which must be sent only to the emergency services,” said Olga Sehnalova, the Czech politician who helped broker the deal.

The proposed rules would also follow the principle of data-minimisation, with only basic details such as the class of vehicle, the type of fuel used, the time of the accident, and the exact location given to the emergency services.

Nor is any of the data gathered allowed to be passed on to third parties without the explicit consent of the person involved.

via EU law bods: New eCall crash system WON'T TRACK YOU. Really • The Register.

I’m very curious how the system knows you’re in a crash…

This site is a huge country and brand directory listing of surveillance cameras that are online and still have the default password or no protection set. It’s bizarre to see how many of them there are.

View net surveillance online cameras.

The addresses and domains you email to, your search terms, how often you use your Mac.

And this with a few hours of poking.

Apple keeps saying it’s leaving users alone, but really?
fix-macosx/yosemite-phone-home · GitHub.

The Dutch province Utrecht has signed a deal with City Wireless that allows people free wireless. They can log in with their Facebook profile, which is then harvested for information for marketing purposes. City Wireless has since changed its’ homepage, removing the grizly details, but the Dutch paper still has the screencaps.

Article in Dutch.
Gemeente Utrecht koopt Facebookprofielen burgers – Webwereld.

Thought about privacy? Hell no!

A recent AP survey of 10 leading voice biometric vendors found that more than 65 million people worldwide have had their voiceprints taken, and that several banks, including Barclays PLC in Britain and Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp, are in the process of introducing their customers to the technology.

via Banks harvest callers' voiceprints to fight fraud.

Because keeping people’s details without their knowledge or consent is fine, right? Not.