Category: Privacy

Facebook reportedly invites federal oversight of its privacy practices

[ad_1] As part of this tradeoff, Facebook may face a multi-billion dollar fine from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Sources told The Washington Post that Facebook would also have to more rigorously review new products and services, document its decisions and efforts to avoid privacy pitfalls and take a more active role in policing third-party […]

Warrantless searches of Americans’ data spiked 28 percent in 2018

[ad_1] While Americans are typically protected from unwarranted searches by the Fourth Amendment, some of their data gets caught when NSA collects intelligence on foreigners living overseas. This year’s report also reveals that the NSA monitored the communication of an estimated 164,770 foreign individuals or groups in 2018, compared to 129,080 in 2017. As TechCrunch […]

border agents regularly perform ‘warrantless’ device searches

[ad_1] Agency policies let officers search devices for generic law enforcement purposes like investigating bankruptcies and consumer portection laws, the ACLU said. Officers can also search devices to collect data about someone else, such as a friend that might be an illegal immigrant or the foreign sources for a journalist. CBP and ICE can also […]

Exposed database holds sensitive data on over 80 million US households

[ad_1] There are only a few clues as to what the data is for. Everyone in the database is over 40, and the presences of “member_code” and “score” in each entry suggests this is for a service. The emphasis on household info and residences suggests that the database might belong to a home-oriented company. It’s […]

United covers over the cameras on its in-flight entertainment systems

[ad_1] Just because airlines don’t want passengers video chatting from phones while they’re in the air doesn’t mean there was never a thought of selling it as a service, and as a result some airplanes have seat-back entertainment systems with a camera embedded. However, even if they’re not plugged into a service, privacy-conscious fliers have […]

Tobii uses eye tracking to keep people from peeking at your screen

[ad_1] Some additions are focused solely on making your life easier. The eye tracking can send your mouse cursor or whole windows to different monitors. It’ll also provide data on your screen time, your distance from the screen and the last time you took a break. You’ll know when it’s time to give your eyes […]

New York AG is investigating Facebook over email contact scraping

[ad_1] Facebook claims 1.5M contact databases were harvested by its email verification process, but the total number of people whose information was improperly obtained may be hundreds of millions. It’s time Facebook be held accountable for how it handles consumers’ personal info. — NY AG James (@NewYorkStateAG) April 25, 2019 Facebook said the data collection […]

Amazon Alexa auditors could reportedly access user locations

[ad_1] There’s no indication any workers have tried to look up a customer’s home (say, on Google Street View) using the data from these tools. However, the fact they were able to access more information than they perhaps need to might be cause for concern, particularly as smart speakers become more prevalent. In fact, analysts […]

France launches government chat app after fixing last-minute flaw

[ad_1] Security researcher “Elliot Alderson” (aka Baptiste Robert) discovered that Tchap’s email address check wasn’t as stringent as it should be. He succeeded in signing up simply by attaching an @elysee.fr (the presidential palace) address to the end of the email address he intended to use — it sent the validation email to his actual […]

Austria draft law would require real names for internet comments

[ad_1] It would only affect sites with more than 100,000 registered users, bring in revenues above €500,000 per year or receive press subsidies larger than €50,000. There would also be exemptions for e-commerce sites as well as those that don’t earn money from either ads or the content itself. If passed and cleared by the […]