Glyn Moody is a freelance journalist who writes and speaks about privacy, surveillance, digital rights, open source, copyright, patents and general policy issues involving digital technology. He started covering the business use of the Internet in 1994, and wrote the first mainstream feature about Linux, which appeared in Wired in August 1997. His book, "Rebel Code," is the first and only detailed history of the rise of open source, while his subsequent work, "The Digital Code of Life," explores bioinformatics - the intersection of computing with genomics.
Automated facial recognition has emerged as one of the most problematic technologies for privacy. That's reflected in the increasing number of posts on this blog dealing with the issues it…
Last month we wrote about France's "hate speech" law, and noted that it followed in the footsteps of the earlier German law known as NetzDG (short for “Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz”, or network…
Back in 2017, this blog noted a new threat to privacy from the increasing use of workplace surveillance. Once people's work is quantified automatically, it can then be used for…
The Privacy Shield framework for transferring personal data across the Atlantic was brought in to deal with a problem created by the EU's GDPR. According to the latter, the personal…
As this blog has noted, for all its faults, the European Union's GDPR represents one of the most important attempts to protect digital privacy. Although it concerns the EU and…
The world's attention is rightly focused on the terrible new National Security Law in Hong Kong. But, as ever, there are bad things happening to human rights elsewhere as well.…
Back in February, this blog was one of the first to warn that the obvious technological response to the coronavirus – the use of contact tracing apps – raised important…
One of the most worrying trends in today's online world is a move by governments against "hate speech". That's a vague term in itself, so policing it is hard. Making…
As this blog has noted, police forces around the world have been pushing for the routine deployment of real-time facial recognition technologies. It's an attractive option for politicians. It offers…
Privacy is one of the key concerns of people using digital technology. Of course, this blog has been warning about threats in this area for years, but it's common now…