How to Unblock Instagram at School
Imagine this: it’s been a long morning at school and you take out your phone to relax. You wait 30 seconds, but your Instagram feed isn’t loading. Your school could…
General Privacy News
The Next Level of Surveillance: Real-Time AI Detection of Emotions in Video Streams
Surveillance once meant large-scale government spying on citizens, mostly to identify criminal activity, such as terrorism. But things have advanced quite a lot now. Surveillance has even moved into the…
How New Copyright Laws Threaten Privacy and Freedom of Speech
There’s a new US bill that everyone in the privacy world should know about — it goes by the name of “Strengthening Measures to Advance Rights Technologies Copyright Act of…
How to File Taxes Online Securely in 2022
Oh no, it’s that time of the year again – tax season. Time to break out the calculator and navigate through complex Internet Revenue Service (IRS) instructions! You might get…
How to Escape The ‘Smartphone Duopoly’ of Apple & Google with Sailfish OS
There’s a shocking lack of diversity in the smartphone market. Either you’re boasting an iPhone in your pocket or you’re carrying around an Android. But Google spies on your stuff,…
Phishing, Smishing & Vishing: What You Need to Know & How to Protect Yourself
My career is about to take off — at least it is if I was to believe the number of companies looking at my LinkedIn profile over the past few…
How a Few Thoughtless Words about Privacy Led to Huge Political and Economic Headaches for the US and EU
One of the most surprising developments in recent years is how privacy - something that by definition is about small, intimate things – has become a major global force in…
Surprisingly, the UK Has a Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner: He’s Rather Good
CCTV surveillance has been covered many times on PIA blog. Most of the stories are depressing tales of increased surveillance and loss of privacy. One of the worst offenders in…
Drawing the Line: Are Smart Cities Compatible with Human Rights and Privacy?
PIA blog followed Google's Sidewalk Labs project in Toronto for some years, until the plan to create a futuristic smart city was dropped in 2020. The principal problem with the…
The Ultimate Privacy Betrayal: Personal DNA Used for Undisclosed Purposes, without Permission
As this blog has reported, one of the biggest threats to privacy is surveillance advertising. It works by tracking everything people do online — which sites they visit, what they…