Spyware is arguably one of the most insidious threats to privacy today. While other forms of privacy invasion – CCTV surveillance or even browser cookies – are more or less…
Digital technology is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it makes vital tools like VPNs possible, providing strong and affordable privacy protection for personal data when in transit across…
At the beginning of February, when the excitement over generative AI systems like ChatGPT was starting to build, I warned on the PIA blog “it seems certain that much of…
Back in February, we noted on PIA blog that the growing excitement about large language models (LLMs), for example in the form of ChatGPT, overlooked the serious privacy dangers they…
One of the most insidious forms of surveillance carried out routinely by web sites and their advertisers involves tracking pixels. These are graphic elements that are just one pixel in…
In November last year, I pointed out that the outages and uncertainty plaguing Twitter under the ownership of Elon Musk had led many people to look at alternatives. One in…
Privacy concerns about the social media platform TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, are not new. We've been reporting on them on the PIA blog for several years. More…
Back in December 2021, we discussed the potential privacy risks of the metaverse on the PIA blog, the current term for what used to be called virtual reality. It might…
It was over five years ago that we first warned about an imminent invasion of “listening, eavesdropping, spying things” in the form of so-called “smart” speakers. The cosy term “smart”…
New US And EU Laws Bring Risks To Privacy The UK civil rights group Big Brother Watch has published a major new document about the UK government's surveillance of social…