UK Government Is Engaged in Large-Scale Surveillance of Social Media
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…
Surveillance
Meta’s Lawsuit Against NSO Goes Forward – The Fight Against NSO Spyware Gains Strength
The murky world of government spyware has never been the same after the Pegasus Project leaked in July 2021 a list of over 50,000 phone numbers believed to be people…
Meta’s Tracking Woes Confirmed As It Intensifies Its Battle For Control Of The EU’s GDPR
In December 2022, we discussed the leak of an important ruling by EU privacy regulators regarding Meta's micro-targeted advertising, a system entirely based on constant online surveillance. The two parts…
Biometric Data Is a Disaster For Your Privacy – And It May Already Be Used Against You
We've written many times on the PIA blog about the increasing use of biometric systems as a way of establishing identity and controlling access. Biometrics being used in this way…
Will GDPR’s Win Against Facebook Change Advertising?
We've just written about the mounting problems for Facebook and its parent company Meta. And to that list of issues can be added another one, potentially the biggest so far,…
The End of Facebook’s Dominance on Social Media? Who Will Seize The Crown, And What Does It Mean For Privacy?
Facebook has been part of our lives for so long it's easy to forget that there were hugely popular online services and sites before it. Remember AOL, MySpace, CompuServe, or…
Is Elon Begging Us to Look for Twitter Alternatives? The Silver Lining of Twitter’s Deepening Woes
Whether or not you use the service, most of you are probably aware by now that Twitter is going through a tumultuous period following its purchase by Elon Musk. An…
Should We Be Worried About Doorstep Surveillance – How Surveillance Is Changing Us & Society
Surveillance used to be something that spies did to a few high-value targets using absurdly expensive pieces of specialized equipment. The arrival of the Internet as a mass medium changed…
Politicians Still Underestimate Smart Cars’ Threat to Privacy
It was three years ago that we blog wrote about the privacy problems raised by "smartphones on wheels" – the fact that today's vehicles contain powerful computer systems and a…
Real-Time Bidding is Bad for Privacy and Promotes Disinformation
The PIA blog spends a lot of time discussing advertising, which might seem strange. But the sad fact is that today's online advertising model represents the most serious continuing assault…