PIA’s NextGen VPN network is a huge deal, update to try it out now
The Private Internet Access Next Generation Network is online and functional, but you need to be using the latest version of the PIA client on your device to take full…
Freedom of expression hangs in the balance at Julian Assange’s extradition hearing
Julian Assange, the editor and founder of WikiLeaks, will be taken into a London courtroom on Monday for a hearing which will determine whether he will be extradited to the…
Privacy News Online | Weekly Review: September 4, 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCVaZVfnkTY Featured: Privacy News Online - Week of September 4th, 2020 Mozilla study reaffirms that internet history can be used for “reidentification” The sites we visit on the internet can…
Federal appeals court finds the NSA’s mass surveillance of American phone records was illegal
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has just ruled that the “NSA’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records was illegal.” For years, the NSA has conducted…
Federal courts rule that reverse location requests by police violate the Fourth Amendment
The Fourth Amendment has been interpreted to mean that law enforcement can’t serve a warrant on tech companies like Google to try and find out what devices were near the…
The privacy perils of using a mesh network – and why we urgently need one that is robust and open source
One of the reasons why protecting privacy is so hard is that our data is vulnerable in so many ways as it flows across the Internet. Threats can come from…
Mozilla study reaffirms that internet history can be used for “reidentification”
A recent research paper has reaffirmed that our internet history can be reliably used to identify us. The research was conducted by Sarah Bird, Ilana Segall, and Martin Lopatka from…
Google is removing Fediverse apps from the Play Store because they can be used to access hate speech
A growing number of mobile apps meant to access the Fediverse are facing removal from the Google Play Store. According to user reports, recently notified or removed apps include Husky,…
Privacy News Online | Weekly Review: August 28, 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5WKVhGBBfg Featured: Privacy News Online - Week of August 28th, 2020 Max Schrems files 101 complaints across 30 European countries to turbocharge GDPR’s impact – and he’s not the…
The head of Denmark’s spy program has been fired for snooping on citizens and lying about it
The government in Denmark has fired 3 top officials from the country’s foreign intelligence agency, the Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste (FE), following revelations from a whistleblower. The officials, including the head of…
As privacy problems continue to pile up for DNA databases, Covid-19 introduces a major new risk
Two years ago, Privacy News Online warned that the growing number of large-scale DNA databases were likely to become a serious threat to people's privacy. Sadly, things have not improved…
Popular torrenting site YTS provides IP address logs to copyright lawyers to extort you with
The second largest torrent site in the world, YTS, is actively working with copyright infringement lawyers to extort cash from torrent downloaders. This isn’t the only historical instance of a…
Experian breach affects over 24 million customers and businesses in South Africa
Consumer credit reporting agency Experian has suffered a data breach at their South African branch. The Experian data breach didn’t expose consumer credit or financial information, but other personal information…
Privacy News Online | Weekly Review: August 21, 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvBaV0mXa8I Featured: Privacy News Online - Week of August 21st, 2020 How the government legally tracks your smartphone use with the Anomaly Six SDK Some of the apps on your…
Unsecured Social Data database leaks 235 million public profiles from TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube
Researchers from Comparitech have discovered yet another unsecured database which has leaked 235 million records to the world. The records include hundreds of millions from Instagram, forty some million from…