Tag: amazon

The next great platform shift is underway, and that could be really bad for privacy

The first computing era was based on the keyboard. Mainframes, minicomputers, personal computers – they were all controlled using fingers typing out commands. Later on, the graphical front end of the Macintosh and Windows allowed people to point and click, but the keyboard was still there for text to be entered at some point. The … Continue reading “The next great platform shift is underway, and that could be really bad for privacy”

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  • Jul 20, 2019 |
  • Glyn Moody |
  • Cybersecurity, General Privacy News, Governments, Surveillance,

Amazon’s collaborations with local police turn its Ring doorbell cameras into unofficial community surveillance systems

Amazon was founded almost exactly 25 years ago. Initially it sold books, and people saw it as an interesting early example of e-commerce, but probably assumed that it would remain a fairly small player in a relatively unexciting market. Nothing could be further from the truth. Amazon soon started selling goods in other sectors, and … Continue reading “Amazon’s collaborations with local police turn its Ring doorbell cameras into unofficial community surveillance systems”

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  • Dec 22, 2018 |
  • Glyn Moody |
  • General Privacy News, Governments, Surveillance,

As facial recognition systems continue to spread, so do concerns about their deployment

Facial recognition is hardly new – Privacy News Online has been writing about the topic for years now. But it is becoming more and more the norm, as some recent news shows. For example, the following story from Rolling Stone: Taylor Swift fans mesmerized by rehearsal clips on a kiosk at her May 18th Rose … Continue reading “As facial recognition systems continue to spread, so do concerns about their deployment”

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  • Nov 26, 2018 |
  • Jayson Q. |
  • General Privacy News, Guides,

How to remove your voice search history from Amazon, Google or Siri

Many people report strange targeted adverts showing up after a specific conversation with someone. The general consensus is that our mobile devices and smart tech is monitoring us, which is possible as everything seems to contain a microphone now… even television remotes. Often these microphones are constantly listening for a certain keyword; “Okay Google”, “Hey … Continue reading “How to remove your voice search history from Amazon, Google or Siri”

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  • Nov 21, 2018 |
  • Derek Zimmer |
  • Cybersecurity, General Privacy News, Surveillance,

The Internet of Things is Surveillance

The IOT is back in the news again this week. A judge has ordered Amazon to turn over audio data from an Alexa device related to a murder investigation. There’s a few interesting things raised by this warrant. The investigators believe that Alexa may have captured audio of the attack itself and uploaded it to … Continue reading “The Internet of Things is Surveillance”

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  • Oct 13, 2018 |
  • Glyn Moody |
  • Cybersecurity, General Privacy News, Surveillance,

Amazon hopes to blanket your home and car with listening, eavesdropping Alexa devices

Last year, Privacy News Online noted that there was a new frontier for digital privacy: home devices that understand spoken commands. Recent research from Canalys confirms that the market continues to grow strongly, admittedly from a small base: The worldwide smart speaker market grew 187% in Q2 2018, with shipments reaching 16.8 million units. Google … Continue reading “Amazon hopes to blanket your home and car with listening, eavesdropping Alexa devices”

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  • Aug 11, 2018 |
  • Glyn Moody |
  • General Privacy News, Governments,

US politicians discover personally the pitfalls of facial recognition: is it time to ban it completely?

For all the theoretical concerns about the limitations of facial recognition systems, there’s nothing like personal experience to hammer the point home. That was confirmed recently when the ACLU ran an interesting experiment using Amazon’s cloud-based Rekognition system, which Privacy News Online discussed a couple of months back: Using Rekognition, we built a face database … Continue reading “US politicians discover personally the pitfalls of facial recognition: is it time to ban it completely?”

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  • Jul 21, 2018 |
  • Glyn Moody |
  • General Privacy News, Governments, Surveillance,

Should Facial Recognition Technologies Be Regulated by the Government? Microsoft Says ‘Yes’

Facial recognition technology represents one of the most serious threats to privacy. That’s for two principal reasons. Perhaps the most important is that it is almost impossible to change our faces: serious plastic surgery apart, there are few effective techniques to disguise our bodily appearance. Masks may hide our features, but are too cumbersome – … Continue reading “Should Facial Recognition Technologies Be Regulated by the Government? Microsoft Says ‘Yes’”

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  • Jul 6, 2018 |
  • Glyn Moody |
  • General Privacy News, Governments,

The Next Frontier in Threats to your Privacy: Voice Recognition

Privacy News Online has been tracking the increasing use of facial recognition technologies for some time. Concerns about their wider deployment are growing. But the surveillance world does not stand still. While people focus their attention on facial recognition, a new form of tracking is being rolled out: voice recognition – detecting who is speaking, … Continue reading “The Next Frontier in Threats to your Privacy: Voice Recognition”

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  • May 28, 2018 |
  • Glyn Moody |
  • Cybersecurity, General Privacy News, Governments, Surveillance,

In China’s footsteps: Amazon and US schools normalize automatic facial recognition and constant surveillance

Amazon has developed a powerful cloud-based facial recognition system called “Rekognition”, which has major implications for privacy. It is already being used by multiple US police forces to carry out surveillance and make arrests, the ACLU has learned. Amazon claims that Rekognition offers real-time face matching across tens of millions of individuals held in a … Continue reading “In China’s footsteps: Amazon and US schools normalize automatic facial recognition and constant surveillance”

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