biometrics Archives : Page 2 of 4 : PIA VPN Blog

Jun 1, 2021 |
Glyn Moody |
General Privacy News, Governments, Social Media, Surveillance,

Major fightbacks against “cookie banner terror” and facial image scraping launched across Europe by privacy activists

The EU’s main privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is three years old. Access Now has produced what it calls an “implementation report”, which usefully summarizes the GDPR’s achievements and problems. One of the latter is the lack of enforcement by the Irish Data Protection Commission. Another is the continuing use by Web … Continue reading “Major fightbacks against “cookie banner terror” and facial image scraping launched across Europe by privacy activists”

Apr 27, 2021 |
Glyn Moody |
General Privacy News, Governments, Social Media, Surveillance,

EU unveils proposals for wide-ranging AI regulation with a global reach, and facial recognition systems flagged up as “high risk”

The European Commission has unveiled proposals for what it terms “new rules and actions aiming to turn Europe into the global hub for trustworthy Artificial Intelligence”. Evidently hoping that the new regulation will set standards for AI as the GDPR set them for privacy, the Commission says: “With these landmark rules, the EU is spearheading … Continue reading “EU unveils proposals for wide-ranging AI regulation with a global reach, and facial recognition systems flagged up as “high risk””

Dec 3, 2020 |
Caleb Chen |
General Privacy News, Governments, Surveillance,

CBP wants to create a facial recognition database of every non-US citizen traveler to the United States

U.S. Customs Border Protection (CBP) has filed a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that highlights their ongoing plans to create a facial recognition database with mugshots of all non-US citizen travelers. The CBP previously proposed the same facial recognition database in 2019, but wanted to also collect mugshots of US citizens. Understandably, the backlash was … Continue reading “CBP wants to create a facial recognition database of every non-US citizen traveler to the United States”

Dec 1, 2020 |
Glyn Moody |
General Privacy News, Governments, Surveillance,

France rocked again by demonstrations against the new “Global Security Law”, which includes mass surveillance by police drones

For the second time in a week, demonstrations took place across France against a new “Global Security Law”. The proposed legislation would bring in wide-ranging police surveillance in France, but the main concern of demonstrators is Article 24, which is designed to penalize the “malicious” dissemination of images of French police officers: Pending legislation in … Continue reading “France rocked again by demonstrations against the new “Global Security Law”, which includes mass surveillance by police drones”

Nov 2, 2020 |
Glyn Moody |
Censorship, General Privacy News, Governments, Surveillance,

Abusive surveillance in the name of public health is a widespread problem around the world, new report says

When Privacy News Online first wrote about Covid-19, in February, we noted that it would touch on key concerns of this blog: freedom of speech, surveillance and privacy. Already by March, it was becoming clear that the actions taken by governments to deal with the pandemic posed a serious threat in that regard. Since then, … Continue reading “Abusive surveillance in the name of public health is a widespread problem around the world, new report says”

Aug 13, 2020 |
Caleb Chen |
General Privacy News, Social Media,

Instagram faces $500 billion lawsuit for gathering facial biometrics data without consent

A new class action lawsuit in the state of Illinois is trying to bring Facebook to task for illegally harvesting biometrics data, specifically facial recognition data or a “face template.” The lawsuit, Whalen v. Facebook, seeks to fine Facebook up to $500 billion dollars for the illegal biometrics harvesting. The lawsuit explained: “Once Facebook captures … Continue reading “Instagram faces $500 billion lawsuit for gathering facial biometrics data without consent”

Jul 15, 2020 |
Glyn Moody |
Cybersecurity, General Privacy News, Governments, Surveillance,

Privacy-loving EU building massive travel surveillance system for visitors that will affect billions of people

As this blog has noted, for all its faults, the European Union’s GDPR represents one of the most important attempts to protect digital privacy. Although it concerns the EU and its citizens, it has had knock-on effects around the world. Against that background of supporting privacy, it’s disturbing to read a new report from Statewatch … Continue reading “Privacy-loving EU building massive travel surveillance system for visitors that will affect billions of people”

Mar 26, 2020 |
Glyn Moody |
General Privacy News, Governments,

Coronavirus delays the passage of the world’s most important new privacy law

For obvious and justified reasons, the coronavirus pandemic dominates the news currently. One of the latest developments is that India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has put his entire country on lockdown. Ordering 1.35 billion people to stay indoors is a pretty dramatic move. A side-effect of that lockdown is that one of the most important … Continue reading “Coronavirus delays the passage of the world’s most important new privacy law”

Nov 1, 2019 |
Glyn Moody |
General Privacy News, Governments, Surveillance,

Beyond Aadhaar: India wants to create a giant centralized facial recognition database

Two years ago, Privacy News Online wrote about Aadhaar, India’s billion-person biometric database, used to check identity, and its potential to become the world’s biggest privacy disaster. Barely six months after that post, it emerged that access to the Aadhaar database could be bought very cheaply, as reported here by the Indian newspaper The Tribune: … Continue reading “Beyond Aadhaar: India wants to create a giant centralized facial recognition database”

Aug 28, 2019 |
Glyn Moody |
Cybersecurity, General Privacy News,

A major security breach raises a key question: what happens when your biometric data is exfiltrated from a system?

It’s no secret that password security is often terrible. Good passwords – ones that are long and include a mix of lower case, upper case, numbers, and special characters – are hard to remember unless you use a password manager, which few seem to do. As a result, people tend to choose easy-to-guess passwords like … Continue reading “A major security breach raises a key question: what happens when your biometric data is exfiltrated from a system?”