• Aug 11, 2020
  • Caleb Chen
  • Cybersecurity, General Privacy News, Governments, Surveillance,

How the government legally tracks your smartphone use with the Anomaly Six SDK

A Virginia based government contracting firm called Anomaly Six LLC has been revealed to be inserting a proprietary software development kit (SDK) into over five hundred mobile apps then sharing gathered data with the government. This government tracking system for smartphones is now out in the open thanks to a report by the Wall Street … Continue reading “How the government legally tracks your smartphone use with the Anomaly Six SDK”

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  • Oct 14, 2019
  • Caleb Chen
  • General Privacy News, Governments, Surveillance,

South African court rules that mass surveillance by the government is illegal

A South African court has ruled that mass surveillance, specifically bulk communication of communications, is illegal for the government to participate in.  A longstanding court case between the amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism on behalf of journalist Sam Sole and South Africa’s State Security Agency lead to this ruling on September 16th, 2019. Earlier this … Continue reading “South African court rules that mass surveillance by the government is illegal”

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  • Aug 30, 2019
  • Caleb Chen
  • General Privacy News, Governments, Surveillance,

Trump Administration seeks to permanently restore NSA program to spy on Americans

The Trump Administration supports the permanent restoration of Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allowed the National Security Administration (NSA) to collect the phone records of American citizens as part of a mass surveillance program. The support was made known to key Senate members in an attempt to shore up support for future legislation … Continue reading “Trump Administration seeks to permanently restore NSA program to spy on Americans”

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  • Mar 29, 2019
  • Caleb Chen
  • General Privacy News, Governments, Surveillance,

NSA phone surveillance may end soon thanks to a bipartisan bill introduced to Congress

A group of bipartisan Senators and House Representatives have introduced legislation that would end the NSA’s mass surveillance of American phone records. The bill is titled: “Ending Mass Collection of Americans’ Phone Records Act” and will put an immediate end to the NSA collection of phone records. Curtailing the NSA’s overarching mass surveillance plans is … Continue reading “NSA phone surveillance may end soon thanks to a bipartisan bill introduced to Congress”

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  • Dec 21, 2018
  • Caleb Chen
  • General Privacy News, Governments, Surveillance,

India now allows government agencies to “intercept, monitor, and decrypt” citizens’ computers

On December 21st, 2018, India expanded its governmental spying powers to an unprecedented level – granting ten new agencies the government writ to “intercept, monitor, and decrypt” data from Indian citizens. The specific law that was expanded was Section 69 of the nation’s IT Act from the year 2000. The Ministry of Home Affairs tried to … Continue reading “India now allows government agencies to “intercept, monitor, and decrypt” citizens’ computers”

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  • Sep 22, 2018
  • Glyn Moody
  • General Privacy News, Governments,

Top court rules UK mass interception of fiber-optic cable traffic violates the right to privacy: a victory, but how big?

Five years have passed since Edward Snowden’s revelations about the scale of surveillance by the US and UK shocked the world. Things have gone rather quiet on that front now, partly because there have been few new releases of documents from the Snowden hoard. But in the background, many privacy groups have been quietly working … Continue reading “Top court rules UK mass interception of fiber-optic cable traffic violates the right to privacy: a victory, but how big?”

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  • Oct 17, 2017
  • David Meyer
  • General Privacy News, Governments, Social Media,

British spies are collecting and sharing datasets of people’s social media activities

The British intelligence services have for years quietly claimed the right to collect so-called bulk personal datasets (BPDs) about people, most of whom may be innocent of any crime. The practice was only officially acknowledged in 2015, and last year’s Investigatory Powers Act was – for all its draconian elements – supposed to at least … Continue reading “British spies are collecting and sharing datasets of people’s social media activities”

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  • Oct 7, 2017
  • Caleb Chen
  • General Privacy News, Governments, Surveillance,

These 13 House Reps sponsored a bill to legalize mass surveillance on Americans and called it the USA Liberty Act

On October 6th, House Representative Goodlatte and 12 other Representatives proposed the USA Liberty Act (H.R. 3989) – which would renew the currently active NSA’s mass surveillance programs. We’ve known for the better part of a year that the Trump Administration intended to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) which would … Continue reading “These 13 House Reps sponsored a bill to legalize mass surveillance on Americans and called it the USA Liberty Act”

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  • Jul 14, 2017
  • Caleb Chen
  • Cybersecurity, General Privacy News, Governments,

New Dutch law allows law enforcement to digitally wiretap your friends and family to get to you

This past Wednesday, the Netherlands Senate passed a new surveillance and data mining law that will go into effect on January 1st, 2018. The new law (available in Dutch) expands the government’s targeted and mass surveillance powers and were first introduced in 2015. The Dutch government will soon have expanded surveillance powers, allowing authorities to force … Continue reading “New Dutch law allows law enforcement to digitally wiretap your friends and family to get to you”

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  • May 4, 2017
  • Caleb Chen
  • Cybersecurity, General Privacy News, Governments, Surveillance,

UK government seeks expansion of mass surveillance “technical capabilities” via the Investigatory Powers Act

The UK government is seeking an expansion to their mass surveillance powers on the Internet. The plans were leaked and released by the Open Rights Group. The draft rules were only officially circulated to a short list of companies, mostly telecommunication companies and internet service providers (ISPs) according to The Register. The proposed bulk surveillance rules will force telecoms … Continue reading “UK government seeks expansion of mass surveillance “technical capabilities” via the Investigatory Powers Act”

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