• 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”

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  • Apr 5, 2021
  • Glyn Moody
  • Censorship, Encryption, General Privacy News, Governments, Surveillance,

Dual-use digital surveillance technologies finally get regulated – a little

Privacy News Online frequently writes about surveillance conducted by governments on their populations, or by companies on their users. Less well-known is the connection between governments that wish to spy and the companies that provide the means to do so. Within most Western nations, there are various ways to find out the names of suppliers … Continue reading “Dual-use digital surveillance technologies finally get regulated – a little”

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  • Jan 12, 2021
  • Caleb Chen
  • Cybersecurity, General Privacy News, Governments, Surveillance,

UK rules against the use of general warrants to hack into citizen’s devices

The United Kingdom (UK) High Court has ruled that the country’s security and intelligence agencies can no longer use “general warrants” as legal writ for property interference, aka hacking. The move has been declared a victory for the rule of law by privacy and civil liberties experts around the world. For years, law enforcement in … Continue reading “UK rules against the use of general warrants to hack into citizen’s devices”

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  • Oct 7, 2020
  • Glyn Moody
  • General Privacy News, Governments, Surveillance,

Top court rules again that EU laws may not require general and indiscriminate data retention, but then muddies the privacy waters

National governments in the EU are very keen for communication companies to store traffic and location data for all their users. They claim this is necessary to enable the authorities to fight terrorism and serious crime. Such information may be helpful in some cases, but it also entails a massive invasion of privacy for hundreds … Continue reading “Top court rules again that EU laws may not require general and indiscriminate data retention, but then muddies the privacy waters”

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  • Jan 12, 2019
  • Glyn Moody
  • General Privacy News, Governments, Surveillance,

People start to wake up to the pervasive third-party tracking that comes with 90% of Android apps

It will hardly be news to readers of this site that mobile apps are tracking us on a massive scale. And yet a story in the New York Times last month about how apps are routinely monitoring users and their geographical position seems to have shocked many. Indeed, Los Angeles prosecutors were moved by the … Continue reading “People start to wake up to the pervasive third-party tracking that comes with 90% of Android apps”

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  • Dec 1, 2018
  • Glyn Moody
  • General Privacy News, Governments, Surveillance,

Multiple threats from EU’s GDPR to today’s corporate surveillance and targeted advertising system

Eighteen months ago, Privacy News Online wrote about how pervasive corporate surveillance is threatening the privacy of everyone who uses the Internet. Nearly every move people make online is being tracked and recorded. This is not in order to spy on the public directly, but to create vast databases about people’s interests and habits, which … Continue reading “Multiple threats from EU’s GDPR to today’s corporate surveillance and targeted advertising system”

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  • Nov 17, 2016
  • Caleb Chen
  • General Privacy News, Governments,

In UK, Investigatory Powers Act forces collection of “internet connection records” which allows government to see one year of your internet history

The Investigatory Powers Act replaces existing law under the Telecommunications Act and brings government mass surveillance into the Internet age with a bang. The IP Act made it through both Houses, without adding any of the privacy constraining amendments suggested by the House of Lords Intelligence and Security Committee, and will become law within weeks. … Continue reading “In UK, Investigatory Powers Act forces collection of “internet connection records” which allows government to see one year of your internet history”

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