The Register: “Hospitals – despite being places where people implicitly expect to have their personal details kept private – frequently use tracking technologies on their websites to share user information with Google, Meta, data brokers, and other third parties, according to research published today. Academics at the University of Pennsylvania analyzed a nationally representative sample… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Privacy
How to Stop Your Data From Being Used to Train AI
Wired: “If you’ve ever posted something to the internet—a pithy tweet, a 2009 blog post, a scornful review, or a selfie on Instagram—it has most likely been slurped up and used to help train the current wave of generative AI. Large language models, like ChatGPT, and image creators are powered by vast reams of our… Continue Reading
How to Delete Your Google Account After Downloading All of Your Data First
Wired: “Deleting digital accounts that you rarely or never use not only reduces the amount of clutter in your online life—it keeps you safer too. Every extra account you’ve got is an extra target for a hacker, an extra database that might leak, and an extra way that someone might get access to some of… Continue Reading
Virtual Reality and the ‘Virtual Wall’
EFF: “When EFF set out to map surveillance technology along the U.S.-Mexico border, we weren’t exactly sure how to do it. We started with public records—procurement documents, environmental assessments, and the like—which allowed us to find the GPS coordinates of scores of towers. During a series of in-person trips, we were able to find even… Continue Reading
Automated Large-Scale Analysis of Cookie Notice Compliance
USENIX Association Report (PDF) Analysing Cookie Notice Compliance – We show that 56.7% of cookie notices do not include an option to opt out of consent, that more than 65.4% of websites with an opt-out option collect users’ data despite explicit negative consent, and that 73.4% of websites do so even when users do not… Continue Reading
Insurers Are Spying on Your Home From the Sky
WS via MSN: “Cindy Picos was dropped by her home insurer last month. The reason: aerial photos of her roof, which her insurer refused to let her see. “I thought they had the wrong house,” said Picos, who lives in northern California. “Our roof is in fine shape.” Her insurer said its images showed her… Continue Reading
6 Ways to Identify Who an Unknown Caller Is
MakeUseOf: “Do you repeatedly receive unwanted calls from an unknown phone number? From vishing (voice phishing) attacks to random marketing calls, unexpected and unwanted calls are absolutely frustrating and a downright waste of time. However, if you receive multiple calls from the same unknown number, you may want to identify the caller so that you… Continue Reading
A US bill takes aim at protecting Americans’ data privacy
The Verge: “Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) and House Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Oregon) announced a new, national data privacy bill called The American Privacy Rights Act (PDF) today. According to their release, the bill would, among other things, “require affirmative express consent sensitive data can be transferred to a third party.” The two were behind… Continue Reading
It’s Time to Switch to a Privacy Browser
Wired: “Google’s admission that, yes, it does track you while you’re in Chrome’s Incognito mode, is just the latest in a long line of unsettling revelations about just how keenly Big Tech keeps an eye on our movements every time we connect to the internet. Billions of data records will now be deleted as part… Continue Reading
How to Browse the Dark Web
Lifehacker: “The dark web, for the uninitiated among you, is a virtual neighborhood beyond the borders of the normal, everyday internet (which includes the website you’re looking at right now). It’s somewhere Google and Bing don’t index, and you need special tools to get to it. It’s a place where you’ll find data leaks and… Continue Reading
The Incognito Mode Myth Has Fully Unraveled
Wired: “If you still hold any notion that Google Chrome’s “Incognito mode” is a good way to protect your privacy online, now’s a good time to stop. Google has agreed to delete “billions of data records” the company collected while users browsed the web using Incognito mode, according to documents filed in federal court in… Continue Reading
How to check your password strength and what to do about it
PopSci: “While logging in using a fingerprint or face scan is becoming more common, passwords are still essential for many of the apps and services we use every day. And from shopping to banking, social media to messaging, podcasts to cloud storage, there are a lot of accounts and passwords to keep track of. Your… Continue Reading
