Category «Privacy»

Government Is Using Most Vulnerable People to Test Facial Recognition Software

Slate – Our research shows that any one of us might end up helping the facial recognition industry, perhaps during moments of extraordinary vulnerability. “If you thought IBM using “quietly scraped” Flickr images to train facial recognition systems was bad, it gets worse. Our research, which will be reviewed for publication this summer, indicates that …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, E-Government, E-Records, Privacy

FTC Releases 2018 Privacy and Data Security Update

“The Federal Trade Commission, the nation’s primary privacy and data security enforcer, released its annual report highlighting its privacy and data security work for 2018. The FTC’s privacy and security enforcement actions in 2018 included shutting down revenge porn website MyEx.com, approving a settlement with peer-to-peer payment service Venmo over deceptive privacy settings, approving an …

Subjects: Cybersecurity, Economy, Government Documents, Legal Research, Legislation, Privacy

The perilous life of computer virus cracker making powerful enemies online

BBC: “Fabian is world renowned for destroying ransomware – the viruses sent out by criminal gangs to extort money. Because of this, he lives a reclusive existence, always having to be one step ahead of the cyber criminals. He has moved to an unknown location since this interview was carried out…Ransomware is a particularly nasty …

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, PC Security, Privacy

The Internet Knows You Better Than Your Spouse Does

Scientific American – The traces we leave on the Web and on our digital devices can give advertisers and others surprising, and sometimes disturbing, insights into our psychology Users’ digital footprints disclose certain preferences and characteristics, such as their personality or mood. Companies are very interested in such data. Automated language analysis is already being …

Subjects: Internet, Privacy, Social Media

Understanding the Changing Landscape of Data Protection Laws

Klinkner, Blake, Understanding the Changing Landscape of Data Protection Laws (February 11, 2019). The Wyoming Lawyer, February 2019, at 44-45.. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3332687 “As businesses and other entities have sought to collect more personal data on individuals, the public has pushed back, and lawmakers throughout the United States and elsewhere have responded by passing …

Subjects: EU Data Protection, Government Documents, Legal Research, Legislation, Privacy

Millions of online photos scraped without consent

NBC News – People’s faces are being used without their permission, in order to power technology that could eventually be used to surveil them, legal experts say. “Facial recognition can log you into your iPhone, track criminals through crowds and identify loyal customers in stores. The technology — which is imperfect but improving rapidly — …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Internet, Legal Research, Privacy, Social Media

Google user data collection is extensive, massive and lucrative

Google Data Collection, Professor Douglas C. Schmidt, Vanderbilt University August 15, 2018: “Google is the world’s largest digital advertising company.1It also provides the #1 web browser, the #1 mobile platform,3and the #1 search engine4worldwide. Google’s video platform, email service, and map application have over 1 billion monthly active users each.5Google utilizes the tremendous reach of …

Subjects: E-Commerce, E-Mail, E-Records, Internet, Privacy, Search Engines

DuckDuckGo added to Google Chrome in more than 60 global markets

Techcrunch: Google has quietly added DuckDuckGo as a search engine option for Chrome users in ~60 markets – “In an update to the chromium engine, which underpins Google’s popular Chrome browser, the search giant has quietly updated the lists of default search engines it offers per market — expanding the choice of search product users …

Subjects: EU Data Protection, Internet, Knowledge Management, Privacy, Search Engines

Free online course will arm you with tools and skills to navigate misinformation

The Knight Center – “Massive, country-wide protests are planned and it would be impossible to have correspondents placed at each demonstration. Like many newsrooms these days, you plan to comb social media for photo and video evidence that can provide a national picture of what’s going on. But how can you make sure the images …

Subjects: Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Libraries, Privacy

The Web is missing an essential part of infrastructure: an Open Web Index

The Web is missing an essential part of infrastructure: an Open Web Index – Dirk Lewandowski, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, German. (Submitted on 9 Mar 2019). arXiv:1903.03846 [cs.IR] “A proposal for building an index of the Web that separates the infrastructure part of the search engine—the index—from the services part that will form …

Subjects: EU Data Protection, Freedom of Information, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Libraries, Privacy, Search Engines

Firefox Send – Free File Transfers while Keeping your Personal Information Private

Firefox Send, send.firefox.com. “Send is a free encrypted file transfer service that allows users to safely and simply share files from any browser. Additionally, Send will also be available as an Android app in beta later this week. Now that it’s a keeper, we’ve made it even better, offering higher upload limits and greater control …

Subjects: Cybersecurity, E-Records, Internet, Privacy, Search Engines

Googling Strangers: One Professor’s Lesson On Privacy In Public Spaces

NPR: “Charlotte Lehman could hear the man reading his credit card number out loud from across the Starbucks.He was speaking to a companion, but his voice carried over the music to where Lehman sat. Surrounded by a dozen or so people, the speaker also divulged his phone number a­­nd home address. After that, all it …

Subjects: Education, Legal Research, Privacy, Search Engines, Social Media