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Privacy

As gadgets and services get smarter, they need more data, and face the hard problem of keeping it safe. Data privacy has become a huge problem for Google, Facebook, Amazon, and any company using artificial intelligence to power its services — and a major sticking point for lawmakers looking to regulate. Here’s all the news on data privacy and how it’s changing tech.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
What’s inside the White House app?

According to “I Decompiled the White House’s New App,” the Android version has some odd choices for a government app that mostly shows content from the White House website.

That includes enabling location tracking and other monitoring via OneSignal’s analytics (which the company says are opt-in at the OS level), JavaScript loaded from some guy’s GitHub, an injected script to hide things like consent dialogs on pages users open in the app, and other hooks to non-government third-party services.

I Decompiled the White House's New App

[Thereallo]

Returning from a humanitarian aid trip to Cuba, Americans have phones seized at US airport

CBP agents at Miami International Airport briefly detained 20 activists, 18 of whom had their phones taken.

Gaby Del Valle
Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
GrapheneOS won’t force users to verify their age.

Bills like California’s Digital Age Assurance Act will require operating systems to confirm their users’ ages, but the developers of the privacy-focused Android fork said in a post on X on Friday that they’re not planning to age-gate their operating system:

“GrapheneOS will remain usable by anyone around the world without requiring personal information, identification or an account. GrapheneOS and our services will remain available internationally. If GrapheneOS devices can’t be sold in a region due to their regulations, so be it.”

Online age checks came first — a VPN crackdown could be next

Lawmakers don’t want VPNs to stand in the way of online age verification.

Emma Roth
The FBI is buying Americans’ location dataThe FBI is buying Americans’ location data
Instagram is getting rid of end-to-end encrypted DMs that ‘very few’ people usedInstagram is getting rid of end-to-end encrypted DMs that ‘very few’ people used
Anthropic doesn’t trust the Pentagon, and neither should you
Play

Techdirt’s Mike Masnick on the history of the NSA and mass surveillance in America, and why Anthropic’s fight with the Pentagon should worry us.

Nilay Patel
Grammarly is using our identities without permissionGrammarly is using our identities without permission
Lawmakers just advanced online safety laws that require age verification at the app storeLawmakers just advanced online safety laws that require age verification at the app store
Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Proton’s security and privacy policies can’t always keep your payment information hidden.

While end-to-end encryption can keep an account’s data private and hidden even from a service provider, the name of who paid for the account and other metadata is harder to hide.

404 Media says court records show how Proton Mail responded to a request from authorities in Switzerland, where it’s based, for payment info tied to an account associated with the Stop Cop City protests in Atlanta, GA. That information was then given to the FBI.

The right to anonymity is powerful, and America is destroying it

Adi Robertson
Meta’s AI glasses reportedly send sensitive footage to human reviewers in KenyaMeta’s AI glasses reportedly send sensitive footage to human reviewers in Kenya
AI tools can unmask anonymous accounts AI tools can unmask anonymous accounts 
Meta won’t let morality get in the way of a product launch

Anyone else notice that ICE isn’t worried about getting doxed by Meta?

Sarah Jeong
Let me see some ID: age verification is spreading across the internetLet me see some ID: age verification is spreading across the internet
Discord is delaying its global age verification rolloutDiscord is delaying its global age verification rollout
Smart glasses in court are a privacy nightmareSmart glasses in court are a privacy nightmare
Meta will ruin its smart glasses by being Meta
Let’s talk about Ring, lost dogs, and the surveillance state
Play

The security camera maker’s Search Party feature, advertised during the Super Bowl, has sparked a surveillance backlash.

Nilay Patel
Meta reportedly wants to add face recognition to smart glasses while privacy advocates are distractedMeta reportedly wants to add face recognition to smart glasses while privacy advocates are distracted
Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Sen. Markey calls on Amazon to “discontinue” Ring monitoring features.

Ring’s Super Bowl ad focused on how its cameras could be networked to find a missing dog, but for a lot of people, it highlighted the surveillance power hiding in those devices. Now Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.) has sent a letter to Amazon saying, “Get this creepy technology away from our homes.”

You can read it in full here, but here’s a snippet:

Discord says ‘vast majority’ of users won’t see its new age verification setupDiscord says ‘vast majority’ of users won’t see its new age verification setup
Google can now help you find and remove your ID from search resultsGoogle can now help you find and remove your ID from search results
Discord’s age verification mandate is a leap toward a gated internetDiscord’s age verification mandate is a leap toward a gated internet
Sarah Jeong
Sarah Jeong
Senators only do this when they’re in extreme distress.

Yesterday, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) publicly sent the director of the CIA an unclassified letter referring to a classified letter he had previously sent him, describing it as one “in which I express deep concerns about CIA activities.”

Wyden is known to do this — as a legislator with a security clearance and a seat on the Senate intelligence committee, he is very careful not to disclose classified information — but when he sees something wild, he send up a vague signal flare that something is wrong. Spencer Ackerman recounts one of the previous times this happened, back in 2011: “It would take Edward Snowden, two years later, to reveal what Wyden was talking about.”

Ron Wyden Only Talks Like This When The Spies Do Something *Real* Bad

[FOREVER WARS]

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Imgur fined by UK privacy watchdog over children’s data handling.

The fine, a measly £247,590 (about $335,000), is because Imgur owner MediaLab wasn’t checking users ages, and so handled young kids’ data without proper consent measures. After the ICO warned a fine was coming last September, Imgur started blocking UK users entirely — a ban which is still in effect.

ICO fines Imgur owner MediaLab over children’s privacy failures

[ICO]

A community organizer’s guide to Signal group chats

Key privacy settings and best practices.

Stevie Bonifield
Google agrees to $135 million settlement for collecting Android users’ dataGoogle agrees to $135 million settlement for collecting Android users’ data
Google will settle its Assistant spying lawsuit for $68 millionGoogle will settle its Assistant spying lawsuit for $68 million
Microsoft handed the government encryption keys for customer dataMicrosoft handed the government encryption keys for customer data
Congress doesn’t seem to know if the TikTok deal complies with its lawCongress doesn’t seem to know if the TikTok deal complies with its law
Kevin Nguyen
Kevin Nguyen
Clippers fans love getting their face scanned.

When Intuit Dome opened last season, the arena staff assumed only a third of fans would opt-in to scanning, but close to 75 percent of venue attendees enrolled. The Clippers promise they are not using facial recognition — sorry, they call it “facial authentication” — for security purposes.

Jacob Feldman at Sportico writes:

Early facial ticketing pilots were met with some protests. And energy still exists to create more state or federal oversight. But as the technology’s penetration has expanded, pushback seemingly hasn’t. A demand for security is leading venue operators to test out the newest tech, while a desire for convenience and personalization has seen fans increasingly getting in line.

Dozens of Flock AI camera feeds were just out thereDozens of Flock AI camera feeds were just out there
Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
MegaLag has returned a year later with part two of his video series investigating the Honey extension.

Beyond part one’s exposure of affiliate revenue hijacking, MegaLag digs into Honey’s “extortion” by adding limited-use “friends and family” type discounts and lying to the store owners about never removing codes for unaffiliated businesses while trying to sign them up as partners.

Other misdeeds described include marketing Honey’s for-adult-use-only browser extension to kids in partnership with channels like Mr Beast, who encouraged kids to install it everywhere they could, while collecting data on everyone who installed its extension, even if they never signed up. And despite a cease-and-desist from PayPal’s lawyers, this series isn’t over yet.

Bluesky claims its new contact import feature is ‘privacy-first’Bluesky claims its new contact import feature is ‘privacy-first’
Texas is suing all of the big TV makers for spying on what you watchTexas is suing all of the big TV makers for spying on what you watch
Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
UK porn traffic goes down, VPN use goes up.

Who could have seen that coming? UK regulator Ofcom’s annual Online Nation report shows that major porn sites took a traffic hit following the introduction of mandatory age checks, while VPN use shot up — but has been steadily declining since, which may ease fears that a VPN ban is next on the agenda.

Graph showing UK VPN usage following the introduction of the Online Safety Act age restrictions
This data only catches mobile VPN users though.
Screenshot: Ofcom
Proton now has an end-to-end encrypted spreadsheet appProton now has an end-to-end encrypted spreadsheet app
The annual app recaps for 2025: all Wrapped upThe annual app recaps for 2025: all Wrapped up
Elissa Welle
Elissa Welle
AI annotators overseas may be reviewing Flock license plate camera footage from the US.

An exposed dataset from the license plate surveillance company Flock, which is known to work with the US Border Patrol and ICE via local police, showed that some of the AI annotators paid to classify American license plates are located in the Philippines.

After 404 Media contacted Flock for comment, the dataset disappeared.

Screenshot of the exposed material from the surveillance company Flock, as spotted by 404 Media.
Screenshot of the exposed material from the surveillance company Flock, as spotted by 404 Media.
Image: 404 Media
The VPN panic is only getting startedThe VPN panic is only getting started
Dominic Preston

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