Most of us aren’t going to spend hundreds of dollars on an Apple Watch for our kids, but there are many less-expensive, kid-targeted smartwatches available. Unfortunately, a new report claims that your young one’s tiny screen may also be a huge privacy risk. [More]
data privacy
Researchers Discover WiFi Vulnerability Affecting Basically Every Device On Earth
By 10.16.17
Well, there’s cheerful news to start off the week: Researchers have discovered and disclosed a massive WiFi vulnerability that puts everyone’s private data at risk. How massive? Basically, if you can read this story, congratulations — you’re almost certainly affected. [More]
Increased Use Of Machine Learning, Facial Recognition Outs Sex Workers’ Real Names
By 10.13.17
If you operate a video-sharing site with millions of user-uploaded clips, it sounds like a great idea to use software that is smart enough to identify some of the faces in those videos. The clips would be indexed more accurately, you might be able to more readily identify copyrighted content, but you could also be risking the privacy — and maybe the physical well-being — of those identified by the software. [More]
Everyone Gives Facebook Their Data, But Nobody Trusts Facebook With It
By 10.4.17
Facebook is one of the biggest companies in the entire world. More than 26% of the entire population of Earth uses it, in one way or another, including roughly 230 million Americans… but it seems that the vast majority of us are aware that although we let Facebook have our data, we shouldn’t trust them with it. [More]
Equifax Announces Data Breach Affecting 143 Million Customers
By 9.7.17
Credit reporting agencies have access to basically all of our most sensitive financial information, and we pretty much all have our records collected and collated by them whether we want to or not. So that makes it a particularly big problem when one of the big three credit agencies in the country has to announce a data breach affecting all its customers, because that basically means all of us… and this one is bad. [More]
Uber Finally Lets You Opt Out Of Having Your Location Tracked After Your Ride Is Over
By 8.29.17
Late last year, Uber made a change to its app that let it track customers after their rides had ended. Many troubled months later, the company is finally walking back that tweak, and will once again let customers have more control over when their locations are used. [More]
Facebook Now Helps Advertisers Target People Who Visited Their Real-World Stores
By 8.11.17
Most of us are no longer surprised to see that our online ads are sometimes directly related to websites we’ve recently visited. An even more invasive practice would be for you to go online and be bombarded with ads for a bricks-and-mortar store you just shopped at. Nevertheless, Facebook is now letting online advertisers target users based on their offline movements. [More]
Your “Anonymous” Web Browsing History Totally Isn’t
By 8.1.17
You might think you’re pretty good at making sure you don’t share your internet life with the entire world. You use Facebook’s strictest privacy settings, don’t share anything sensitive on Twitter, and you regularly trash your laptop’s browsing history. All good, right? Nope. All that “anonymized” data you leave behind out in the ether is still totally you, and it’s far easier than you think to make it paint your picture and yours alone. [More]
FBI To Parents: Watch Out For Kids’ Privacy With Internet-Connected Toys
By 7.19.17
A basketball, a Lego set, or a box of crayons is largely what it seems, but modern “smart toys and entertainment devices” for kids have a lot of things in them that can collect sensitive data. And as more and more of a kid’s nursery fills up with gadgets that connect to Bluetooth, the web, or parent apps, the feds are advising parents to be wary. [More]
Can Border Patrol Agents Search The Data Your Phone Stores In The Cloud?
By 7.13.17
While police must have a warrant to search someone’s phone in the U.S. — even after that person has been arrested — what can law enforcement do with gadgets seized at the border? For one thing, U.S. Customs and Border Protection says its officers are limited to searching phone content that is saved directly to the device, and not on the cloud — including social media. [More]
These Forms Collect Your Data Even If You Don’t Hit “Submit”
By 6.29.17
If you fill in a web form and hit “submit,” you expect your data to get whisked off into the great ether, and probably from there to be shared with third parties. But you probably don’t expect your keystrokes — and form auto-fill fields — to be captured and sent away as-entered, before you hit submit. And yet, a new report claims, that may be exactly what’s happening. [More]
Supreme Court Will Decide If Your Mobile Phone Location Data Is Private
By 6.5.17 — Updated: 6.9.17
It’s a funny thing about the 21st century: Nearly all of us carry location trackers on us, voluntarily, every single place we go. They’re our phones, and we carry them with us when we shop, while we work, while we exercise, while we sleep, and even when we use the bathroom. And that leaves an incredibly valuable, intimate trail of location data that businesses use basically however they want. But as far as your legal rights are concerned, is that personal data actually private? [More]
Your Kids’ School-Owned Devices Are Spying On Them, Report Finds
By 4.13.17
As adults, we all kind of have at least a vague peripheral sense that the devices and software we use are probably up to some kind of shenanigans with our personal data. Kids, however, are probably not thinking as closely about what they tell the devices they use, and what data those devices then share — especially if they’re school-owned tools. And yet, a new report finds, some of the learning technology schoolchildren are required to use every day are some of the worst when it comes to explaining and protecting users’ privacy. [More]
Customer Sues Charter For Selling Their Data Without Consent
By 4.11.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
It may become one of the defining questions of our age: Does your personal data become someone else’s asset as soon as you go online? One Charter customer says that he has a right to determine how his data is used, and that the cable/internet company failed to get his permission or disclose that it would be using this information for its own gain. [More]
Without Internet Privacy Rules, How Can I Protect My Data?
By 3.30.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
The FCC’s ISP privacy rule, which would have limited how your internet service provider could collect and use your data without your permission, is effectively dead. The good news is, you do have some tools you can use. The bad news is, they’re not perfect. [More]
House Expected To Vote On Rolling Back Internet Privacy Rules Tomorrow
By 3.27.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
If you like having any control over what your internet service provider does with the personal data it has on you, we’ve got some bad news: The House of Representatives is expected to vote tomorrow to reverse the FCC rules that limit what the Comcasts, AT&Ts, Verizons, and Charters of the world can do with the data they have on you. [More]
Why Are So Many Tech & Telecom Companies Bad At Respecting Your Privacy?
By and 3.23.17
The 21st century world is all about data: who has it, how they use it, when they share it, and how much they make from selling it. Despite the proliferation of terms of service and privacy policies, the companies responsible for handling our data are largely doing a poor job of telling us what they do with it. [More]
The Mall Is Following You While You Shop
By 3.14.17
When you go to a shopping mall — if you ever do — there’s a good chance you’ve got a smartphone turned on in your pocket or bag. And if you do, you may be providing valuable data to that property’s owners, who can follow you around like a hawk to figure out how much time and money you’re there to spend. [More]
