Tag Archives: privacy

Shortly after his appointment as the United Nations' first head of privacy, Joseph Cannataci has called the current state of digital surveillance in the UK a “joke,” describing it as worse than anything George Orwell may have conjured up in his novel 1984. To address this and the oversight over …

In our more privacy concious world, the policies that our favourite software makers operate under can be very important. In the wake of updates made to the music streaming service, Spotify's privacy policy, many fans have dropped the service, citing excerpts that demand access to their private media on their device, as …

Earlier today, Spotify updated its terms and conditions and thanks to the wording, it sounded like the streaming service wasn't taking user privacy very seriously at all. Fortunately, the company's CEO, Daniel Ek, is eager to clear things up a bit and try to stop people from freaking out. In …

Although the fact that Google tracks an awful lot of data about individuals is perhaps a bit ironic considering this particular data set, it's hard to argue that it's not interesting to see emerging trends among different sections of society. In this case, Google searches related to personal privacy, hacking …

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a socialist,” begins the poetic version of Pastor Martin Niemöller's famous statement about the cowardice of German intellectuals during the rise of the Nazi party. It's a speech that has many applications when the topic of free …

The Do Not Track (DNT) standard, introduced by a number of browsers over the past few years, was designed to give consumers some control over what information was recorded about them by advertisers and various web applications. However, now the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Ad Block and a number of other …

In a ruling that is likely to have knock on effects for the privacy of New Yorkers, a state appeals court has ruled that when it comes to users suspected of Social Security fraud, Facebook must bend to the will of warrants applied to the site's users and hand over …

Revenge porn, or the practice of putting nude or sexually suggestive images of people online without their permission, has been a problem for a number of years now. However since the celebrity nude scandal that hit last year sent up red flags of hypocrisy when they seemed to get special …

One of the fallacies often pushed forward by marketers and policy makers, is that consumers don't mind data being gathered on them; whether that information is the meta data for their phone calls – “if you don't have anything to hide” – or personal data used for advertising purposes. However …

The debate over internet privacy is one that's going to rage for years to come thanks to the continued back and forth tug of war between the likes of politicians, lobby groups and whistle blowers like Edward Snowden. However, in the eyes of the public it seems that that debate …

Facebook is opening up its free Internet.org platform to developers, allowing them to create services to be delivered through the social network's curated and stripped down version of the internet. However, the platform is set to face yet another round of heavy criticism, as it seemingly neglects user security and …

Republican presidential candidate, Rand Paul, went after fellow senators that backed mass data collection yesterday during a Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee meeting, where he accused the government and federal authorities of building in an “institutional bias” by sidestepping the warrant system. Paul is also known for his filibustering, …

Despite current British Prime Minister David Cameron's insistence that he wants to see more Chinese filters affecting the UK's internet and his announcement that if re-elected he would ban effective encryption, the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology has published a report which suggests that doing so would be “not …

With continued reveals of more government spying no matter where you are in the world, many organisations have been clamouring for software that makes our communications so obfuscated through encryption and other measures, that it becomes a waste of time to try and decipher even the most banal conversations. One …

The Open Rights Group is a big proponent of, above all else, open rights. That means it champions the rights of individuals online, including freedoms of expression, freedoms of speech, information and privacy. With all of the Edward Snowden revelations and similar in the past couple of years, it's had …

Drones were always going to need regulation. As fun a toy as they are, as they get lighter, smaller and more powerful, they have the potential to travel higher and further and that means they could not only invade people's privacy, but also pose a real hazard to civilian and military …

In 2013, the United States riled up a lot of people, as Edward Snowden released a bevy of classified NSA documents to the press, which revealed the extent of the spying perpetrated by the NSA and its international contemporaries. However one person it really angered was German chancellor, Angela Merkel, …

If you own a voice activated smart TV from Samsung, there's a good chance it's recorded conversations you've had with people in the same room, whether it was turned on or not. The worst part of that privacy invasion however, is that Samsung has been sending that information to third …

For the first time in the history of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal – a court designed specifically to look into complaints against Britain's intelligence agencies – it has found the actions of GCHQ unlawful in its dealings with the NSA and how it spied on British citizens for many years, hoovering …

Facebook has once again updated its privacy policy but it may be taking things too far in an effort to show you targeted ads. The new policy allows Facebook to check up on what you are doing on other apps and websites that have nothing to do with the social …

Snapchat recently killed off its “Best Friends,” feature, which listed the top three people that a user messages, as some users considered it an invasion of privacy. However, due to complaints on social media, the company behind the service has now announced that it will reinstate the feature, as people apparently …

Facebook have revealed in their fourth quarter earnings report that they show no signs of slowing down, with almost every number released looking positive, from revenue, to users and active users. While most of these new users are coming from outside of Europe and North America the ad revenue that …

One of the worst parts of the Edward Snowden revelations back in 2013, was that they explained how it was possible for the US and other governments to force companies to hand over information on their customers without telling anyone. And that's exactly what looks to have happened in the …

A proposal put in place by a group of lords for changes to the counter-terrorism bill, currently set for debate on Monday next week, has attempted to sneak in many measures from what was branded the “Snooper's Charter,” with the hope that they can pass it before the next general …

David Cameron has had a hard on for banning things online for years now. His big focus in 2013-14 was certain types of pornography, which ultimately led to mandatory filters on new broadband accounts and the banning of such innocuous actions in British porn production as face-sitting and female ejaculation. But …

A lot of privacy advocates got a little worried during the press-conference where US President Barack Obama addressed the Sony hack, as he stated that the security breach was exactly why extra online powers needed to be given to intelligence agencies to thwart those responsible. However, just a few weeks later and …

Kim Dotcom may not be everyone's favourite ex-hacker, activist or gamer, but he does have a penchant for building something from ashes. His big move last year was the creation of MEGA, an encrypted file locker platform that was born from the ruins of his previous hit service, MegaUpload and …

Following the NSA leaks, many people out there on the internet have suddenly become very conscious of their privacy and security. The sheer extent of unwarranted government surveillance going on behind the scenes was somewhat shocking. However, Google thinks that things may change for the better next year with surveillance …

A survey recently appeared online from CIGI-Ipsos, that looked at how people felt about different aspects of online life. Part of it quizzed them on the aftermath of Edward Snowden's NSA leaks, with over 60 per cent saying they were aware of him and almost 40 per cent saying they had taken …

BitTorrent wants to take the internet in to a new direction with its new browser, Maelstrom, which will run on the BitTorrent protocol. The web browser is in the closed alpha testing phase currently but the development team wants it to solve several problems the internet is facing at the …