Privacy
Stay up to date on privacy news coverage, from data protection, policy and emerging tech, and how startups are trying to solve some of the biggest data privacy problems for the future.
A lengthy investigation into the European Union’s use of Microsoft 365 has found the Commission breached the bloc’s data protection rules through its use of the cloud-based productivity software. Announcing…
A German subsidiary involved in Sam Altman’s controversial crypto blockchain digital identity business, Worldcoin, was reported Friday to have filed a legal challenge against a suspension order from Spain’s data…
It’s been over two years since a key piece of the tracking-ads’ industry’s consent collection apparatus was found to breach European Union’s data protection laws. Today the surveillance data complex…
Spain’s data protection authority has ordered Worldcoin to temporarily stop collecting and processing personal data from the market. It must also stop processing any data it previously collected there. The…
Google points to privacy changes, choice screens and data API ahead of DMA compliance day
Google has trailed another bundle of product tweaks ahead of Thursday’s deadline for compliance with the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). The DMA applies to Alphabet, Google’s parent, which…
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Signal’s Meredith Whittaker scorns anti-encryption efforts as ‘parochial, magical thinking’
AI is “not open in any sense,” the battle over encryption is far from won, and Signal’s principled (and uncompromising) approach may complicate interoperability efforts, warned the company’s president, Meredith Whittaker. But it’s not all bad news. (Actually, it is all bad news, because I wrote up the good news…
Why Signal ‘turned our architecture inside out’ for its latest privacy feature
Adding usernames to a messaging app may seem like a standard feature, but for Signal, such identifiers were anathema to its mission of total privacy and security — until now.…
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Punkt rocks its minimalist roots with first smartphone
Punkt first made a name for itself in the world of mobile with pared-down, monochromatic phones focused on voice, text and not much else. Now, the Swiss company has taken its concept of minimalism and changed it up, with the launch of its first smartphone — a device that positions…
Meta’s controversial pay or be tracked ‘consent’ choice for users the European Union is facing questions from the European Commission. Today the bloc said it’s sent Facebook and Instagram’s owner…
A controversial move by Meta last year, when it switched to charging users in the European Union for an ad-free subscription to Facebook and/or Instagram unless they agreed to be…
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Thursday said it will ban the antivirus giant Avast from selling consumers’ web browsing data to advertisers after Avast claimed its products would prevent…
Spend enough time online, and you’ll collect a digital paper trail of accounts, logins, subscriptions, mailing lists and passwords wrapped up in data breaches. A new startup called Yorba can…
Proton, the Swiss privacy-focused software maker, says it has received a notice of a “possible block” of Proton Mail in India after the service was used in sending bomb threats…
A coalition of more than two dozen digital and democratic rights groups, NGOs and not-for-profits, including noyb and Wikimedia Europe, have written to the European Union’s regulatory body for data…
The European Parliament’s civil liberties (LIBE) and internal market (IMCO) committees have overwhelmingly endorsed draft legislation setting out a risk-based framework for regulating applications of artificial intelligence. In a vote…
Mozilla today is introducing a new subscription service that will help people locate and remove their personal and sensitive information from data broker websites around the web. This includes the…
On the eve of Wednesday’s Big Tech hearing (both Big Tech and a big hearing — five CEOs are testifying as we speak), Microsoft stepped up to back a controversial…
OpenAI has been told it’s suspected of violating European Union privacy, following a multi-month investigation of its AI chatbot, ChatGPT, by Italy’s data protection authority. Details of the Italian authority’s…
Update: Electronic Frontier Foundation Senior Policy Analyst Matthew Guariglia offered TechCrunch the following statement: Today, Amazon Ring has announced that it will no longer facilitate police’s warrantless requests for footage…
Meta has lost a claim in its legal battle with an Israeli tech firm Bright Data, which it sued last year for scraping data from Facebook and Instagram via the…
Murena, a French startup that sells “de-Googled” smartphones replete with its own flavor of Android, is launching an own-brand mobile network as it throws its hat into the fast-growing mobile…
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Six rules to get the most out of fitness & wellness tracking
Self quantification is the trend that just keeps on going. There’s an ever-expanding world of wellness wearables and fitness trackers targeting consumers with shiny promises of the personal value to be had if they monitor stuff like their heart rate, activity and sleep — from smart watches, bands and rings,…
Anyone who knows your WhatsApp number can figure out if you are only using the mobile app, or its companion web or desktop apps, a security researcher found. Tal Be’ery,…
Microsoft has ticked off the second phase of its rollout of a data localization offering in the European Union. The latest deployment to the “EU Data Boundary for the Microsoft…
Adtech giant Meta’s bid to keep tracking and profiling users of Facebook and Instagram in Europe in spite of the bloc’s comprehensive data protection laws is facing a second challenge…
You’re watching a movie. A criminal is trying to evade a crime scene in a sports car on the highway. A helicopter is following the car from above. The car…
While most of Europe was still knuckle deep in the holiday chocolate selection box late last month, ChatGPT maker OpenAI was busy firing out an email with details of an…
Proton Mail finally has a native desktop app, rolling out now in beta for some users on Windows and MacOS. The encrypted email service has, of course, been available to desktop…
Elon Musk’s X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, is facing a new privacy complaint in Europe related to its ad targeting tools. The complaint, which is being…
Apple introduced new security settings with the iOS 17.3 developer beta on Tuesday to prevent thieves from entering your passcode to get your info, including account passwords. Apple will likely…
