Privacy

Supreme Court Declines to Hear Wikimedia Foundation’s Challenge to NSA Surveillance

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear the Wikimedia Foundation's appeal of a lower court's decision to dismiss their lawsuit against the National Security Agency (NSA).  more

European Union Wants to Fix the GDPR

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was adopted in 2016 and has since become the global standard for privacy regulation. The GDPR has been a watershed moment in tech regulation, requiring companies to ask for consent to collect data online and threatening hefty fines if they don't comply. more

U.N. Cybercrime Convention Enters Critical Stage

Negotiations for a U.N. cybercrime convention have reached a critical stage at the fourth round of discussions in Vienna. Delegates from over 150 states have met for over 100 hours to discuss the proposed convention, which has been met with skepticism from some states, nongovernmental organizations, and other stakeholders more

CENTR Publishes Comment on the European Commission’s DNS Abuse Study

CENTR, which represents European national top-level domain name registries (ccTLDs) such as .si or .eu, has published its comments on the European Commission's DNS abuse study, calling out some of the "misleading analysis and unfortunate conclusions in the study." more

A New Privacy-Focused DNS Protocol Released Called Oblivious

Cloudflare and Apple, along with Fastly, on Tuesday announced a new proposed DNS standard that separates IP addresses from queries preventing an entity from seeing both at the same time. more

U.S. Military Is Buying Location Data of People Around the World Through Ordinary Apps

The U.S. military is buying the granular movement data of ordinary people worldwide, harvested from innocuous-seeming apps, reports Motherboard. Among the apps connected to this type of data sale is a Muslim prayer and Quran app with more than 98 million downloads worldwide. more

Trump Admin Ramping Up Attacks on GDPR – Says It Helps Cybercrime, Threatens Public Health

While the EU is boasting about the success of its flagship privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the U.S. administration is ramping up attacks on the system, saying it provides cover to cybercriminals and threatens public health. more

Zoom Faces Class-Action Lawsuit, Accused of Overstating Its Privacy Standards

The video-conferencing company Zoom is facing a class-action suit filed on Tuesday accusing it of overstating its privacy standards and failing to disclose that its service was not end-to-end encrypted. more

Israel’s Entire Voter Registry Exposed, the Massive Data Leak Involves 6.5 Million Voters

Israel's entire voter registry was recently uploaded to a vulnerable voting management app which effectively left the data wide open for days. more

Coronavirus Exposes China’s Deep Surveillance State

Surveillance cameras in China can detect fevers with infrared cameras to an accuracy within 0.3℃ and recognize faces even if they are wearing masks. more

EFF: For ISPs to Retain Power to Censor the Internet, DNS Needs to Remain Leaky

EFF's Senior Legislative Counsel, Ernesto Falcon, in a post on Monday has argued that major ISPs in the U.S. -- the likes of Comcast, AT&T;, and Verizon -- are aggressively influencing legislators to stop the deployment of DNS over HTTPS (DoH), "a technology that will give users one of the biggest upgrades to their Internet privacy and security since the proliferation of HTTPS." more

China’s App Allows “Superuser” Access to Entire Data of Over 100 Million Android-Based Phones

The Chinese Communist Party's app called Study the Great Nation released in January is reported to have "superuser" access to the entire data of over 100 million Android-based phones via a backdoor. more

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee Is Investigating Google’s Plans to Implement DNS Over HTTPS

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee is investigating Google's plans to implement DNS over HTTPS (DoH) in Chrome according to a report by the Wall Street Journal over the weekend. more

51 CEOs Call on US Congress for Urgent Nationwide Data Privacy Law Overriding State-Level Laws

A letter, signed by 51 CEOs, was sent to U.S. House and Senate and leaders of other committees today urging policymakers to pass a comprehensive national data privacy law. more

Google Showing Signs of Increased Concerns Over Rising Data Privacy Scrutiny

Earlier this year, Google quietly terminated its "Mobile Network Insights" service, which provided wireless carriers globally, information on network performance in various locations. more