Articles about Privacy

The UK government's Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (also known as the Snooper's Charter) has been dealt a blow after the European Court of Justice ruled that the "general and indiscriminate retention" of internet data and communication is illegal.

This is a serious setback for Theresa May's government which introduced legislations that not only requires ISPs to store customers' browsing history for a year, but also make this data available to a large number of agencies. The European court made the ruling following a legal challenge made by MPs David Davis and Tom Watson which gained the support of privacy groups.

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With the end of the year approaching, many people are looking back over 2016 and picking out the highlights. Others, however, are looking back to see what can be learned for 2017; this is exactly what digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation is doing.

EFF has drawn up a wishlist for 2017, outlining some of the things it hopes technology companies like Google, Twitter, Apple and Facebook will take action on. There are lots of familiar names on the list, and while some of the requests might seem a little hopeful, there is certainly scope for some of the changes to be implemented.

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The European Commission could hit Facebook with a colossal fine for providing misleading information during its $19bn takeover of WhatsApp.

The social networking giant could be hit with a fine equivalent to 1 percent of annual sales (around $125m) for failing to correctly communicate planned changes to privacy policies. The data sharing between WhatsApp and Facebook is already the subject of investigations, but this latest accusation comes as a fresh blow.

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The data processing landscape has seen huge changes since 1995, in May 2018 the EU is replacing the Directive with a new regulation, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Enforceable from May 2018, organizations have had to take account of their responsibilities under the DPA for many years now.

Many have mature and well-considered data management policies in place that already address elements of the GDPR. Nonetheless, with the threat of significant penalties for data breaches under the GDPR it would be prudent to reexamine procedures and to consider how these can be enhanced to ensure compliance when GDPR comes into effect in May 2018.

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With the world so focused on privacy, Evernote should really not have been surprised when there was something of a backlash at an update to its privacy policy that said company employees would be able to access users' unencrypted notes.

Forced to clarify the situation, CEO Chris O'Neill issued an apology for any "confusion" and "angst" the announcement caused, but this was seemingly not enough. Faced with mounting pressure and criticism, the company admits it "messed up" and has now announced that employees will only be able to access notes if users opt-in to allow this. Furthermore, Evernote "will not implement the previously announced Privacy Policy changes that were scheduled to go into effect January 23, 2017".

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There has been great concern over the last day or so following an update to Evernote's Privacy Policy. The update said that Evernote employees might be able to access unencrypted notes as part of a human review of machine learning technologies. Users were unsurprisingly rather concerned, and there was much talk online of a mass exodus to OneNote and other alternatives.

In the face of a user backlash, Evernote CEO Chris O'Neill has issued an apology for any "angst we may have caused" and stressed that "privacy has always been at the heart" of the company. He concedes that the changes to the Privacy Policy were "communicated poorly"... but then managed to half-shift the blame for upset back onto users by saying the change "resulted in some understandable confusion".

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The fact that Google scans the contents of emails sent and received through Gmail has been known for some time now. It's just one of the ways in which the company gathers information about users to help deliver targeted advertising. Faced with a lawsuit over the privacy implications of this technique, Google has agreed to change its scanning systems.

Before you check to see whether hell has indeed frozen over, this is hardly a dramatic change of heart for Google. The change is only very slight, and in practice it will make little -- if any difference -- to end users.

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Evernote has published an update to its Privacy Policy, revealing that as of 23 January 2017, employees will be able to access unencrypted notes. The change is being wheeled in because of the apparent failings of machine learning.

Perhaps more worrying is the fact that Evernote says that it is not possible to opt out of having employees possibly accessing your unencrypted notes. The only way to fully protect your privacy is to delete all your notes and close your Evernote account.

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In the second decade of the 21st century, the blind excitement about the internet has worn off -- now users are aware of the dangers and are concerned about privacy. Cookies have been around for just about as long as web connections, but there are all manner of ways to track people and spy on online activity. This is something that Privacy Badger 2.0 aims to help with.

Coming from the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, the tool takes the form of a browser extension -- available for Chrome, Opera and Firefox. It blocks online trackers that can be used to monitor your activity, ensuring your privacy.

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The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is due to come into force on May 25, 2018. This means that IT teams have more than a year to audit their IT systems, check existing customer records and data, and ensure that these systems respect the new set of rules that will be in place.

However, the gap between intentions and actions can be a big one. So what do I predict will happen around GDPR in 2017?

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Terrorism is a daily threat to our freedoms. It is unfortunate, as we used to be able to go throughout our days without the thought of violence. Now, it dominates the news. Heck, when I am in Penn Station in NYC, I see soldiers with machine guns. Sigh.

Unfortunately, terrorists thrive on the internet too. Using social media and video platforms like YouTube, these evil-doers look to recruit new members while sharing propaganda. Today, Google announces that it is partnering with some major players -- Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter -- to fight online terrorism with a special database. The partners will look to protect user privacy in the process.

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Google is making it easy to share your location with your friends and family, introducing a new Android app, called Trusted Contacts, that lets select contacts know exactly where you are at any given time.

Google has designed Trusted Contacts so that if you do not manually accept a request within five minutes it will automatically share your location with that contact. This should come in handy when you are unable to pick up your smartphone or cannot hear it ring.

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We've known (or at least believed) for some time that Apple has been working on some form of automated vehicle, but the company has remained tight-lipped about what it is up to. Now, however, a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) gives the strongest official hint that Apple is working on something.

The letter -- written by Apple's Director of Product Integrity, Steve Kenner, back in November -- has just come to light, in it Apple praises NHTSA's policies on automated vehicles, and stresses the importance of machine learning, data sharing, and user privacy in ensuring the development and safety of such technologies.

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Internet users are accustomed to the idea of targeted advertising. Both Google and Facebook take into account the things you look for online, the things you look at, the people you are connected to, and so on, and use this information to pelt you with ads they think you will respond to.

Having been forced to stop using data gathered from WhatsApp to deliver targeted ads to social network users, you might think that Facebook would consider toning down its ad personalization. But you would be wrong. For the last few weeks, Facebook has been testing the delivery of targeted ads to Roku and Apple TV based on what people are watching.

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When the UK government is not busy looking for ways to invade internet users' privacy, it's looking for ways to restrict what they are able to do online -- particularly when it comes to things of a sexual nature.

The health secretary Jeremy Hunt has made calls for technology companies and social media to do more to tackle the problems of cyberbullying, online intimidation and -- rather specifically -- under-18-year-olds texting sexually explicit images. Of course, he doesn't have the slightest idea about how to go about tackling these problems, but he has expressed his concern so that, in conjunction with passing this buck to tech companies, should be enough, right?

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