Articles about Privacy

When Google announced the launch of two new messaging apps, the world wondered why. Duo is focused on video calling, while Allo is a more traditional messaging tool, albeit one with a Google assistant built in.

But while the world shrugged, Edward Snowden issued a stark warning. He says that Allo should be avoided, pointing out that the lack of end-to-end encryption makes it "dangerous".

Continue reading →

Consumers in the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East, Africa) are fairly skeptical about companies keeping their data safe, but are willing to share personal information to get something in return anyway.

Those are the results of a new and extensive research by F5 Networks, which had asked more than 7,000 consumers in UK, Germany, France, Bene, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Poland about their online shopping habits, and data attitudes.

Continue reading →

Compliance professionals need to supervise all types of business communications, but a new survey shows that they're struggling to keep pace with the volume and variety of electronic channels.

Hosted archiving specialist Smarsh has released its sixth annual Electronic Communications Compliance Survey Report. The survey, of compliance professionals in the financial services industry, highlights that supervision practices aren't sufficiently addressing the compliance implications of ongoing trends, like increased regulatory scrutiny and the challenge of adapting to channels like social media and text messaging.

Continue reading →

Cast your mind back to 2012 and the LinkedIn hack that had the grown up's social network scurrying to advise its users to change their passwords.

It was thought at the time that the 6.5 million sets of credentials posted on a Russian password forum was the extent of the breach. However, four years on a hacker under the name of 'Peace' is offering for sale a database of millions more LinkedIn accounts.

Continue reading →

So there I was, typing away after using a couple of coffees to make myself feel vaguely human. Up popped a notification from Skype. This was odd. I don’t use Skype because I absolutely loathe it. The app isn’t even running. Nonetheless, there it is: a notification telling me that I have been signed into my account.

While I don’t use Skype, I do have a Skype username from back in days gone by -- but this wasn't the account Windows 10 told me I had been signed into. Rather it appeared that Microsoft had created a secondary Skype account for me (gee, thanks...) based on my name and decided to randomly sign me in to foist the terrible messaging app on me. What gives?

Continue reading →

There can be few people who have had such an impact on people's perception of the government as Edward Snowden. Having exposed the convert spying activities of the NSA, he opened up a worldwide debate about privacy and surveillance that is still going on today. His revelations have shaped public opinion and changed the course of history.

Just as the likes of the Guardian have already helped to educate the world about what the NSA has been doing, so The Intercept is releasing a huge cache of internal NSA documents that give an intriguing insight into the agency's operations. The documents shed light on the NSA's work relating to terrorism, Iraq, and general surveillance.

Continue reading →

The UK's GCHQ -- like its US counterpart the NSA -- is an agency traditionally shrouded in secrecy. Tasked with the job of spying on all and sundry in the name of intelligence gathering, the agency has just joined Twitter, greeting other users with an unoriginal "Hello, world".

With the concerns about privacy and security that blew up in the wake of Edward Snowden's NSA surveillance revelation, spy agencies around the world have been on a mission to boost their public image. GCHQ -- complete with the blue tick reserved for verified accounts -- will use Twitter to "provide news, updates, and opinions".

Continue reading →

Police in Belgium are warning people not to use Facebook Reactions because of the risk they pose to privacy. Introduced recently to supplement the iconic Like option, Reactions give Facebook users the chance to respond to content with Love, Haha, Wow, Sad, and Angry emoji.

But Belgian police have issued a 'Safe Browsing' warning advising that Facebook is using Reactions to gather information about social network users. Specifically, the police warn that in using Reactions to express emotions, users are giving Facebook the opportunity to build up a more detailed personal profile about them and use that information to deliver closely targeted advertising.

Continue reading →

Facebook has rolled out its photo-sharing app Moments around the world, and users in Europe have been treated to a modified version. Specifically, the European version of the app lacks the facial recognition feature that allows for automatic tagging of people.

In many ways, Facebook has been forced to release a degraded version of Moments to its EU audience because of the varying privacy laws that exist in different countries. The hobbled app will not attempt to identify individuals in photos, but will group together images that "appear to include the same face".

Continue reading →

Extensions, or the lack thereof, have been stumbling block for many would-be Microsoft Edge users. Support for add-ons has finally arrived, bringing with it the potential for something people have been asking for since Edge first appeared -- the ability to block ads.

It had previously been thought that Edge might feature native ad blocking, but this turned out to be a matter of poor communication from Microsoft. We've already shown you a slightly bodged-together way of blocking ads in Edge, but now Adblock Plus and AdBlock extensions have been officially released to the Windows Store.

Continue reading →

The moment of reckoning is on its way for companies that collect or store data on European Union citizens. Last week EU legislators signed data privacy regulations into law, creating what may be the most stringent data protection law in place today. The requirements will not be easy for many companies to meet and will demand financial and personnel resources. There is sure to be criticism that the EU stifles technology innovation. In reality, the GDPR demonstrates a progressive approach to data transactions and the digital economy. The introduction of the regulation states, "The protection of natural persons in relation to the processing of personal data is a fundamental right…".

Essentially, the law codifies the concept that data transactions come with responsibility on the part of the collector. As technology continues to advance, establishing this foundation of trust is a necessary step. Complying with the regulation may seem onerous, but think from the consumer’s perspective. Organizations gather more data than ever. Huge headaches and hardships arise when data is  stolen or lost. The regulation puts in place best practices to ensure companies offer a necessary level of security and treat personal data with the respect it deserves.

Continue reading →

Adblockers are, have been, and will continue to be a matter of some controversy. While sites rely on ad income to stay afloat, users are understandably irked by a barrage of flashy commercials and are increasingly turning to adblocking. To fight back, some sites are using various methods to detect the presence of an adblocker and then bypassing it.

This, in turn, upsets people once again, and the CEO of privacy and security consortium Think Privacy, Alexander Hanff, has come up with a solution. To fight back he has set up a website that names and shames those sites that "use illegal methods to detect that you are using an adblocker".

Continue reading →

With the ongoing debate about privacy and encryption, the rollout of end-to-end encryption to Facebook-owned WhatsApp came as little surprise. Now Facebook Messenger is set to gain a couple of privacy-enhancing features including self-destructing messages.

Already found in other messaging tools such as SnapChat and Telegram, self-destructing messages have been unearthed in Messenger for iOS version 68.0. As you would expect, the feature makes it possible to place a time limit on how long messages are visible for, making it ideal for communicating sensitive information.

Continue reading →

Facebook has published its latest Global Government Requests Report covering the second half of 2015. The transparency report reveals that there has been as 13 percent increase in the number of government requests for data, but it also shows that Facebook is still not able to be as transparent as it might want.

For the first time the social network is able to report about the number of data requests that have a non-disclosure order attached to them. More than half of the requests -- 60 percent, in fact -- have gagging orders that prevent Facebook from notifying users about requests for their data.

Continue reading →

Users of Google’s navigation app Waze seem to be at risk of being followed, as a vulnerability in the app could allow hackers to stalk the users of the app in real-time, a group of researchers from the University of California has found.

The researchers reverse-engineered Waze’s server code and discovered that thousands of "ghost drivers" could be created on Waze’s systems, which can monitor the real drivers around them. Hackers could even create virtual traffic jams, an exploit to track Waze users in real-time.

Continue reading →