Privacy

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.

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".

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.

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.

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.

The Snooper's Charter -- or the Investigatory Powers Bill -- is a highly controversial piece of legislation the UK government is trying to bring into force to allow for the bulk collection of data, NSA-style. Outside of government, it is widely regarded as a massive invasion of privacy, and the human rights group Liberty is just one of the organizations that is very vocally opposed to it.

The bill will require ISPs to record customers' browsing histories for an entire year, and will permit the government to remotely hack phones and computers, as well as requiring tech companies to provide backdoor access to encrypted data. To highlight what is at stake, Liberty is running a No #SnoopersCharter campaign, and has released a video that attacks the notion of 'if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear' head on.

Android 6.0 launched over half a year ago, but even today there are still lots of devices that have yet to receive the software upgrade to Marshmallow. In fact, at the beginning of this month fewer than one in 20 were running Google's latest mobile operating system.

For BlackBerry Priv users though things are looking up. The Canadian maker has announced the Marshmallow rollout for its first Android smartphone, introducing improvements to the camera, battery, privacy, security, and more.

There has been a lot of interest in online abuse in recent months, and social networks are taking steps to weed out the trolls and abusers. Twitter has already introduced a number of measures to help tackle trolls, and today announces the availability of a new reporting tool for users.

Now rather than having to report a number of abusive tweets individually, it is possible to report up to five tweets simultaneously. As well as reducing the workload for someone who feels the need to report content, the new tool also makes things easier for Twitter as it allows for additional information to be gathered.

When it came to the San Bernardino iPhone, Apple was ready to dig in its heels and refuse to help the FBI to gain access to the encrypted contents. As it turns out, the company needn’t have bothered shouting as a third party helped instead. Now the same thing has happened with another iPhone.

This time around, the Justice Department had been looking for help accessing an iPhone at the center of a drugs case in New York. But now federal prosecutors have said they no longer need Apple’s help as they have managed to get by the lockscreen.

According to a survey by the cloud hosting firm UKFast, nearly half of businesses are clueless as to where their data is located.

To come to its findings, the company surveyed over 300 IT decision makers in EU businesses, with 47 percent of them unaware of where their personal and company data was hosted.

The modern internet user is somewhat paradoxical -- looking to be more connected and contactable than ever before, whilst simultaneously seeking privacy. Can the two ideas live side by side? It's a tricky balancing act, but many people turn to VPN tools to increase their security and privacy online.

Opera is the first web browser to bundle a free VPN tool as standard (with unlimited VPN data, no less), and it's hard to imagine that the competition won’t follow suit. Nothing has yet been announced, but the appearance of versions of Chrome or Firefox with integrated VPN would hardly be a surprise -- or would it? And how would you feel about a VPN tool supplied by Google?

EFF (the Electronic Frontier Foundation) has filed a Freedom of Information (FOIA) lawsuit against the Justice Department. The digital rights group wants to learn whether the government has made use of secret court orders to force tech companies to provide access to encrypted user data.

After the Apple vs the FBI battle, there has been renewed interest in how companies handle not only encryption, but government requests for access to such data. With services such as WhatsApp enabling end-to-end encryption, attention has now switched to what might be happening in the background without users' knowledge. While Apple very publicly refused to provide decryption keys, EFF -- and others -- are concerned that secret court orders may be used to hide what is really happening.

Apple has revealed that Chinese authorities have asked for access to the company's source code in the last couple of years. The revelation was made by Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell as he tried to deflect accusations that have sprung up in the wake of the San Bernardino iPhone case.

The battle between Apple and the FBI rumbled on for a while as authorities asked the iPhone manufacturer to crack encryption or provide a backdoor into the phone at the center of the case. Apple refused to help the FBI, leading to accusations that the company was failing to help US authorities whilst assisting those abroad. Apple categorically denies handing over information to the Chinese authorities.

Reinvigorated interest in privacy, security and surveillance means that the transparency reports published by tech companies are always greeted with some enthusiasm. How much data are governments around the world asking for from companies? How much user data are companies handing over to the authorities?

Apple's latest transparency report reveals that the iPhone manufacturer has complied with an increased number of requests for data -- including 80 percent of requests in North America, and 97 percent in Latin America. But while the report makes for interesting reading, it also highlights a problem that Microsoft recently sued the Department of Justice over: even if companies want to be transparent about data requests, when it comes to National Security Requests it is not even possible to report the precise number of requests that have been received.

The major messaging services are now placing a greater emphasis on their users' privacy and security, following the heated encryption debate started by Apple and the FBI. Viber has just announced end-to-end encryption support, making it the second leading player this month to introduce this feature after WhatsApp.

Viber has over 700 million users across the globe, but its end to end encryption feature will not be available everywhere right away. The company is focusing on Belarus, Brazil, Israel and Thailand first, with other markets to get the same treatment in the weeks that follow.