March 6th, 2024
It’s taken years, but an American administration is finally starting to take privacy seriously. Today the Biden administration issued an Executive Order restricting the flow of personal data to China, Russia, and four other countries. In the ongoing struggle to preserve what little privacy we have left in the digital age, this is a step we should have taken years ago. Still, it’s an important step, and one that comes better late than never.
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February 1st, 2024
All of a sudden, privacy seems to matter. Well, it’s not entirely out of the blue, and we’ll have to wait to see whether anything really changes, but online privacy and safety are generating a lot of headlines these days. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized in a Senate hearing to victims of online abuse. “I’m sorry for everything you have all been through,” he said after a roasting by Missouri’s senior senator. Legislators are… Continue reading >
January 5th, 2024
Everywhere there are eyes, there will be cameras. That’s the future Meta—with other big tech companies in hot pursuit—are envisioning. What does that mean for privacy? Nothing good. Meta recently introduced a pair of smart glasses made in partnership with Ray-Ban. Unlike Google Glass, introduced in 2010s, they’re not ugly. Cool, even. It’s not hard to imagine people actually wanting to wear them, especially since they don’t look like a weird piece of tech. That’s the problem…. Continue reading >
January 3rd, 2024
This site typically focuses on privacy as it pertains to (or how it is undermined by) our phones, tablets, and home computers. Devices, some of which are small enough to fit your pocket. But an alarming article in the New York Times points out the threat to privacy by another—much bigger—device: our cars.
We’ve written about this before, but given how much time we spend in cars and… Continue reading >
December 13th, 2023
Lots of scams this time of year, lots of opportunities to make a quick slip and hand personal information to the wrong folks. Yes, the Grinch is on the prowl, and with all the online shopping we’re compelled to do during the holiday season—all the sites we visit, deals we chase, ads we click—it’s easy to become a victim. That’s the bad news. The good news is there are simple steps you can take to stay… Continue reading >
December 5th, 2023
If you’ve ever questioned the wisdom of sharing detailed information about yourself and your family—information spanning generations—with a faceless tech company, well, points for you. 23andMe recently announced a breach of data belonging to nearly 7 million people, equal to the population of Massachusetts. And that’s not just aggregate data about what links users clicked on a website; it’s deeply personal information, including family connections, names, and addresses. Incidents like this underscore the need to be especially… Continue reading >
November 29th, 2023
Seeing may not be believing any longer. AI-generated photos are quickly blurring the line between real or fake. Finding that line—and knowing what or who to trust—is more difficult than ever.
The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) has brought about a revolution in the field of photography. AI-powered tools can now generate realistic images, alter existing photos, and even create deepfakes – videos that convincingly replace one person’s face with another’s. While these… Continue reading >
November 15th, 2023
Have you ever been doxxed? Is someone out there doxxing a friend now? It’s in the news again, which means now is as good a time as any to remind ourselves just what it is, how it works, and how harmful the practice can be.
Doxxing is the act of publicly revealing private or identifying information about someone, typically online. (The term comes from “dropping documents.”) This information can include a person’s real… Continue reading >
October 24th, 2023
Increasing numbers of people are questioning whether significant use of Facebook and Instagram is good for our kids. Well, not just question. Nearly all the states—41 of them plus the Washington, D.C., to be precise—are suing Facebook and Instagram parent Meta, accusing the tech giant of deliberately using addictive features in its social media platforms.
“Our bipartisan investigation has arrived at a solemn conclusion: Meta has been harming our children and teens, cultivating addiction… Continue reading >
October 17th, 2023
What happens to the images you post online? They’re stored on a server that somebody else owns, their content mined for any data that can be monetized. That data includes the faces in the image. So think about what happens when you post a photo of your kids. Their faces get stored, identified, tagged, analyzed, and used to perfect facial recognition technology. That’s all valuable data for tech firms over which you have little, if any, control…. Continue reading >