The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and ACLU of Massachusetts are demanding the Justice Department reveal how the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies are using facial recognition technology. The rights organization has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to compel the department about the use of the technology “and what safeguards,…
French regulators hit Google with a $57 million fine for violating GDPR rules that took effect last May by being less than upfront about how user data is collected and used. French data privacy agency CNIL levied the fine, the first against a U.S. company since GDPR took effect last spring, noting that Google “Essential…
While the Collection 1 data dump – a whopping 773 million unique emails – dazzled with its size, it also underscored the need to shift away from reliance on passwords and renewed calls for investments in more up-to-date and reliable security. “The sheer size and almost certain impacts of “Collection 1” are historic, but unfortunately…
The U.S. government’s social media surveillance activities, including the monitoring of immigrants and visa applications under the Trump administration’s extreme vetting effort, are in the crosshairs of a Freedom of Information (FOIA) lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the ACLU of Northern California. The suit, which takes aim at actions of the…
Amazon’s Ring devices reportedly granted the company’s Ukraine-based research and development team as well as U.S. executives and engineers virtually unfettered round the clock access to live feeds from some customer’s cameras, claims which Ring denies. The workers, regardless of whether they needed the information or not, allegedly had access to a folder on Amazon’s…
For more at least a week in December, an open MongoDB server exposed more than 200 million records with resumes of Chinese job seekers. On December 28, Bob Diachenko, director of cyber risk research at HackenProof, discovered an 854GB MongoDB database, containing information on “candidates’ skills and work experience but also on their personal info,…
As Congress prepares to question William Barr in confirmation hearings to become Attorney General, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is warning lawmakers that Barr’s “record regarding the right to privacy and the Fourth Amendment…raises serious concerns about his suitability” to hold the post. Contending that Barr helped create the U.S.’s surveillance state during his stint…
The State of California is suing The Weather Company (TWC) for allegedly misleading users about why their extremely precise location data was needed. The lawsuit claims TWC told its users that it collects data to personalize alerts and forecast but in reality, uses the data to profit from the selling of location data to advertisers,…
A report from Israeli news outlet Haaretz has ever so slightly lifted the veil on what may be Israel’s second largest commercial provider of offensive cyber tools and spyware, a clandestine company called Candiru. The candiru is South American parasitic catfish that, according to legend, invades swimmers’ urethras. Much like the fish after which it…
A newly released study of 34 prominent Android apps found that roughly 68 percent of them share user data with Facebook even when the device operator isn’t actively logged into the social media service or, for that matter, never created a Facebook account. In such instances, the apps typically communicate to the social media giant…
