Privacy professionals

Privacy professionals

Our live panel featured (EFF Associate Director of Community Organizing), (EFF Staff Technologist), Mitch Stoltz (EFF IP Litigation Director) and Yael Grauer , Program Manager at Consumer Reports. Together, they unpacked how we arrived at a point where a handful of major tech companies dictate so much of our digital rights, how these monopolies erode privacy, and what real-world consequences come from constant data collection-and most importantly, what you can do to fight back.

It's a nervy time to be a frontline worker in a call center or back-office hub. Startups are advertising 'AI employees' and the likes of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz are talking of AI ' productizing and unbundling ' the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector that executes the core functions of corporations around the globe. No doubt customer service, HR, and IT workers in the industry are wondering how their employers will respond-and whether their livelihoods are at risk.

There's lots of models that help make that very financially attainable, especially for startups and especially for companies that are gathering intimate information, because that's what data brokers want,

"So, I work from home and my employer just started time tracking," Tim began in his video. "It takes screenshots every 10 minutes or so, tracks my mouse activity, keyboard activity, the URLs I visit, and what percentage of time I spend on doing whatever." Tim explained that despite his company's best efforts to monitor the work that he's doing and ensure that he's actually completing it on time, at the end of the day, none of that changes what he does.

Together, these teams would operate as intelligence arms of ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations division. They will receive tips and incoming cases, research individuals online, and package the results into dossiers that could be used by field offices to plan arrests. The scope of information contractors are expected to collect is broad. Draft instructions specify open-source intelligence: public posts, photos, and messages on platforms from Facebook to Reddit to TikTok.

Traditional car insurance sets premiums based partly on estimated annual mileage. Pay-per-mile splits the cost in two: Base rate. Covers risks like theft, fire, or weather-related damage. Per-mile rate. A set amount for every mile driven. Mileage is confirmed through telematics devices, odometer photos, connected-car systems, or smartphone apps. Many plans include a daily mileage cap, so the occasional road trip doesn't blow your monthly total.

The ads on my phone were getting too personal. I could look up headphones once and then see them everywhere, from YouTube to random free games. Even after I stopped shopping, the same product continued to follow me. It became a steady reminder that my activity might be linked across apps, and I could not ignore it. I opened my privacy settings to see what I could change.

At EFF, we that tech rights are worker's rights . Since the pandemic, workers of all kinds have been subjected to increasingly invasive forms of . These are the "algorithmic management" tools that surveil workers on and off the job, often running on devices that (nominally) belong to workers, hijacking our phones and laptops. On the job, digital technology can become both a system of ubiquitous surveillance and a means of total control .

The British government has ordered Apple to hand over personal data uploaded by its customers to the cloud for the second time this year in an ongoing privacy row that has raised concerns among civil liberties campaigners. The Home Office issued a demand in early September for the tech behemoth to create a so-called back door that would allow the authorities access to private data uploaded by United Kingdom Apple customers after a previous attempt that included customers in the United States failed,

"They're already farming your clicks and posts to target ads. Now they're mining your conversations with chatbots," Bender said. "The obvious next concern is whether the chatbot itself will start nudging people to disclose information that makes them more targetable."

Hyper-personalization-AI's ability to tailor experiences down to the individual level-has become the new norm. For many consumers, these recommendations feel helpful, convenient, and even delightful. Yet, for others, they provoke discomfort, raising questions about just how much these platforms know about us. This paradox is at the heart of a growing debate: Does hyper-personalization build consumer trust and loyalty, or does it erode them by feeling intrusive? And more importantly, how does it shape our purchase intention?

In their gold rush to build cloud and AI tools, Big Tech is also enabling unprecedented government surveillance. Thanks to reporting from The Guardian, +972 Magazine, Local Call, and The Intercept, we have insights into the murky deals between the Israeli Government and Big Tech firms. Designed to insulate governments from scrutiny and accountability, these deals bode a dark future for humanity, one that is built using the same tools that once promised a bright, positive world.

"The preliminary investigation is ongoing, and we are assessing the scope of any concerns and any necessary required remediation," the spokesperson added. "We are in the process of evaluating technical remediation solutions and will act as appropriate. Compliance with the Privacy Act and identifying a solution for this technical problem is critical to the DAF to ensure warfighter readiness and lethality."

Redmond has done so unilaterally, effectively endorsing "shadow IT" - the practice of bringing unapproved software and devices into the workplace. Earlier this year, Microsoft said it had adopted a new approach to shadow IT. "While earlier eras of our IT history focused on trying to prevent shadow IT, we are now concentrating on managing it," the biz said in a blog post. By "managing," Microsoft also means "enabling."

Google announced that Android developers will now have to register. This not only involves paying a fee, but Google also requires the submission of official identity documents and the unique identifiers of all apps they want to distribute. According to F-Droid, this means that independent developers who make their software available via the platform will no longer be able to operate outside of Google.

Security researchers are shining the spotlight on a serious security vulnerability that could enable stalkers to track victims using their own Tile tags, as well as other unwanted violations of security and privacy. Research outlined by Wired shows that Tile's anti-theft mode, which makes its trackers "invisible" on the Tile network, counteracts measures to prevent stalking. Bad actors could also potentially intercept unencrypted information sent from the tags, like their unique IDs and MAC addresses,

Berkeley could soon start planning how to equip the Berkeley Police Department and other first responders with drones to track fleeing suspects, provide reconnaissance during standoffs and gain a bird's-eye view of disasters like earthquakes and fires, among other uses. A proposal from Councilmember Terry Taplin would task the City Manager's Office with developing an acquisition report and use policy for drones.

The ICO said the use of what it calls "robo call technology" - avatar software that allows callers to present themselves as people they are not - is making it more difficult to discern genuine calls from those made by predatory marketeers. It said the telltale signs of such calls include slight pauses before responses (indicating call handlers selecting recordings to play), limited flexibility to answer offbeat questions, identical voices and tones, and no background noise or natural breaks in speech.