Privacy technologies

Privacy technologies

A medical transcriptionist in Atlantic Canada, Tessa (who has been granted a pseudonym to avoid any conflict with her employer) works remotely, spending her days alone with doctors' voices and diagnostic codes. Fusion, the platform she uses, logged her inactivity in detail, and Microsoft Teams displayed an "Away" status just five minutes after her last keystroke. Her employer had set a target: transcribe at least eighty minutes of audio dictation per shift. Falling short could raise questions-especially if the inactivity logs suggested too much downtime.

Setting aside Mozilla's branding exercises for one moment, we thought we'd start with the modest new features in the release notes. The top feature here is the ability to add and read comments in PDF files. In a previous life, the Reg FOSS desk was a technical writer, and this feature will be very welcome for people collaboratively writing and editing.

Prediction and detection algorithms are at the core of the Bytek Prediction Platform, the prediction platform that unlocks the power of secure, privacy-compliant first-party data for enterprise advertisers. These models enable the creation of audiences based on product and thematic interests, as well as predictive segments built on customer lifetime value (Predictive LTV) and conversion probability (Action Prediction). These audiences are then activated through Anonymised's technology, which ensures the secure processing of Bytek's raw analytics and eliminates the risks traditionally associated with sharing first-party data in digital advertising.

In 2016, I presented at @Roblox Indie Game Developer Meetup about design strategy as an indie developer. Back then, I had no idea children as young as 5 were interacting with random adults on their platform. Today, the same company (NYSE: $RBLX) is filled with poorly moderated "games" like Bathroom Simulator and worse - all while letting adults animate their avatars for sexual role play.

By early November 2025, the sector's combined market capitalization surged nearly 80%, briefly topping the $24 billion to $25 billion range. Zcash ( ZEC) rallied to its highest level in seven years, while Dash ( DASH) notched a three-year high as trading activity accelerated across major exchanges. The move reflects a textbook rotation. Prolonged downtrends finally gave way, short positions were forced to cover, and anticipation around Zcash's upcoming halving provided traders with a renewed catalyst amid a largely stagnant broader market.

Atlas comes with ChatGPT baked in, and while it can navigate the web like traditional browsers, the company says it can do much more. A feature that OpenAI calls "agentic mode" can take action, like an agent who can shop for you, make reservations, or buy plane tickets. On that livestream, Altman's colleague demonstrated how it can read an online recipe, figure out how many ingredients are needed for a set of diners, then buy the ingredients online.

Discord is expanding the safety controls parents and guardians have access to in its Family Center, including increased visibility of their teens' activity, allowing guardians to control sensitive content filtering and data privacy settings, and giving them more control over who can DM their teens. New Social Permissions toggles will allow guardians to choose whether their teens can receive direct messages only from friends or from anyone who's a member of the same servers as them. However, Discord is still promising teens that, "As always, guardians can't see the content of the messages you send."

When I was a teenager, I arrived at a friend's house and she accidentally texted me instead of her then boyfriend. "Saoirse is here," she wrote, "we're heading to the shop, OK?" You can imagine my bewilderment when I received the text, and again when I asked if she had meant to send it to her dad or something, and was told that no, her boyfriend just likes to know where she is to make sure she's safe.

Early Black Friday deals are slowly trickling in, including a limited-time offer on NordVPN. The VPN company is offering its several of its subscription plans for up to 77% off, with an additional 3 months tacked on for even better value. Using a VPN is a good way to buff up your privacy capabilities and maintain access to region-locked content while traveling. If you've been on the fence, NordVPN's discounted prices make now a great time to consider a subscription.

"R unpacking items from a box," read one notification from the Nest camera on a shelf in the kitchen. "Jenni cuts a pie / B walks into the kitchen, washes dishes in the sink / Jenni gets a drink from the refrigerator," it continued. Sometimes, the alerts sounded like the start of a joke, "A dog, a person, and two cats walk into the room / Two chickens walk across the patio."

By announcing the elimination of IP address logging on Google Analytics, the tech titan is doubling down on its focus on consumer data privacy. While some applaud the move, other see it as a headache for advertisers and another nail in the coffin of digital marketing as we know it. Google is axing Internet Protocol (IP) address logging on its analytics platform.

Meta on Monday announced an update to Facebook Groups that will allow admins to make their previously private groups public, without compromising the privacy of their existing members. The company said that past content will remain private after the conversion, and member lists will remain protected. Often, admins start their groups as private, thinking they will remain small, but then realize they could reach a much broader audience if they were easier to find.

Several months after AI-powered age verification rolled out to YouTube, age checks are hitting another Google service. Over the past several days, users have spotted a new age verification system appearing on the Google Play Store. When attempting to download certain apps, users are greeted with a verification pop-up asking to confirm their age. According to reports from people who have already seen this pop-up, you aren't able to download many apps until this is done.

If you've been following the wave of age-gating laws sweeping across the country and , you've probably noticed that lawmakers, tech companies, and advocates all seem to be using different terms for what sounds like the same thing. Age verification, age assurance, age estimation, age gating-they get thrown around interchangeably, but they technically mean different things. And those differences matter a lot when we're talking about your rights, your privacy, your data, and who gets to access information online.

Berkeley Police Chief Jennifer Louis said the change was necessary to align with state and federal privacy requirements, protect officers when on duty and prevent potential suspects from evading arrest. Having considered alternatives, Louis said switching between encrypted and unencrypted channels would be challenging given a dispatch staffing shortage and delaying the feed or creating a key or workaround for media would not solve the issue of protecting sensitive information, as required by a 2020 memo from former California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.

Instead, Meta argued, available evidence "is plainly indicative" that the flagged adult content was torrented for "private personal use"-since the small amount linked to Meta IP addresses and employees represented only "a few dozen titles per year intermittently obtained one file at a time." "The far more plausible inference to be drawn from such meager, uncoordinated activity is that disparate individuals downloaded adult videos for personal use," Meta's filing said.

Last week, the privacy-focused messaging service Signal was temporarily shut down when Amazon Web Services (AWS) suffered a major outage. This led to criticism of Signal's use of such a dominant provider as AWS.

Crypto markets continue to struggle on the back of the FOMC meeting this past Wednesday. Fed Chair Powell's comment of no guarantee of cuts in December has had markets reeling, with Bitcoin beginning to recover today, trading above its 200 day SMA at around $110,000 at this time of writing. But Bitcoin's recovery is not as significant as Z-Cash, the crypto story of the moment.

Some grocery stores owned by Sobeys Inc. are the latest Toronto stores to test body-worn cameras. In a statement, the retailer confirmed it's piloting the project after the bodycams were spotted on FreshCo cashiers in a store located at Sherbourne and Isabella streets. The cameras are being used to combat harassment and assault directed toward employees and to prevent shoplifting and other crimes, Sobeys spokesperson Caitlin Gray said.

Both Google and Apple are cramming new AI features into their phones and other devices, and neither company has offered clear ways to control which apps those AI systems can access. Recent issues around WhatsApp on both Android and iPhone demonstrate how these interactions can go sideways, risking revealing chat conversations beyond what you intend. Users deserve better controls and clearer documentation around what these AI features can access.

Meta, Instagram's parent company, acknowledged that "teens may try to avoid these restrictions," so it's using age-prediction technology to apply protections even when users misreport their age. The AI system looks for behavioral and contextual clues that someone claiming to be 18 might actually be younger. It's not perfect, but it's far more reliable than relying on self-reported birthdays. Under the new system, anyone under 18 is automatically placed into "13+" mode.