Privacy technologies

Privacy technologies

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.

Milliman was convinced that Elser had stolen a package off someone's stoop. As evidence, Milliman had obtained records compiled by Flock, a controversial police surveillance startup that's taking the United States by storm. As a display of the department's technological panopticon, Milliman noted the woman had driven through Bow Mar "20 times the last month." "Like I said, we have cameras everywhere in that town," the officer reiterated.

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.

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.

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. See @asmongold on YouTube for reference: 💡 To me, Roblox represents what happens when a publicly-traded corporation is incentivised to prioritize adult wallets over child safety! And it's not just them - too many platforms still rely on outdated email/SIM logins that completely ignore age verification.

Smart glasses, like the newly revealed Meta Ray-Ban Displays, solve lots of problems. They can provide live translation and captions while chatting with a foreign friend, they can use provide turn-by-turn directions and a mini map so you don't get lost on the way to that new coffeeshop, they can take pictures so you're not fumbling with your phone while enjoying a sunset or nature walk.

It's a small, round, white object that is supposed to be hung from the neck. Wherever you go, it goes too, listening to and gathering data from everything you say and do in order to "know" you as much as possible. Then, when you "talk" to Friend, it should deliver the most personal and helpful answers through its companion app. And you get all of that for $129.

For years, tech behemoth Google threatened to crack down on browser extension activity within its Chrome browser to improve security. Now, the company is making good on its threats and disabling browser extensions that don't comply with Manifest V3, its browser extension framework. Security experts, such as those at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), argue that Manifest V3 is not a viable solution for addressing real security concerns, including browser extensions that scrape users' browsing histories and sell the data to the highest bidder.

Surveillance pricing has dominated headlines recently. Delta Air Lines' announcement that it will use artificial intelligence to set individualized ticket prices has led to widespread concerns about companies using personal data to charge different prices for identical products. As The New York Times reported, this practice involves companies tracking everything from your hotel bookings to your browsing history to determine what you're willing to pay.