Instagram blocked the search terms. Its algorithm serves the videos anyway
Instagram blocked the search terms. Its algorithm serves the videos anyway

The genre is simple enough to describe. A man wearing camera glasses walks up to a woman in the street. He delivers a line and films her reaction without asking. The clip goes to Instagram, tagged as shot on Meta glasses. The woman is now content. Some…

Apple ordered to stop scaring iPhone and iPad users away from third-party apps
Apple ordered to stop scaring iPhone and iPad users away from third-party apps

Apple’s changing its rules for data collection consent prompts after Germany’s Federal Cartel Office accused Apple of giving the prompts a design that favored its own apps. Apple’s App Tracking Transparency prompts reportedly cost social media apps nearly $10 billion when they launched with iOS 14.5, making cross-app tracking of users largely opt in. But […]

Patent Filing Suggests Meta’s Facial Recognition Glasses Are Coming

A patent filing details ways that Meta could use facial recognition with its smart glasses to create media files, such as videos.

A phone company just lost 1.6 million records to a phone call
A phone company just lost 1.6 million records to a phone call

Have I Been Pwned logged the leaked records, and The Register reported the dump on 14 August. Jessica Lyons, its cybersecurity editor, wrote it. A ShinyHunters spokesperson told her the group broke in by voice-phishing a member of staff. There was no e…

New York City Lawmakers Push to ‘Ban the Scan’ at MSG

At a press conference outside Madison Square Garden, politicians, musicians, and privacy advocates argued for tighter restrictions on how public venues deploy biometric surveillance.

France’s under-15 social media ban is struck down two weeks before it starts
France’s under-15 social media ban is struck down two weeks before it starts

The decision lands about two weeks before the ban was due to start, Bloomberg reported. Platforms were to stop creating accounts for under-15s from 1 September. Parliament gave the law final approval on 21 July. The desk covered that final vote at the …

US courts will start publishing how often the government uses spyware

The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts told TechCrunch that it will start disclosing how many times judges authorized the use of spyware to wiretap suspected criminals.

Flock Safety cuts data retention to seven days after dozens of police abuse cases
Flock Safety cuts data retention to seven days after dozens of police abuse cases

Garrett Langley, the company’s chief executive, set out the package in a post on Flock’s own blog on 13 August. It covers six areas. Privacy, accountability, data ownership, data security, data accuracy and transparency. Most of the Flock Safety privac…

Meta removed 756,000 Australian accounts. Its real ask is that Apple does the checking
Meta removed 756,000 Australian accounts. Its real ask is that Apple does the checking

Representatives of Meta, TikTok, Google and Snap give evidence to an Australian parliamentary inquiry on Friday, Reuters reported. Regulators and government officials appear too. Meta went first, and it went alone. On Wednesday it published its enforce…

We Spotted So Many Workarounds for Flock’s New Rules on Police Camera Surveillance

Toothless limitations aren’t a great look for Flock’s modern surveillance.