Clearview AI is widely considered as a privacy nightmare. With the exposure of it’s own source code on the Internet due a server misconfiuration, it’s clear that it cannot even handle it’s most important assets. The privacy blunder was made public by Mossab Hussein, chief security officer of SpiderSilk when he gained access to a...
Category: Privacy
Jitsi for the win
Everybody seems to make video calls all the time these days. The usage of Zoom has skyrocketed and so have the privacy issues with this videoconferencing app. As alternative we recommend Jitsi. It’s open source (yay!), it uses a good level of encryption (yay!) and you can install it on your own server (yay!). And...
Over 500,000 Zoom accounts sold on hacker forums, the dark web
More than 500.000 Zoom accounts have emerged for sale on the dark web and hacker forums, according to a new report by BleepingComputer. Zoom has become a very popular videoconferencing app in recent weeks when the number of people working from home has grown. With the growing popularity, concerns about the app’s security have also...
Clearview AI’s Facial Recognition Tech Is Being Used By The Justice Department, ICE, And The FBI
Clearview’s facial recognition AI is not only used by law enforcement; there is a large number of private companies that have Clearview accounts, like Kohl’s and Walmart and banks like Wells Fargo and Bank of America. While most of these companies have no formal contracts with Clearview and appear to have used Clearview’s software on...
The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It – The New York Times
How do you feel about the end of privacy on public places? In public transport? When you can identfy every stranger that passes by? When every stranger can indentify you without your knowledge? While this might be still a bit away, the NY Times reports that a start-up called Clearview AI is using a massive...
Personal Data Is Valuable. Give Pricing Power to the People | WIRED
Wired article by Olaf Groth, Tobias Straube and Dan Zehr discussing a market that establishes a price for privacy-assured data and returns a fair share of that value to the people: Today, people fuel the digital economy with vast streams of data but have virtually no power to demand fair compensation for it. The companies...
No, FaceApp Isn’t Sending All Your Photos to Russia, But It Shows Why Tech Companies Have a Very Real Trust Problem
A now deleted tweet by a developer triggered a number of blog posts and articles claiming that Russians were involved (FaceApp’s developers are based in Russia), and that the app was uploading your photos to servers in countries that you’d rather not like to see your data stored. This is a reminder how trust is...
How Digital Advertising Markets Really Work
How valuable is data for advertising? From the article: If a company that sells online ads can know what their readers are reading on other sites, then they can target the users based on that information when the user returns to their own site. For example, say Michael visits CNBC’s website in the mornings and...
Apple contractors ‘regularly hear confidential details’ on Siri recordings | The Guardian
Apple has positioned itself as company that respects the privacy of their users. However, as The Guardian reports, Apple’s contractors have access to a certain percentage of all Siri-recordings. They regularly listen to confidential conversations of users, like drug deals, discussions about medical details and to even people having sex. Source: Apple contractors ‘regularly hear...
Should you use WhatsApp in an Organisation?
The answer is: No. And here’s why WhatsApp should not be used in an organisation. WhatsApp belongs to Facebook and is certified under the US-EU Privacy Shield. This makes it legally possible to transfer data to the US government, even if your are not a US citizen. WhatsApp asks for permission to upload all contact...
