UK consumer group Which? finds some everyday items including watches and speakers are ‘stuffed with trackers’ Air fryers that gather your personal data and audio speakers “stuffed with trackers” are among examples of smart devices engaged in “excessive” surveillance, according to the consumer group Which? The organisation tested three air fryers, increasingly a staple of British kitchens, each of which requested permission to record audio on the user’s phone through a connected app. Continue reading...

An expert in digital forensics and family violence says surveillance by spyware is rare – more often it happens via everyday features such as location sharing * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast We’re looking for apps I don’t remember downloading, and which platforms can access my smartphone’s camera or microphone; who else can see my calendar, my notes, my emails. We also check the basics: whether my device is actually registered to my name and email address, and whether I have two-factor authentication turned on. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...

You’ve decided you don’t want to post pictures of your baby online. What about all the requests for cute photos from grandparents? Welcome to Opt Out, a semi-regular column in which we help you navigate your online privacy and show you how to say no to surveillance. The last column covered how to protect your baby’s photos on the internet. You’re a parent, and you’ve decided publicly posting your baby’s face on the internet is just not for you. You’ve got a handle on how to actually protect your baby’s photos on the internet (perhaps because you’ve read our guide!). Now it’s just a matter of doing it. Continue reading...

Agency accuses Meta, Google, TikTok and other companies of sharing troves of user information with third-parties Social media and online video companies are collecting huge troves of your personal information on and off their websites or apps and sharing it with a wide range of third-party entities, a new Federal Trade Commission (FTC) staff report on nine tech companies confirms. The FTC report published on Thursday looked at the data-gathering practices of Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, Discord, Reddit, Amazon, Snap, TikTok and Twitter/X between January 2019 and 31 December 2020. The majority of the companies’ business models incentivized tracking how people engaged with their platforms, collecting their personal data and using it to determine what content and ads users see on their feeds, the report states. Continue reading...

PM accused of ignoring civil rights and aping autocracies as he proposes new powers after far-right unrest Civil liberties campaigners have said that a proposal made by Keir Starmer on Thursday to expand the use of live facial recognition technology would amount to the effective introduction of a national ID card system based on people’s faces. Silkie Carlo, the director of Big Brother Watch, said it was ironic the new prime minister was suggesting a greater use of facial matching on the same day that an EU-wide law largely banning real-time surveillance technology came into force. Continue reading...

Officials seized documents from NSO Group to try to stop handover of information about notorious hacking tool, files suggest The Israeli government took extraordinary measures to frustrate a high-stakes US lawsuit that threatened to reveal closely guarded secrets about one of the world’s most notorious hacking tools, leaked files suggest. Israeli officials seized documents about Pegasus spyware from its manufacturer, NSO Group, in an effort to prevent the company from being able to comply with demands made by WhatsApp in a US court to hand over information about the invasive technology. Continue reading...