Authorities need to have rules in place to ensure that lawful social media snooping doesn’t slip into covert ops, the UK’s chief surveillance commissioner has said.…

They can be hacked. They're a privacy nightmare. This year, it's not too late to keep the IoT toys away from the tree.

2016 may have killed every famous person we ever cared about, but it was tame compared to the dumpster fire of security screw-ups and privacy violations that 2017 had in store. Here's our look back.

A bipartisan group of US senators have lambasted an effort to force permanent authorization of a controversial warrantless American spying program through Congress by attaching it to an end-of-year spending bill, calling the effort "an end-run around the Constitution."…

German watchdog accuses site of merging data from WhatsApp and Instagram into users’ Facebook accounts without consent

Germany’s competition authority has accused Facebook of abusing its dominant market position to improperly amass third-party data on its users. 

A statement released on Tuesday criticised the world’s largest social media site for collecting data via Facebook-owned services, such as WhatsApp or Instagram, and then absorbing it into users’ Facebook accounts.

Information on more than 120 million American households was sitting in a massive database found left exposed on the web earlier this month, Forbes has been told. It included an extraordinary range of personal details on residents, including addresses, ethnicity, interests and hobbies, income, right down to what kind of mortgage the house was under and how many children lived at the property. In total, there were 248 different data fields for each household, according to the researcher who uncovered the leak data this week.

The revelation that supposedly anonymous medical data can be re-identified tops off a year of data governance incompetence by the Australian government. But will there even be a response, let alone a fix?

According to a report from SamMobile, it appears that Samsung will help users name their screenshots based on the image that was taken. For example if you take a screenshot of the home screen or app drawer, the file will be named Screenshot_Samsung Experience Home, or if you take a photo of YouTube it will be called Screenshot_YouTube. The time and date of the screenshot will also be added to the file name, which will make it easier for users to identify in the future.

Facebook says police and government agents' requests for users' information as well as takedown demands are increasing

The European Union is working to adopt a new regulation that will introduce tougher export controls for technologies which can be used to spy on citizens.  

The new rules, which were proposed last year, are up for a plenary vote early next month in the European Parliament, where they are expected to pass.

Facebook und der Datenschutz, schon „immer“ gab es da Streitigkeiten. Facebook benötigt Daten, um richtig zu funktionieren, das deutsche Datenschutzrecht macht dies Facebook aber gar nicht so einfach. So schritt auch das Bundeskartellamt ein, als es um die missbräuchliche Ausnutzung einer marktbeherrschenden Stellung ging. Dazu liegt nun eine vorläufige rechtliche Einschätzung des Bundeskartellamtes vor, das nach aktuellem Stand davon ausgeht, dass Facebook marktbeherrschend ist. Daraus resultiert dann auch die weitere Einschätzung, dass diese Marktbeherrschung missbräuchlich genutzt wird.

For 2018, we’re not selling directly to folks in the EU.

Long term, I’m hopeful that the GDPR will get sorted out in a way that protects consumers’ rights, and still lets businesses use off-the-shelf tools and policies to provide services to the EU. Hopefully the situation improves quickly and we can revisit that policy in 2019.

A Dutch security firm recently fell victim to a well-executed attack that allowed hackers to take control of its servers and intercept clients' login credentials and confidential data.

London’s Metropolitan Police believes that its artificial intelligence software will be up to the task of detecting images of child abuse in the next “two to three years.” But, in its current state, the system can’t tell the difference between a photo of a desert and a photo of a naked body.

In an effort to make facial recognition technology more appealing to members of its clicky commerce club, social ad network Facebook on Tuesday said it will begin notifying people when they appear in the pictures posted by other people, sometimes.

The Chair of the National Data Protection Commission (CNIL) issues formal notice to the company WHATSAPP to legally transfer its users’ data to FACEBOOK, especially by obtaining their consent.

In Jordaniens Camps werden Geflüchtete per Iris-Scan registriert und fortan identifiziert. Ablehnen können sie das nicht. So wird die EyeHood-Technik marktreif gemacht.

Often marketed as "Beat the Boss phones", the tiny feature phones can be bought for around £20 to £30 online on sites including Amazon, Ebay and Gumtree. On the inside, they can change hands for up to £500.

The phones, which can be as small as lipsticks, are popular with prison inmates due to their discreet size and lack of metal, which allows them to beat metal detectors.

Half of Britons see one of the UK's largest tabloids, The Sun, as a negative influence on society, according to a new poll.

The YouGov survey, published on Monday, commissioned by the campaign group Stop Funding Hate, comes amid concerns the media is stirring up anti-Muslim, anti-migrant, and anti-EU sentiment.

Policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were told of the list of forbidden terms at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget, according to an analyst who took part in the 90-minute briefing. The forbidden terms are “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”

In some instances, the analysts were given alternative phrases. Instead of “science-based” or ­“evidence-based,” the suggested phrase is “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes,” the person said. In other cases, no replacement words were immediately offered.