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Content Type: Guide step
Online trackers are small bits of code embedded directly into a website's main code which collect data points about you and your browsing activity. This may include the pages you visit, how long you spend on them, where you scroll and the links you click on. On top of the online advertising industry, there are other actors that can potentially make use of trackers to track your online activity, including governments and/or law enforcement agencies.
There are extensions you can add to your…
Content Type: Guide step
Privacy Badger es una extensión para el navegador que bloquea los anuncios y los rastreadores para evitar que las empresas rastreen tus actividades en línea. Esta extensión lleva una lista actualizada de los rastreadores que detecta mediante pruebas automatizadas (que se hacen a través de servidores especializados y no desde tu computador) y periódicamente envía la lista actualizada a tu navegador. De este modo, cada vez que detecta nuevos servidores de anuncios (por ejemplo, si una nueva…
Content Type: Guide step
When you access a website, your browser sends a string called the User Agent containing your browser's name, operating system, and other technical metadata of your device. Unfortunately, this metadata is often abused by trackers to build a fingerprint of your system and uniquely identify you throughout the web. To limit the efficiency of fingerprinting you can install a random agent switcher which periodically changes your browser's user agent, making it harder to uniquely identify you.…
Content Type: Guide step
Las redes de distribución de contenidos (CDN) son redes geográficamente distribuidas de servidores proxy que buscan ofrecer funciones como mejorar la disponibilidad y el rendimiento de los sitios web. Aunque el objetivo es loable, también implica que los proveedores de CDN reciben metadatos vinculados con los sitios web que visitas (donde están configurados). Por ello, quizá sea conveniente sacrificar estas ventajas adicionales y prescindir de los grandes proveedores de CDN (como Google y…
Content Type: Guide step
Content delivery networks (CDNs) are geographically distributed network of proxy servers that seek to provide features such as better availability and performances for websites. While the goal is commendable, it also means that these CDN providers receive metadata related to the websites you visit (where they are setup). With this is mind, you might want to sacrifice the added convenience and avoid large CDN providers (such as Google and Cloudflare) to prevent them from obtaining any data…
Content Type: Guide step
Cómo instalar un administrador de cookies en Chrome (y derivados) - Cookie Autodelete
Las cookies permiten que los sitios web guarden los datos de una sesión, como las credenciales de acceso o los artículos en el carrito de compras, con el propósito de que no pierdas la información al cerrar la página. Desafortunadamente, con frecuencia se abusa de las cookies para rastrear tu actividad en línea en la red. Utilizar una extensión especializada te permite limpiar las cookies con regularidad para asegurarte de que tu navegador no guarde ninguna cookie no deseada, lo que permite…
Content Type: Guide step
Cuando accedes a un sitio web, tu navegador envía una cadena llamada agente de usuario que recoge el nombre de tu navegador, el sistema operativo y otros metadatos técnicos de tu dispositivo. Desafortunadamente, los rastreadores suelen abusar de estos metadatos para crear una huella digital de tu sistema e identificarte con precisión en toda la web. Para limitar la capacidad de obtener tu huella digital, puedes instalar un conmutador de agente de usuario para cambiar periódicamente el agente de…
Content Type: Guide step
When you access a website, your browser sends a string called the User Agent containing your browser's name, operating system, and other technical metadata of your device. Unfortunately, this metadata is often abused by trackers to build a fingerprint of your system and uniquely identify you throughout the web. To limit the efficiency of fingerprinting you can install a tool which periodically changes your browser's user agent, making it harder to uniquely identify you. Random User-Agent is an…
Content Type: Guide step
DNS level content blocking prevents your device from connecting to known domains that will serve you unwanted ads and track you across all different apps and browsers on your device.
DNS or 'Domain Name System' is basically the 'phone book for the internet'. On the internet, all your requests to access websites are routed to IP addresses. Since IP addresses are sets of numbers and hard to remember, we usually address hosts by their much easier to remember host-name (e.g. privacyinternational.…
Content Type: Guide step
Blokada es un bloqueador de anuncios que actúa como una VPN para bloquear el tráfico no deseado con base en hostnames (urls). Esto evita que las aplicaciones ejecutándose en tu dispositivo carguen anuncios y datos maliciosos.
Instalación
Para instalar Blokada, visita su página en la Play Store y haz clic en Instalar (Fig. 1).
Content Type: Press release
The case stems from a 2016 decision by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), the UK tribunal tasked with examining complaints against the UK intelligence services, that the UK government could lawfully use sweeping ‘thematic warrants’ to engage in computer hacking of thousands or even millions of devices, without any approval by a judge or individualised reasonable grounds for suspicion. Thematic warrants are general warrants covering an entire class of property, persons or conduct, such as…
Content Type: Guide step
El ID de publicidad es un identificador único que ofrece el sistema operativo Android y que los anunciantes pueden utilizar para identificarte con precisión. Facilita que los anunciantes o las empresas que comercializan datos (data brokers) elaboren un perfil que después puede ser usado para personalizar los anuncios u otros fines.
Cómo cancelar la personalización de anuncios
Ya hemos escrito antes sobre los riesgos que suponen los anuncios personalizados para tu privacidad digital.
Para…
Content Type: Guide step
The Advertising ID is a unique identifier native to the Android Operating System that advertisers might use to uniquely identify you. It facilitates the creation of profiles by advertisers or data brokers that can later be used for advertisement targeting or other purposes.
Warning: Android settings may be placed on different menus depending on the distribution you are running. In which case, you can use the search feature to quickly find the settings mentioned in this guide.
Opt out of…
Content Type: Long Read
In 2019, we exposed the practices of five menstruation apps that were sharing your most intimate data with Facebook and other third parties. We were pleased to see that upon the publication of our research some of them decided to change their practices. But we always knew the road to effective openness, transparency, informed consent and data minimisation would be a long one when it comes to apps, which for the most part make profit from our menstrual cycle and even sometimes one’s desire to…
Content Type: Video
**Language advisory: Gus does several swearwords this episode including one f-word at 9:45
From surveillance drones to cameras to wiretapping and more - the EU are providing technologies that will be used to crush political and civil freedoms and undermine democracy without urgent reforms
Find out more:
https://privacyinternational.org/long-read/4288/borders-without-borders-how-eu-exporting-surveillance-bid-outsource-its-border
https://privacyinternational.org/…
Content Type: Advocacy
Section 187 of the Data Protection Act read with Article 80 of the GDPR gives individuals the option to seek assistance from public interest non-profit organisations to take action against data controllers which have infringed their data rights. In this role, non-profit organisations may:
make complaints to the regulator on the individual’s behalf;
represent the individual in the courts when seeking a resolution of those complaints; and
bring legal claims against organisations they believe…
Content Type: Examples
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced it would end screening of inbound international passengers from a group of countries including the UK, Brazil, Iran, Ireland, and the EU Schengen countries in the third week of September. CDC said it would replace the programme with new, “more effective” procedures such as better education about COVID-19, voluntary collection of contact information, recommendations for self-monitoring, and “potential” testing for COVID-19. As…
Content Type: Examples
In mid-September, “human error” led Public Health Wales to post the personal data of all 18,000-odd Welsh residents who tested positive for COVID-19 between the end of February and the end of August to a public server, where for about 20 hours it was readily searchable by any visitor to the site. For 1,926 people who live in enclosed settings such as nursing homes and supported housing, the data included the name of the setting; for the rest the information consisted of initials, date of birth…
Content Type: Examples
A nationwide US study plans to examine the impact on employer surveillance of the shift of workers from on-site office environments to working in their homes. The authors intend to highlight worker (dis)comfort and concerns.
Source: https://covid19research.ssrc.org/grantee/how-covid-19-is-changing-workplace-surveillance-american-workers-experiences-and-privacy-expectations-when-working-from-home/
Writer: Jessica Vitak and Michael Zimmer
Publication: Social Science Research Council
Content Type: Examples
As working from home expands, employers are ramping up surveillance using the features built into software such as Microsoft Teams and Slack, which report when employees are active, or requiring employees to attend early-morning video conferences with webcams switched on. In early 2020, PwC developed a facial recognition tool to log when employees are away from their home computer screens.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/27/shirking-from-home-staff-feel-the-heat-as-…
Content Type: Examples
The US company Hubstaff, which provides monitoring software to employers, says its UK customer base quadrupled between February and October 2020. The software tracks workers’ hours, keystrokes, mouse movements, and website visits. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development warns that workplace surveillance can damage trust.
Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54289152
Writer: Lora Jones
Publication: BBC
Content Type: Examples
The Citizen app, which was designed to allow users to see unverified reports of crime in their neighbourhoods, is partnering with Los Angeles County for its contact tracing app, SafePass, which uses Bluetooth and GPS to track interactions with other people. Citizen has been criticised in the past for inundating people with crime alerts and inspiring panic in times when crime rates are at a historic low, and public safety experts and lawmakers are concerned that the repurposed app could create…
Content Type: Examples
While countries like New Zealand, Singapore, and South Korea publish detailed near-real-time data on local coronavirus outbreaks, the US offers very few details on how the disease is spreading due to political meddling, privacy concerns, and long-time neglect of public health surveillance systems. CDC reports are often delayed until after they can influence outcomes, a problem that has not been helped by the Trump administration’s decision to divert data from the CDC to a new $10 million system…
Content Type: Examples
The UK Department of Health has hired the credit-checking company TransUnion to verify the names and addresses of people requesting home coronavirus tests, placing millions at risk of being barred from access to these tests. The government says the purpose is to prevent abuse of the public testing system; TransUnion says it does not run credit checks but uses various third-party sources, including electoral registers, to verify identities. The London Assembly, however, notes that up to 5.8…
Content Type: Examples
In October UK health officials discovered that limitations on the number of rows on an older version of Microsoft’s spreadsheet software Excel led the system to miss 16,000 positive coronavirus tests and fail to alert an estimated 50,000 people who had been in close contact with them that they should quarantine. About half of the missed cases are thought to have been in northwest England, where infection rates were already rising. The government’s science advisors recommended revamping the…
Content Type: Examples
The UK exams regulator, Ofqual, awarded a £46,000 contract for less than a month’s work providing “urgent communications support” to the small research agency Public First, which is owned by James Frayne, a close associate of prime ministerial special advisor Dominic Cummings, and Rachel Wolf, a former advisor to cabinet minister Michael Gove. This contract brings to more than £1 million the amount of public contracts awarded without tender to Public First. Previous directly awarded contracts…
Content Type: Examples
Canada has a reputation, both at home and around the world, as a beacon of tolerance when it comes to acceptance of immigrants and refugees. Part of this is due to the favourable attitudes of Canadians on the issue. Over the decade, the balance of opinion in Canada has become increasingly positive about the number of immigrants arriving in Canada and the benefits they bring to the country’s economy.
Is the dramatic impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic, causing Canadians to reconsider their…
Content Type: Video
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Content Type: Long Read
All around the world people rely on state support in order to survive. From healthcare, to benefits for unemployment or disability or pensions, at any stage of life we may need to turn to the state for some help. And tech companies have realised there is a profit to be made.
This is why they have been selling a narrative that relying on technology can improve access to and delivery of social benefits. The issue is that governments have been buying it. This narrative comes along with a…