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Content Type: News & Analysis
Photo by Daniel Jensen on Unsplash
Everyone is talking about Facebook's end-to-end encryption plans and the US, UK and Australian government's response. Feeling lost? Here is what you need to know.
What's Facebook trying to do?
First let's be clear: Facebook has many faults when it comes to privacy. It's also suffered a number of security failures recently. See here for instance.
In response to their successive failures to protect your privacy, Facebook announced in their 'pivot to privacy…
Content Type: Impact Case Study
What HappenedOn 5 June 2013, The Guardian published the first in a series of documents disclosed by Edward Snowden, a whistleblower who had worked with the NSA. The documents revealed wide-ranging mass surveillance programs conducted by the USA’s National Security Agency (NSA) and the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), which capture the communications and data of hundreds of millions of people around the world. In addition to revealing the mass surveillance programs of the NSA…
Content Type: Examples
In April 2018, the Austrian cabinet agreed on legislation that required asylum seekers would be forced to hand over their mobile devices to allow authorities to check their identities and origins. If they have been found to have entered another EU country first, under the Dublin regulation, they can be sent back there. The number of asylum seekers has dropped substantially since 2016, when measures were taken to close the Balkan route. The bill, which must pass Parliament, also allows the…
Content Type: Examples
In a report on mobile security updates, the US Federal Trade Commission finds that because of the complexity of the mobile ecosystem applying security updates to operating system software on some mobile devices is time-consuming and complicated. Based on information gathered from eight device manufacturers - Apple, Blackberry, Google, HTC, LG, Microsoft, Motorola, and Samsung, the FTC recommends that manufacturers should deploy these updates more quickly and suggests that manufacturers should…
Content Type: Impact Case Study
What is the problem
Business models of lots of companies is based on data exploitation. Big Tech companies such Google, Amazon, Facebook; data brokers; online services; apps and many others collect, use and share huge amounts of data about us, frequently without our explicit consent of knowledge. Using implicit attributes of low-cost devices, their ‘free’ services or apps and other sources, they create unmatched tracking and targeting capabilities which are being used against us.
Why it is…