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Content type: Examples
Reports that Amazon is planning on launching a free ad-supported music service caused Spotify’s (the Swedish audio streaming platform) shares to fall 4% on Monday, April 15th. And, on April 18th, Amazon published a blog post where it announced that launch of Amazon’s free music-streaming service in the US. The ad-supported free service became available exclusively through Alexa, Amazon’s voice assistant programmed into Echo devices. It has been reported thatthe Alexa only launch…
Content type: Examples
In September 2018, EU’s antitrust watchdog, the European Commission, launched a preliminary investigation into how the platform uses data about merchants. Margrethe Vestager, EU Competition Commissioner said that the informal probe concerns the e-commerce group’s dual role as a competitor while simultaneously acting as a host to third-party merchants, who sell goods on Amazon’s websites. “The question here is about the data,” Ms. Vestager said.
The Amazon marketplace investigation follows up…
Content type: Examples
Amazon has been accused of treating its UK warehouse staff like robots. Between 2015 and 2018, ambulances were called out close to 600 times to Amazon’s UK warehouses. A Freedom of Information request to ambulance services from the GMB union revealed 115 call-outs to Amazon’s site in Rugeley, near Birmingham, including three related to pregnancy or maternity related problems and three for major trauma. At least 1800 people work year-round at the Rugeley warehouse and more than 2000 more can…
Content type: Examples
On 10 April 2019, an investigation by Bloomberg, disclosed that thousands of Amazon employees around the world are listening in on Amazon Echo users. In order to help improve the Alexa digital assistant powering its line of Echo speakers, the team listens to voice recordings captured in Echo owners’ homes and offices. The recordings are transcribed, annotated and then fed back into the software to help Alexa’s understanding of human speech. In marketing materials, Amazon says Alexa “…
Content type: Examples
In yet another murder case, a New Hampshire judge ordered Amazon to turn over two days of Amazon Echo recordings in a double murder case in November 2018.
Prosecutors believe that recordings from an Amazon Echo in the Farmington home where two women were murdered in January 2017 may yield further clues as to who their killer might be. Though the Echo was seized when police secured the crime scene, the recordings are stored on Amazon servers.
Timothy Verrill, of Dover, New Hampshire, was…
Content type: Examples
In 2015, James Bates (of Arkansas, United States) was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Victor Collins. Collins was found floating face down in Bates’ hot tub in November 2015, police said. Amazon Echo entered the murder case because someone present on the night of Collins’ death recalled hearing music streaming through the device. It was widely reported that Amazon fought the prosecution’s request to hand over data recorded by the device that night. Eventually, the argument…
Content type: News & Analysis
Photo by Mike MacKenzie (via www.vpnsrus.com)
Ever, a cloud storage app, is an example of how facial recognition technology can be developed in ways people do not expect and can risk amplifying discrimination.
Ever is a cloud storage app that brands itself as “helping you capture and rediscover your life’s memories,” including by uploading and storing personal photos; Ever does not advertise that it uses the millions of photos people upload to train its facial recognition software,…
Content type: Long Read
Last week, an investigation by Bloomberg revealed that thousands of Amazon employees around the world are listening in on Amazon Echo users.
As we have been explaining across media, we believe that by using default settings and vague privacy policies which allow Amazon employees to listen in on the recordings of users’ interactions with their devices, Amazon risks deliberately deceiving its customers.
Amazon has so far been dismissive, arguing that people had the options to opt out from the…
Content type: News & Analysis
Image: Anatomy of an AI system: a map of the many processes — extracting material resources, data, and human labor — that make an Amazon Echo work. Credit: Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler
With over 6.3 million Amazon Echo devices worldwide, there is a good chance these constantly active devices will record criminal behavior.
Bloomberg, who recently reported on yet another creepy feature, that Amazon workers are listening to what you tell Alexa, were told by workers…
Content type: Examples
A startling amount of the internet is fake in one way or another, studies found in 2018. Less than 60% of web traffic is human; a 2013 study found that at least half of YouTube traffic was bots masquerading as people; in November 2018 the US Justice Department revealed that eight people were accused of stealing $36 million in digital advertising fraud that involved sending fake traffic to spoofed websites which were made to look to advertisers like premium publishers. Also fake in at least some…
Content type: News & Analysis
We found this image here.
Today, a panel of competition experts, headed by Professor Jason Furman, the former chief economic adviser of in the Obama administration, confirmed that tech giants, like Facebook, Amazon, Google, Apple and Microsoft, do not face enough competition.
Significantly, the report finds that control over personal data by tech giants is one of the main causes preventing competition and ultimately innovation.
Privacy International's research has shown clear examples of…
Content type: Virtual Machine
The documentation below is a copy of the documentation found on Github: Interception environment on Github
Privacy International's data interception environment
Version: 2.1.2-20190730
Privacy International's data interception environment
Quick Start Guide
Step 0 - Prerequisites
Step 1 - Download
Step 2 - Importation
Step 3 - Initialising
Step 4 - Setup
Step 5 - Capture
Step 6 - Notes for Android Nougat or Later
Background
Theory
Implementation
Virtualbox (6.0.4)
Debian 10 (Buster)…
Content type: News & Analysis
Privacy International welcomes the focus on data and privacy contained in the final report by the UK House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee (DCMS) on Disinformation and ‘fake news’. Beyond our control, companies and political parties have banded together to exploit our data. This report establishes essential steps to remedying this downward spiral. An important part of the democratic process is freedom of expression and right to political participation, including the right…
Content type: Examples
In August 2018 Amazon rolled out a software update to Fire OS 5, the operating system used by older versions of its Fire TV and Fire TV Stick devices to counteract malware. At risk were versions of the devices before the company released Fire OS 6 whose owners had turned on Android Debug Bridge in order to sideload applications that aren't directly available from Amazon's app store. Fire OS 6 makes clearer the risk people were taking, as does the patched Fire OS 5.2.6.6. The malware will still…
Content type: Examples
Affiliate marketers, who buy ad space in bulk, run campaigns, and earn commissions on the sales they generate, are behind some of the shady and misleading ads that pollute social media and the wider internet, despite also promoting some legitimate businesses such as Amazon and eBay. At one of several yearly conferences, a Berlin event sponsored by Stack That Money, included representatives from Facebook, "Your Computer May Be Infected", "You Won an iPhone", a Russian promoter of black mask face…
Content type: Examples
In May 2018, the ACLU of Northern California obtained documents under a FOIA request showing that Amazon was essentially giving away its two-year-old Rekognition facial recognition tools to law enforcement agencies in Oregon and Orlando, Florida. Amazon defended the move by saying the technology has many useful purposes, including finding abducted children and identify attendees at the 2018 wedding of Britain's Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. The company markets Rekognition as useful for…
Content type: Examples
Following a 2016 hack including names, emails, adresses, and phone numbers of 57 millions Uber users and drivers, the company has paid 100,000 USD to hackers hoping that the data collected would be deleted. This decision was in line with Uber's strategy to try to keep the breach quiet while limiting potential abuses. The company said that they believe the data had not been used without being able to provide any proof. The hack itself was conducted through a GitHub private repositories that the…
Content type: Examples
In May 2018, UK-based security researcher Robert Wiggins discovered that the mobile app TeenSafe, marketed as a secure app for iOS and Android, was storing data it collected on servers hosted on Amazon's cloud without a password and openly accessible. The app lets parents monitor their children's text messages, location, browsing history, and apps, as well as who they called and when, and does not require parents to obtain their children's consent. The insecurely stored 10,200 records included…
Content type: Examples
In July 2018 Walmart filed a patent on a system of sensors that would gather conversations between cashiers and customers, the rattle of bags, and other audio data to monitor employee performance. Earlier in 2018, Amazon was awarded a patent on a wristaband that would monitor and guide workers in processing items. UPS uses sensors to monitor whether its drivers are wearing seatbelts and when they open and close truck doors. All these examples, along with others such as technology that allows…
Content type: Examples
In 2018, documents filed in a court case showed that a few days before the 2017 inauguration of US president Donald Trump - timing that may have been a coincidence - two Romanian hackers took over 123 of the police department's 187 surveillance cameras in Washington, DC with the intention of using police computers to email ransomware to more than 179,000 accounts. The prosecution also said the alleged hackers had stolen banking credentials and passwords and could have used police computers to…
Content type: Examples
In June 2018, after privacy activists found security flaws in toys such as My Friend Cayla and others and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission opened an investigation into the problems of connected gadgets, Amazon, Walmart, and Target announced they would stop selling CloudPets. Made by Spiral Toys, CloudPets uses voice recordings, an internet connection, and a Bluetooth-connected app. In 2017, a hackers were able to access and hold for ransom CloudPets' database, including email addresses…
Content type: Examples
In May 2018, researchers in the US and China demonstrated that they could send commands that activate Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, and Google Assistant but that are inaudible to the human ear. The researchers were able to make smartphones and smart speakers dial phone numbers and open websites; the potential is there to make them operate Internet of Things devices, wire money, or execute retail transactions by hiding commands in music or other audio.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/10/…
Content type: Examples
In October 2018 Amazon patented a new version of its Alexa virtual assistant that would analyse speech to identify signs of illness or emotion and offer to sell remedies. The patent also envisions using the technology to target ads. Although the company may never exploit the patent, the NHS had previously announced it intended to make information from its online NHS Choices service available via Alexa.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/10/09/amazon-patents-new-alexa-feature-knows-…
Content type: Examples
In 2010, customers of the online shoe retailer Zappos, which was acquired by Amazon in 2009, began noticing that recommendations for products they had viewed on the site were following them around the web. The culprit was a then-new practice known as "retargeting", which uses cookies to identify users as they move around the web. The source was quickly - via links on the ads themselves - identified as the French company Criteo, which tells retailers its personalised banners will help them "…
Content type: Explainer
In the digital economy there is a trend towards corporate concentration. This is true for social media platforms, search engines, smart phone operating systems, digital entertainment, or online retailers. Meanwhile, the way in which market dominance is measured traditionally does not always capture the extent of their control: firstly, their products and services are often “free” and secondly, it’s often not clear in which “markets” and “sectors” these companies operate, since there is so much…
Content type: Long Read
Yesterday, the European Court of Human Rights issued its judgement in Big Brother Watch & Others V. the UK. Below, we answer some of the main questions relating to the case.
What's the ruling all about?
In a nutshell, one of the world's most important courts, the European Court of Human Rights, yesterday found that certain UK laws about how intelligence agencies can spy on our internet communications breach our human rights. These surveillance laws have meant that the UK intelligence…
Content type: Long Read
The European Court of Human Rights ruled today that the UK government's mass interception program violates the rights to privacy and freedom of expression. The Court held that the program "is incapable of keeping the 'interference' to what is 'necessary in a democratic society'". This finding is an important victory for human rights and the rule of law. Below, we break down the key parts of the decision.
The Court's ruling comes after a five-year battle against two UK mass surveillance…
Content type: Press release
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. companies should adopt the same data protection rules that are poised to go into effect in the European Union on May 25, Public Citizen, the Center for Digital Democracy and Privacy International said today.
In a sign-on letter, 28 groups are calling on some of the world’s largest companies – including Facebook, Google and Amazon, as well as digital advertisers like Nestle, Walmart and JPMorgan Chase – to use Europe’s impending General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR…
Content type: Long Read
If you operate an internet company in Russia, you aren’t necessarily surprised to one day open the door to someone, grasping in one hand a bundle of wires and in the other a letter from a government agency demanding access to your servers, with a black box wedged under one arm.
Internet companies in Russia are required by law to store the content of users’ communications for six months and the metadata of users’ communications for three years, essentially meaning that what a person does…
Content type: Examples
Amazon, which is already known for closely monitoring its warehouse workers has been granted two US patents on a wristband that could use ultrasonic sound pujlses and radio transmissions track a worker's every move, pause, or fidget, and vibrate to provide haptic feedback to nudge them when they make an error. It is unknown whether the company intends to manufacture the wristbands or issue them to workers. In the patents, Amazon says the goal is to streamline time-consuming tasks.
https…