Kyle Rankin @kyle@librem.one

Important read. Unless more people push harder for #privacy from the companies that collect and sell our data and the govts that buy it, the rest of the world will follow in China's footsteps--the tech (and largely, the will) is already here.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/17/technology/china-surveillance.html

"These owners can choose to share some, all, or none of their footage with police; police do not need a warrant in order to request camera footage from residents....when camera owners are "uncooperative or unavailable," officers are instructed to contact Ring and request that the captured video be preserved." #privacy

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bjw9e8/inside-rings-quest-to-become-law-enforcements-best-friend

Many tech companies tout #privacy and security features that coincidentally also increase their own control and your dependence on them.

In this case, the feature protects user location data from competitors but not from Apple:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/11/26/apple-emphasizes-user-privacy-lawmakers-see-it-an-effort-edge-out-its-rivals/

This opt-in clause is the critical reform we need. As in California, tech companies will lobby to remove it.

"Companies further would have to obtain a person’s permission to collect and share their sensitive data." #privacy

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/11/26/top-senate-democrats-unveil-new-online-privacy-bill-promising-tough-penalties-data-abuse/

Et tu, DMV?

"The California Department of Motor Vehicles is generating revenue of $50,000,000 a year through selling drivers’ personal information, according to a DMV document obtained by Motherboard." #privacy

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/evjekz/the-california-dmv-is-making-dollar50m-a-year-selling-drivers-personal-information

I mentioned the other day that health care data is one area where people who "have nothing to hide" still care about #privacy.

Personal finances is the other area and it looks like Google's going there too.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/11/13/google-eyes-banking-it-widens-its-reach/

This article about Google's project to store and analyze millions of Americans' health care data confirms my suspicions about the Fitbit acquisition.

Many people who don't care about mass data collection because "I've got nothing to hide" change their tune when it's health care data. #privacy

https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-s-secret-project-nightingale-gathers-personal-health-data-on-millions-of-americans-11573496790

On one hand, tech companies violate our #privacy, capture massive amounts of data without consent, and process and categorize it w/ ruthless efficiency to ever-more-precisely target us with ads.

On the other hand, AARP keeps trying to sell my deceased dad life insurance.

This is among the reasons I never post pictures of my son. I understand and accept risks to my own identity, but I don't own his online identity--I'm merely a steward of it until he's an adult. I hope at that point I can hand it off to him untarnished and unexploited. #privacy
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/11/technology/flickr-facial-recognition.html

An amazing fact about this calculator: not only does it work without batteries, it works without access to my address book, location, and photo album! They were advanced in the olden days. #privacy #technology

Ask yourself why all these companies are fighting each other to be your default DNS provider. Why do their "privacy" solutions always give them your data instead? It's valuable data and it's easy to control it yourself. #privacy https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/own-your-dns-data

Disappointed that Firefox is giving Cloudflare user DNS resolution data by default via DoH. I trust my ISP but if I didn't, I'd use a trusted VPN to protect *all* my traffic. DoH is just a DNS-only VPN. What's worse, if you do use a VPN for #privacy FF will still leak your DNS data to Cloudflare by default. https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2019/09/06/whats-next-in-making-dns-over-https-the-default/

This article does a good job on presenting the many different ways that data about your credit card purchases are shared without your knowledge or permission: #privacy https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/08/26/spy-your-wallet-credit-cards-have-privacy-problem/

"Users who decline to share footage through the app may have police showing up at their door asking them to share in person if online requests don't work out. Law enforcement can also go to Amazon directly with a valid legal demand and bypass the user's consent to access the footage entirely." #privacy https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/08/dont-call-our-surveillance-products-surveillance-ring-tells-police/

The quid pro quo between Ring (gets police 911 data) and the police (gets access to Ring customer devices) is more troubling then either arrangement by itself. #privacy https://gizmodo.com/cops-are-giving-amazons-ring-your-real-time-911-data-1836883867

The whistleblower said: “There have been countless instances of recordings featuring private discussions between doctors and patients, business deals, seemingly criminal dealings, sexual encounters and so on. These recordings are accompanied by user data showing location, contact details, and app data.” #privacy https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/26/apple-contractors-regularly-hear-confidential-details-on-siri-recordings

I wrote a piece on the @purism blog on why consent is critical for #privacy, the tech industry's failure to get consent, and as a result how "Privacy has become the tattoo removal of the information age". https://puri.sm/posts/consent-matters-when-tech-shares-your-secrets-without-your-permission/

Follow up: in the brief time that my email was in Square's system, they opted me into ads from a local merchant I used the card at a month before Square got my email. So I get to opt out of those now too... #privacy

Mozilla announced "Enhanced Tracking Protection" to protect people from tracking (https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/06/04/firefox-now-available-with-enhanced-tracking-protection-by-default/), but if you check out the https://disconnect.me/trackerprotection list of trackers, all Google trackers are still allowed through. #privacy

I paid a contractor w/ a credit card over the phone. I wanted a receipt, gave him an email. He uses Square, they linked that CC and email, now every purchase w/ that CC at a Square kiosk generates an email receipt. I have no account, how do I opt out/unlink? #privacy