Security News

A new report, Personal Data, Privacy & Smartphones: The Cautious Consumer analyzes what smartphone owners think of the upcoming Apple Identifier for Advertisers opt-in requirement and the use of their data. Smartphone owners are not in agreement-partially due to the inexact wording and understanding-of how their data should be navigated by app developers and content providers.

Avira has released an all-new Avira Security for Mac, including a free version as well as Prime for premium features. Avira Security for Mac has been redesigned from the ground up and is built using the latest Apple's Swift, SwiftUI, Combine frameworks alongside with the best in breed Avira protection technologies such as SAVAPI and APC. The app benefits from the latest technology stack to conserve system resources and not slow down the system, all while delivering best-in-class protection.

Google's Apple-mandated privacy labels for its Chrome and Search apps on iOS have drawn criticism from tiny search rival DuckDuckGo, which tweeted "No wonder they wanted to hide it." Mysterious delays in Google's app updates soon ensued - though the company said in January that: "As Google's iOS apps are updated with new features or to fix bugs, you'll see updates to our app page listings that include the new App Privacy Details. These labels represent the maximum categories of data that could be collected - meaning if you use every available feature and service in the app."

The CEO of Sky Global - which sold encryption chat software with customized smartphones - has come out fighting after Uncle Sam charged him with knowingly assisting the international drug smuggling trade. "There is no question that I have been targeted, as Sky Global has been targeted, only because we build tools to protect the fundamental right to privacy. The unfounded allegations of involvement in criminal activity by me and our company are entirely false."

"Unfortunately, it seems that FLoC contains a privacy design bug that leaks the information about whether the user is browsing in private mode or not," Olejnik wrote in a blog post on Monday, noting that he'd spotted a similar Incognito detection bug in another API. Incognito mode is supposed to prevent online histories from being recorded in the browser's local log and to erase local HTTP cookies and site data from memory at the end of a session. The service's name suggests otherwise and Google was sued in June, 2020, for allegedly collecting data from Incognito Chrome users.

What digital identities could be, if we put data privacy at their core, is selective. Each time it's needed, your digital identity only reveals what needs to be revealed at that time and keeps the rest of your data safely hidden.

California-based data privacy management company DataGrail this week announced that it raised $30 million in a Series B funding round. DataGrail provides a platform designed to help organizations simplify, automate and scale their privacy programs.

With the arrival of Google Chrome v89 on Tuesday, Google is preparing to test a technology called Federated Learning of Cohorts, or FLoC, that it hopes will replace increasingly shunned, privacy-denying third-party cookies. Bennett Cyphers, staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, argues FLoC is "a terrible idea," and urges Google to refocus its efforts on building a web that serves the people who use it.

While controversy over the potential overreach of neighborhood and law-enforcement video surveillance has focused mainly on Ring, an Atlanta-based startup has quietly rolled out its own network of smart surveillance cameras across the country that is again raising questions of privacy and the ire of some advocating it, according to a published report. Langley so far has not responded to an email sent Thursday by Threatpost requesting comments and details about Flock TALON and the technology's privacy protections.

TripleBlind, a Kansas City, Missouri-based startup that provides data privacy solutions, on Monday announced raising $8.2 million in seed funding. TripleBlind told SecurityWeek that it emerged from stealth mode in November 2020, when Accenture announced a strategic investment in the company.