Security News
Messaging apps such as Messenger or WhatsApp and video calls on Zoom face stricter privacy rules in Europe, after a draft law passed a key EU hurdle on Wednesday. The EU's 27 member states approved a proposal that was stuck since 2017, with countries split between those wanting strict privacy online and others wanting to give leeway to law enforcement and advertisers.
Elektra Labs and Carnegie Mellon University researchers announced collaboration on an innovative IoT labeling system for understanding the data rights and security practices of connected health sensors. As part of their collaboration, researchers from Carnegie Mellon University's CyLab have contributed their research on an IoT Privacy and Security label as a blueprint, while Elektra Labs is incorporating its own published "Tech nutrition label" recommendations as well.
US facial recognition technology firm Clearview AI illegally conducted mass surveillance in breach of Canadians' privacy rights, Canada's privacy commissioner said Wednesday following an investigation. "What Clearview does is mass surveillance and it is illegal," Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien told a teleconference.
Today's consumers are willing to trade their personal data for personalization, but also have fast-growing concerns about data privacy, according to a survey by Entrust. Further, 61% of consumers also indicated that they're at least somewhat willing to share personal information with an app in exchange for more transparency and control over their data.
Facebook has created a new screen in its iOS app that will urge people to allow it to continue stalking their online activities for targeted advertising. This is in response to Apple preparing to introduce a prompt that asks users whether or not they want to grant Facebook's software permission to track them when they use other apps and websites.
Like almost all operating systems, Windows 10 is vulnerable to security and privacy issues, and researchers have proved that Microsoft can track a lot of your activities to improve their products and enable personalized ads and promotions. Thankfully, Windows 10 allows us to improve the operating system's security and privacy using the built-in settings app.
A trio of researchers from China have found that QUIC is more vulnerable to web fingerprinting than HTTPS, a shortcoming that could make it easier for an adversary to infer which websites an individual is visiting by scrutinizing network traffic. Google developed QUIC to solve issues like these and the protocol is being worked on in parallel by the Internet Engineering Task Force as a standard.
Some companies are using monitoring software to keep tabs on employees working from home. Some organizations are crying foul.
Cisco published a study which found enhanced importance of privacy protections during the pandemic and increasing benefits for businesses that adopt strong privacy measures. The survey analyzed the responses of 4,400 security and privacy professionals across 25 countries and explored attitudes towards privacy legislation and the emergence of privacy metrics being reported to executive management.
Apple CEO Tim Cook fired off a series of thinly veiled shots at Facebook and other social media companies Thursday, escalating an online privacy battle pitting the iPhone maker against digital services that depend on tracking people to help sell ads. Cook's broadside came as Apple prepares to roll out a new privacy control in the early spring to prevent iPhone apps from secretly shadowing people.