Security News
Three surveillance powers available to the U.S. government are set to temporarily expire Sunday after a trio of senators opposed a bipartisan House bill that would renew the authorities and impose new restrictions. The three senators, longtime critics of government surveillance, said the House bill would still give the government too much power to surveil Americans.
House lawmakers prepared to extend surveillance authorities that expire this month, releasing legislation that represents a rare bipartisan agreement after members of both parties said they wanted to ensure the tools preserved civil liberties. House Democrats posted the text of a bill online, readying the legislation for a floor vote Wednesday before lawmakers leave Washington at the end of the week.
Facial recognition is a technology that can be used to identify people without their knowledge or consent. There is an entire industry of data brokers who make a living analyzing and augmenting data about who we are - using surveillance data collected by all sorts of companies and then sold without our knowledge or consent.
A newly-introduced bill is proposing sweeping privacy reforms to a controversial government surveillance program, which has been previously used by the National Security Agency to vacuum up the call records of millions of Americans. The bill closes loopholes in vague language used by Section 215 for justifying mass surveillance sans warrant.
U.S. lawmakers on Thursday introduced a bill that aims to reform the National Security Agency's surveillance programs in an effort to protect citizens' rights. The senator, a vocal critic of the NSA's surveillance programs, last year introduced a bill that sought to put an end to the mass collection of Americans' phone records.
Some of Honeywell's MAXPRO video surveillance systems are affected by serious vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers to take complete control of the system, a researcher has discovered. Researcher Joachim Kerschbaumer told SecurityWeek that he reported his findings to Honeywell in September 2019 and the vendor released patches after roughly 2 months, which he says is a fast response time compared to other physical security systems manufacturers he has contacted to report flaws.
VIVOTEK, the global leading IP surveillance solution provider, and CyberLink, a pioneer of AI and facial recognition technologies, announced they have entered into a strategic partnership, which will integrate CyberLink's FaceMe AI facial recognition engine into VIVOTEK's IP surveillance solutions. "Founded in 2000, VIVOTEK has been dedicated to the IP surveillance industry for 20 years. Entering the era of AIoT, we will continue global partnerships to accelerate and enhance video applications by joining forces with industry-leading analytic software providers."
They believe CES, an annual lovefest for gadgets and innovation, should have focused less on hype and more on the security and privacy implications of new surveillance features unveiled at the show. Among a bevy of surveillance cameras in the CES spotlight was a mass-market Blurams smart doorbell that uses AI and facial recognition to send a text-based alert to homeowners about who is at the door - be it a recognizable face or a delivery person.
Special Services Group, a company that sells surveillance tools to the FBI, DEA, ICE, and other US government agencies, has had its secret sales brochure published. Motherboard received the brochure as part of a FOIA request to the Irvine Police Department in California.
The latest edition of the ISMG Security Report discusses "Orwellian" surveillance activity in 2020 via the ToTok app. Also featured: the controversy over enabling law enforcement to circumvent...