Privacy
UK Government Secretly Tracked 25 Million People as Potential EV Owners
Two years of surveillance, £600,000 spent, and the program ended not because anyone asked if it was wrong, but because the data was garbage.
Mexico Mandates Biometric SIM Registration for All Phone Numbers
Mexico is six months away from building a surveillance system that knows the face behind every phone call in the country.
FTC Says Companies Can Collect Kids’ Personal Data, As Long As It’s Called “Age Verification”
The agency charged with enforcing the law that restricts children’s data collection just carved out an exception large enough to swallow the law itself.
Republican Lawmakers Demand Answers on UK’s iCloud Encryption Backdoor Order
Britain’s demand that Apple build a backdoor for everyone on earth, then quietly reframe it as a domestic matter after Washington pushed back, is the kind of legal gymnastics that makes intelligence lawyers nervous on both sides of the Atlantic.
MembersThe Revolt Brewing Over Discord’s Digital ID Future
Every concession Discord offered this week is a reason to stay distracted while the architecture of permanent surveillance gets bolted into place.
Privacy Groups Revolt Against Google’s Demand to Register Every Android Developer
Google is turning sideloading from a right into a permission slip, and the open-source community has until September to convince it otherwise.
Twitch Forces Partners to Show ID To Persona to Collect Earnings
Twitch is asking streamers to hand over a government ID and selfie to a controversial third-party service to collect money they’ve already earned.
iPhone Software Beta’s UK Age Verification Screen Raises Questions
The screen Apple called an “error” revealed exactly how the company plans to use your credit history, account age, and payment data to decide what you’re allowed to download.
Apple Expands Age Checks to Australia, Brazil, Singapore, and US States
The company selling privacy as a feature is now running age screening on 18+ app downloads without explaining what data makes that determination possible.
Germany’s SPD Pushes Mandatory Government ID Verification for Social Media
The SPD is selling this as child protection, but the architecture they’re building looks a lot more like a checkpoint than a parental control.
The FSB Has a New Word for Encryption: Terrorism
The man who outlasted a French arrest now faces a Russian prison threat from the country he left behind two decades ago.
LA County Sues Roblox Over False Child Safety Claims and Lack of Age Verification
The false advertising angle is LA County’s way around the First Amendment maze; not “did Roblox harm children?” but “did Roblox lie about it?” – a question courts are far more comfortable answering.