Privacy
Meta faces billions in fines as Brussels finds Instagram and Facebook fail to keep minors out
The European Commission has concluded that Facebook and Instagram fail to identify, assess, and mitigate the risks of minors under 13 from accessing their social media services. The American tech company now risks receiving a multi-billion-euro fine.
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Greece moves towards banning anonymity on social media, quoting toxicity
The Greek government plans to ban anonymity on social media, Euractiv reports, citing government officials who say that in ancient Greece, people would express their opinions openly by name.
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Your adblocker might be tracking you: researchers flag dozens of browser extensions openly selling data
Dozens of extensions are openly extracting data from over 6.5 million users and selling it for profit, “and it’s all completely legal,” security researchers from LayerX have found. These extensions disclose the practice in their privacy policies – something that two-thirds of extensions don’t have at all.
Read more about Your adblocker might be tracking you: researchers flag dozens of browser extensions openly selling data
Meta set to alert parents of what teens are discussing with AI: “This is just the starting point”
In the coming weeks, Meta will begin notifying parents about the topics their teens are discussing with its AI chatbot.
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Norway bans under-16s from social media, tech giants must verify ages by year-end
Norway said on Friday it would present a bill in parliament by year-end to ban children from using social media until they turn 16, making technology companies responsible for the task of age verification.
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Medical information of 500,000 Brits touted on Alibaba e-commerce site
Medical data linked to half a million UK volunteers, held by the research charity Biobank, is said to have been leaked and then put up for sale on one of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba’s websites.
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Leading universities paid to "spy" on student protestors and guest lecturers
Some of Britain's top universities hired a private intelligence contractor to monitor student protestors and academics using open-source intelligence (OSINT) techniques, social media analysis, and large-scale data collection.
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Game over for compliance delays: Australia demands child safety details from Roblox, Minecraft
Australia's internet regulator on Wednesday asked online gaming platforms including Roblox and Microsoft's Minecraft to spell out how they protect children from grooming by sexual predators and shield young users from radicalisation.
Read more about Game over for compliance delays: Australia demands child safety details from Roblox, Minecraft
“I’m glad it’s not just me:” UK PlayStation gamers swap notes on not being able to verify their ages
Sony’s rollout of mandatory age verification for PlayStation users in the UK has sparked a new round of technical complaints and privacy concerns, with players reporting server errors, failed checks and resistance to handing personal data.
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Italian postal companies fined over €12.5M for scanning users' phones without proper consent
The Italian data protection authority GPDP has fined two postal companies for illegally processing the personal data of millions of users.
Read more about Italian postal companies fined over €12.5M for scanning users' phones without proper consent
Facial recognition is catching twice as many London shoplifters, but privacy activists are worried
The Metropolitan Police has begun testing a new retail crime reporting technology that has proven highly effective. London's new shoplifting tech is working. Privacy advocates say that's exactly the issue.
Read more about Facial recognition is catching twice as many London shoplifters, but privacy activists are worried
UK threatens Telegram with $24.3M fines over child sexual abuse concerns
Britain's communications regulator has launched an investigation into Telegram and two other chat platforms over failures to protect children from sexual abuse and grooming. The companies face fines of up to £18 million or 10% of global revenue.
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AI firm deletes 3M OKCupid photos after US probe
Artificial intelligence company Clarifai said this month it had deleted 3 million OkCupid user photos and facial-recognition models trained on them after the US Federal Trade Commission settled with the dating site over privacy violations.
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Behind age gates and VPN bans: Europe’s quiet squeeze on internet freedom
Across Europe, the debate over “internet safety” is quietly morphing into something far more consequential: a structural erosion of online freedom that goes well beyond content moderation.
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Security expert demonstrates that VPNs still matter: encrypted DNS and TLS don’t hide browsing history
For years, some experts have claimed that encrypted DNS makes VPNs obsolete and that users no longer need them to stay private online. False. Watch as cybersecurity instructor David Bombal taps into encrypted web traffic and names the exact websites you're connecting to.
Read more about Security expert demonstrates that VPNs still matter: encrypted DNS and TLS don’t hide browsing history
Elon Musk skips French prosecutors' hearing over X child abuse probe as US refuses cooperation
Tech billionaire Elon Musk did not appear Monday at a mandatory summons for questioning in a French probe into X and its AI chatbot Grok, over alleged abuse of algorithms and fraudulent data extraction, the Paris prosecutor's office said.
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EU bets €180M on homegrown cloud providers to break free from American tech dependence
Four European companies will receive €180 million over the next six years to develop European cloud services.
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Dubai police arrest Emirates flight attendant after stalking his private WhatsApp chat
A flight attendant has been held in Dubai for more than a month after a private WhatsApp image was allegedly detected through active electronic surveillance.
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Telegram linked to an “abuse economy” built on the invasion of ordinary women's privacy
An investigation into Telegram communities across Spain and Italy uncovers how men are sharing and profiting from thousands of nonconsensual images of their girlfriends, wives, acquaintances, and former partners.
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Reddit summoned to secret grand jury, ordered to unmask anonymous user critical of ICE
The Trump administration has escalated a federal case to identify an anonymous social media poster, ordering Reddit to appear before a grand jury in Washington, DC, after earlier attempts to obtain the user’s identity were blocked in court.
Read more about Reddit summoned to secret grand jury, ordered to unmask anonymous user critical of ICE
