Tag: mass surveillance

Google is Tracking Your Life – Photo Cloud Feeding AI System

There was a time when your photo album sat in a drawer, private, personal, and disconnected from the outside world. Privacy no longer exists in the modern world as personal data will become the key tool of control, and now Google is taking the next step by turning your memories into fuel for artificial intelligence.

According to a recent report, Google has rolled out a major update to its Photos platform that allows its AI system, Gemini, to scan your entire photo library to build what it calls “Personal Intelligence.” What this means in plain English is that your images are no longer just stored, they are analyzed and integrated into a broader behavioral profile. Google openly admits the system can use actual images of you and your loved ones to generate AI content, eliminating the need for users to manually upload reference photos.

This is not a minor tweak to a photo app, but a structural shift in how data is harvested and understood, because every image you have ever taken now becomes part of a living model that attempts to understand who you are, who you associate with, where you go, and how you live your life. What was once private into something continuously processed and categorized.

Keep reading

“An Occupied Nation”: Whistleblower Says Palantir Has Taken Over The US Government

A former Palantir executive recently confirmed what many have long suspected. In a public statement, the whistleblower said it plainly: Palantir intended to take over the US government, and many of his former colleagues are now installed inside the federal apparatus. He called it an occupied nation. He is not alone. Thirteen former Palantir employees—engineers, managers, and a member of the company’s own privacy team—signed a letter shared with NPR warning that guardrails meant to prevent discrimination, disinformation, and abuse of power have been violated and are being rapidly dismantled.

What Palantir represents is something unprecedented: the convergence of American imperialism, Zionism, technofascism, and surveillance capitalism into a single instrument of control. Understanding how we got here requires looking at the machine Palantir has built, who built it, and what they believe.

Palantir was founded in 2004 by Peter Thiel and Alex Karp. Its first major investor was In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital arm, which seeded the company with millions and opened the door to every major intelligence and defense agency. The logic was deliberate: The American ruling class recognized decades ago that the state’s coercive power—surveillance, targeting, data harvesting—could be run more effectively and more profitably through private contractors. When a government agency surveils its own citizens, there are hearings, FOIA requests, oversight committees. When a private company does it, it is a trade secret.

That strategy has paid off enormously. Palantir now holds contracts worth over $10 billion with the US Army alone. The Trump regime tapped Palantir to build a master database on American citizens. The Pentagon expanded its Maven Smart System contract by $795 million to deploy AI-powered battlefield intelligence across the empire. In June, the military swore in four tech executives as Army Reserve lieutenant colonels—including Palantir’s CTO—in a program that embeds Silicon Valley directly into military planning. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) signed a $30 million contract for Palantir’s ImmigrationOS platform, which provides near real-time tracking of people targeted for deportation. Thousands of American police departments use Palantir’s Gotham platform for domestic surveillance.

Abroad, the consequences are even more devastating. Palantir’s AI platforms have been deployed by Israel’s military to systematically prosecute the assault on Gaza. AI targeting systems built on Palantir’s architecture—known by names like Lavender, The Gospel, and Where’s Daddy—have enabled the kind of automated killing that produces mass civilian casualties at scale. Palantir’s own executives have been recorded discussing how bombing densely populated areas generates the movement data their algorithms need to train on. When people flee, make phone calls, search for loved ones, rush to hospitals that no longer exist—that movement becomes fuel for the machine. Palantir’s platforms were deployed in the illegal capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Israel’s terrorist pager attack against Lebanon, and the US carpet bombing of Iran at the behest of Israel—the same campaign that destroyed a girls’ elementary school in Minab.

Keep reading

Bank of Korea Vows to Create CBDC

The Bank of Korea has now made its position unmistakably clear, and this is precisely what I have been warning about for years. In his very first address, Governor Shin Hyun-song did not merely suggest innovation in digital finance, he explicitly prioritized a system built around central bank digital currencies and bank-issued deposit tokens, while deliberately omitting stablecoins entirely from the discussion. What you are witnessing is not competition in money, it is the consolidation of control.

They are trying to rebrand this as modernization, but behind the curtain this is about power. Shin outlined that CBDCs and deposit tokens will form the core of South Korea’s future monetary system, reinforcing a structure where the central bank and regulated banking institutions remain the gatekeepers of all financial activity. This is not accidental. Deposit tokens are essentially programmable bank liabilities tied directly into a centrally controlled system, ensuring that even when money becomes “digital,” it never leaves the institutional framework.

What stands out is not what he said, but what he refused to say. Stablecoins, which represent a competing form of digital liquidity outside direct state control, were entirely absent from his inaugural speech despite ongoing legislative efforts in South Korea to establish a domestic stablecoin market. That omission speaks volumes. Central banks do not fear volatility, they fear competition.

Even when pressed previously, Shin made it clear that stablecoins would only play a “supplementary” role, not a foundational one. In other words, private digital money may exist, but only within boundaries defined by the state. This is the same pattern we are seeing globally. Governments will tolerate innovation only to the extent that it does not threaten their monopoly over money and taxation.

The Bank of Korea is already expanding real-world testing through initiatives like Project Hangang, aiming to integrate CBDCs and deposit tokens into everyday transactions and even government spending. This is how it always unfolds. First comes the pilot program, then limited adoption, and finally full integration under the justification of efficiency and stability. By the time the public realizes what has happened, the infrastructure is already in place.

They will argue this is about improving payment systems, reducing friction, and enhancing transparency. But transparency for whom? Governments will gain unprecedented visibility into every transaction, every movement of capital, and ultimately every individual’s economic behavior. The original promise of cryptocurrency was decentralization and financial sovereignty. What is being constructed here is the exact opposite.

Keep reading

Facial recognition to be ‘rolled out’ across UK after human rights challenge fails

Facial recognition systems will be introduced across the country, the government has said as it welcomed the failure of a legal challenge to the technology.

The case against the Metropolitan Police’s use of live facial recognition technology (LFT) in London was brought by two people over concerns it could be used arbitrarily or in a discriminatory way.

The cameras are usually mounted on vans in busy high streets and designed to identify people on police watchlists if they pass by.

Youth worker Shaun Thompson, one of the claimants, said he was misidentified by the technology. The other person bringing the claim was Silkie Carlo, from the group Big Brother Watch.

Their lawyer told the High Court that LFT would also make it “impossible” for Londoners to travel without their biometric data being taken.

But judges ruled on Tuesday that the claimants’ human rights had not been breached and the force’s policy gave “adequate indication of the circumstances in which LFR will be used”.

They also said the argument the technology risked discriminating against people due to their race had not been convincing.

Keep reading

US Bill Mandates On-Device Age Verification

A bill introduced by Representative Josh Gottheimer in the House on April 13 would require Apple, Google, and every other operating system vendor to verify the age of anyone setting up a new device in the United States.

The legislation, H.R. 8250, travels under the friendlier name of the Parents Decide Act, and it is among the most aggressive surveillance mandates ever proposed for American consumer technology.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

The press releases describing it lead with children. The text describes something much larger. To confirm a child is under 18, the system has to identify everyone else, too, and the bill builds the infrastructure to do exactly that.

This is child safety as a delivery mechanism for mass identification. The pattern is familiar by now. A genuine harm gets named, a sympathetic victim gets centered, and the solution proposed reshapes the digital lives of three hundred million people who were not the problem.

The Parents Decide Act follows that template with unusual precision. It takes the real suffering of real children and uses it to justify building a national identity layer underneath every device sold in the country, administered by two private companies, with the details to be filled in later.

The mandate sits in Section 2(a)(1), which obligates providers to “Require any user of the operating system to provide the date of birth of the user” both to set up an account and to use the device at all. Adults included.

There is no carve-out for grown users, no opt-out for people who simply want to turn on a phone without handing a date of birth to Apple or Google first.

The age check is the entry fee for owning a computer. What happens to that data afterward gets handed off to the Federal Trade Commission to sort out later. A federal bill that mandates identification as a condition of using a general-purpose computing device represents something the United States has not previously had, which is a national ID requirement for turning on a device.

Gottheimer framed the proposal at a Ridgewood news conference on April 2, standing outside the local YMCA with a coalition of allies. “With each passing day, the internet is becoming more and more treacherous for our kids. We’re not just talking about social media anymore — we’re talking about artificial intelligence and platforms that are shaping how our kids think, feel, and act, often without any real guardrails,” he said.

His diagnosis of the current system is accurate enough. “Children are able to bypass age requirements by entering a different birthday and accessing apps without any real verification. Kids can bypass age requirements by simply typing in a different birthday. That’s it. That’s the system,” he said.

Keep reading

US Bill Mandates On-Device Age Verification

A bill introduced by Representative Josh Gottheimer in the House on April 13 would require Apple, Google, and every other operating system vendor to verify the age of anyone setting up a new device in the United States.

The legislation, H.R. 8250, travels under the friendlier name of the Parents Decide Act, and it is among the most aggressive surveillance mandates ever proposed for American consumer technology.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

The press releases describing it lead with children. The text describes something much larger. To confirm a child is under 18, the system has to identify everyone else, too, and the bill builds the infrastructure to do exactly that.

This is child safety as a delivery mechanism for mass identification. The pattern is familiar by now. A genuine harm gets named, a sympathetic victim gets centered, and the solution proposed reshapes the digital lives of three hundred million people who were not the problem.

The Parents Decide Act follows that template with unusual precision. It takes the real suffering of real children and uses it to justify building a national identity layer underneath every device sold in the country, administered by two private companies, with the details to be filled in later.

The mandate sits in Section 2(a)(1), which obligates providers to “Require any user of the operating system to provide the date of birth of the user” both to set up an account and to use the device at all. Adults included.

There is no carve-out for grown users, no opt-out for people who simply want to turn on a phone without handing a date of birth to Apple or Google first.

The age check is the entry fee for owning a computer. What happens to that data afterward gets handed off to the Federal Trade Commission to sort out later. A federal bill that mandates identification as a condition of using a general-purpose computing device represents something the United States has not previously had, which is a national ID requirement for turning on a device.

Keep reading

House GOP passes short-term FISA deal amid Republican infighting

The House unanimously passed a short-term extension of the nation’s spy powers early Friday morning after GOP rebels dramatically rejected a late-night, last-minute deal to extend the measure for five years. 

Instead, the bill pushes the expiration of the powers to April 30 from April 20, while adding some additional reforms and language intended to woo the holdouts.

The move buys time for leaders to figure out how to address Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act after the deal crumbled, while avoiding a lapse in the authorization that expires on April 20. The Senate, which gavels back in at 10 a.m. EDT Friday morning, must still pass the stopgap and get it to President Trump’s desk by the Monday deadline.

In a 200-220 vote at about 1:15 a.m. Friday morning, 12 Republicans voted with almost all Democrats against accepting the deal, text of which was revealed just hours before the vote, after two days of meetings and delays.

Republican opposition to the amendment came not only from right-wing members who pushed for more substantial reforms and who had spent hours negotiating the package with leadership, but also from some House Intelligence Committee members who had pushed for a straight reauthorization of the program.

Soon after, a procedural vote to advance a clean, 18-month reauthorization of program racked up enough votes to fail moments later, but GOP leaders held the vote open as they hashed out a fallback option.

That procedural vote, which members of the House Freedom Caucus had long objected to, officially failed in a 197-228 vote, with 20 Republicans voting against it and four Democrats — Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.), Jared Golden (Maine), Josh Gottheimer (N.J.), and Tom Suozzi (N.Y.) — casting highly unusual votes to vote in favor of the rule, which is normally a test of party strength.

The House then brought up new legislation to extend the FISA authorization from April 20 to April 30, passing it by unanimous consent just after 2 a.m. and adjourning the House until Monday — canceling a day of previously-scheduled votes on Friday.

“We were very close tonight,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said walking off the floor in the wee hours of Friday morning. “There’s some nuances with the language and some questions that need to be answered, and we’ll get it done. The extension allows us the time to do that.”

“FISA is a critical national security tool. It’s also a very complicated piece of legislation, and what we’re trying to do is thread the needle of ensuring that we have this essential tool to keep Americans safe but also safeguard our constitutional rights, and making sure that the abuses of FISA in the past are no longer possible,” Johnson said.

It was a remarkable sequence of events even by the standards of the super-slim House majority that has given Republican leaders consistent headaches in advancing must-pass legislation.

Keep reading

‘Unprecedented Mass Surveillance’: Bipartisan Senators Warn Of Privacy Threat Tied To FISA Renewal

Bipartisan senators are warning that a privacy threat tied to artificial intelligence (AI) could result in mass surveillance of American citizens if the renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) does not include sufficient guardrails.

Efforts to renew the federal surveillance law ahead of its expiration have been complicated as House GOP leaders scramble to secure enough support to pass a clean 18-month extension aligned with President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson’s requests, according to a Politico report. Both are pushing to reauthorize the law without changes before Monday’s deadline.

The growing power of AI is driving new worries among both Republicans and Democrats about government agencies’ warrantless purchases of Americans’ sensitive data.

Commercially available information obtained from data brokers for criminal investigations, military operations and national security circumvents constitutional restrictions on information agencies can gather from Americans, Politico reported.

Keep reading

Drivers worry as federal surveillance technology becomes mandatory in new cars by 2027

The car you buy in 2027 may come with something you never agreed to: a built-in system that monitors your eyes, your alertness, and your behavior behind the wheel. Under Section 24220 of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is required to finalize rules mandating “advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology” in all new passenger vehicles. This is not a proposal. It is federal law already in motion. The safety argument behind this mandate is hard to dismiss. According to NHTSA data, more than 13,000 people were killed in alcohol-impaired crashes in 2021 alone, accounting for nearly a third of all U.S. traffic deaths that year. Alcohol-related crashes cost the American economy approximately $280 billion annually, covering medical expenses, legal proceedings, and lost productivity. The federal government believes this technology can prevent between 9,000 and 10,000 of those deaths every year. But saving lives comes with a cost that goes beyond dollars. As automakers prepare for the rollout, millions of drivers are asking questions that no one in Washington has fully answered yet: Who owns this data? Can it be used against you? And when did your car become a witness?

Keep reading

Xbox Now Wants Your Face to Let You Play Games You Already Own in Singapore

Singapore gamers who bought and downloaded Xbox titles years ago are now being told they need to prove they’re adults before they can keep playing them.

Microsoft has started rolling out identity verification requirements across its Xbox and Microsoft Store platforms in Singapore, demanding face scans, government ID uploads, or authentication through the country’s national digital identity system, Singpass.

The price of accessing games you already own is now a biometric selfie or a copy of your passport.

The trigger is Singapore’s Online Safety Code of Practice for App Distribution Services, a regulation from the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) that took effect on April 1, 2026.

The rule requires app stores to prevent anyone estimated to be under 18 from downloading apps rated for adults, including dating services and content with sexual material. Five storefronts are covered: Apple’s App Store, Google Play, Samsung Galaxy Store, Huawei AppGallery, and Microsoft Store (which includes Xbox).

Each company has chosen its own methods for compliance. The methods vary, but they all share one thing in common: they collect sensitive personal data that didn’t exist in the platform’s records before this regulation.

Microsoft announced its approach on March 17, 2026, framing the verification as optional, while making it mandatory for anyone who wants full access.

“Microsoft users in Singapore will have multiple options to complete age assurance for our stores, giving people flexibility while prioritising privacy,” the company wrote, listing those options as Singpass verification, “secure facial age estimation using a selfie,” or uploading “an official government ID such as a national ID, driver’s license, passport, or residence permit.”

The company describes this as a one-time process. What it doesn’t describe is who processes the data, how long it exists in transit, or what happens if the system holding it gets breached.

Discord learned this lesson last year when its own partner leaked user data. The company that promises to delete your face scan still has to receive it first.

Singapore residents have started receiving emails from Xbox notifying them about the verification requirement, prompting confusion and concern.

Keep reading