Tag: mass surveillance

Microsoft Introduces AI “Recall” Tool That Records *Everything* You Do On Your Computer

It records everything you do with your PC, including your apps, movies, documents, emails, browsing history, browser tabs, and more.

Microsoft recently unveiled a new AI tool that has a lot of people online concerned about what this means for their privacy and safety. The AI tool called “Recall,” that will become available to some Windows 11 users, records the user’s screen and allows them to go back in time and see what it is they were doing. Microsoft claims that the data is stored locally and therefore protected, but many are not convinced.

According to Windows Latest, ‘With Recall, Microsoft says it can turn your previous actions into “searchable snapshots”, allowing you to search and interact with your past actions. Recall runs in the background and relies on the NPU chip to record your screen.’

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CIA Targeting Smartphone App Data

Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Avril Haines, who oversees 18 separate agencies comprising the wider “intelligence community” – including the CIA, FBI, and NSA – has released a “policy framework for commercially available information.” It is not only the very first public confirmation by a US government official that Stateside spying entities acquire extensive data on private citizens from third party brokers, but admission this yield is deeply sensitive. While purportedly setting limits on the use of this information by spooks, the details are vague or non-existent.

“Commercially available information” (CAI) refers to data collected on individuals, typically by their smartphones, and the apps they use, sold by third parties. Via various sleights of hand and ruthless exploitation of regulatory loopholes, US intelligence obtained information not accessible by average citizens, which would typically require a court-approved search warrant to access. Yet, by purchasing this data from private brokers, spying agencies can still claim this snooping is “open source”, based on “publicly available” records.

A particularly rich source of CAI is data hoovered from digital advertising. In-app and website adspace is sold on real-time bidding (RTB) exchanges, and location and other user data is often included as a bonus, to ensure optimal ad targeting. Many data brokers pose as advertisers in order to “scrape” the listings for user information, before selling it on for profit. The value of this data, and the malign purposes to which it can be put, are vast.

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Biden’s Bold Move to Combat AI Abuse Stirs Surveillance and Censorship Fears

The Biden administration is pushing for sweeping measures to combat the proliferation of nonconsensual sexual AI-generated images, including controversial proposals that could lead to extensive on-device surveillance and control of the types of images generated. In a White House press release, President Joe Biden’s administration outlined demands for the tech industry and financial institutions to curb the creation and distribution of abusive sexual images made with artificial intelligence (AI).

A key focus of these measures is the use of on-device technology to prevent the sharing of nonconsensual sexual images. The administration stated that “mobile operating system developers could enable technical protections to better protect content stored on digital devices and to prevent image sharing without consent.”

This proposal implies that mobile operating systems would need to scan and analyze images directly on users’ devices to determine if they are sexual or non-consensual. The implications of such surveillance raise significant privacy concerns, as it involves monitoring and analyzing private content stored on personal devices.

Additionally, the administration is calling on mobile app stores to “commit to instituting requirements for app developers to prevent the creation of non-consensual images.” This broad mandate would require a wide range of apps, including image editing and drawing apps, to scan and monitor user activities on devices, analyze what art they’re creating and block the creation of certain kinds of content. Once this technology of on-device monitoring becomes normalized, this level of scrutiny could extend beyond the initial intent, potentially leading to censorship of other types of content that the administration finds objectionable.

The administration’s call to action extends to various sectors, including AI developers, payment processors, financial institutions, cloud computing providers, search engines, and mobile app store gatekeepers like Apple and Google. By encouraging cooperation from these entities, the White House hopes to curb the creation, spread, and monetization of nonconsensual AI images.

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European Council Approves the AI Act — a Law Accused of Legalizing Biometric Mass Surveillance

The EU’s European Council has followed the European Parliament (EP) in approving the AI Act – which opponents say is a way for the bloc to legalize biometric mass surveillance.

More than that, the EU is touting the legislation as first of its kind in the world, and seems hopeful it will serve as a standard for AI regulation elsewhere around the globe.

The Council announced the law is “groundbreaking,” taking a “risk-based” approach, meaning that the EU authorities get to grade the level of risk from AI to society and then impose rules of various levels of severity and penalties, including money fines for companies deemed to be infringing the act.

What this “granular” approach to “risk level” looks like is revealed in the fact that what the EU chooses to consider cognitive behavioral manipulation “unacceptable,” while AI use in education and facial recognition is “high risk. “Limited risk” applies to chatbots.

And developers will be under obligation to register in order to have the “risk” assessed before their apps become available to users in the EU.

The AI Act’s ambition, according to the EU, is to promote both the development and uptake, as well as investment in systems that it considers “safe and trustworthy,” targeting both private and public sectors for this type of regulation.

A press release said that the law “provides exemptions such as for systems used exclusively for military and defense as well as for research purposes.”

After the act is formally published, it will within three weeks come into effect across the 27-member countries.

Back in March, when the European Parliament approved the act, one of its members, Patrick Breyer of the German Pirate Party, slammed the preceding trilogue negotiations as “intransparent.”

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UK “disinformation unit” spied on citizens and flagged online speech for removal during pandemic

New documents reveal that authorities in the UK considered placing government employees inside of social media companies to form a type of digital KGB that would control online speech during the pandemic.

This is according to recently released minutes from the governing board of the Counter Disinformation Unit (CDU). They show that, as many people suspected, British authorities were actively involved in monitoring people’s speech online and flagging certain viewpoints for removal.

At one point, they discussed a strategy to “embed” civil servants in various companies that were running social media platforms, and there is nothing in the document to indicate that they did not follow through on this.

The CDU, which has since been rebranded the National Security Online Information Team in response to heavy scrutiny, insists that it is “countering disinformation and hostile state narratives” but the agency, along with government-hired private contractors, was put in charge of surveilling British citizens and silencing those who were deemed to be “COVID measures dissenters.”

Instead of going after foreign adversaries who were spreading misinformation, they were targeting British citizens – from journalists and medical professionals to politicians – who were criticizing the government.

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By month’s end, WHO seeks to pass Orwellian pandemic treaty to implement algorithmic surveillance and control systems worldwide

The World Health Organization (WHO) body of experts are set to convene in Geneva, Switzerland, at their 77th World Health Assembly from May 27 to June 1, 2024. At the assembly, WHO’s member countries will cast their votes on the final version of the agency’s “pandemic agreement.”

This agreement will give the beleaguered agency more power over sovereign nations, including the power to order targeted lockdowns and mitigation measures. The agreement will allow a global body of experts to use surveillance tools and implement broader mandates for PCR testing, masks, so-called vaccines and other countermeasures. Right now WHO is developing a standardized algorithm to quantify airborne transmission risk to dictate public policies on human interactions.

WHO’s psychotic ARIA tool doubles down on germaphobia, analyzes aerosols and micromanages human activity

WHO is currently collaborating with the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) to develop an online tool [PDF] that will evaluate and predict risks associated with future airborne virus transmission across various public and private settings. This surveillance tool, named ARIA, will model the hypothetical spread of airborne pathogens in indoor settings, so WHO can craft precise directives on mitigation measures for business owners, households, healthcare centers and others indoor venues.

According to WHO, ARIA was developed by “a global group of experts” who conducted a “comprehensive review of the scientific literature.” Again and again, we are told to “trust the experts” – even though WHO’s guidance has caused significant damage to families, economies and livelihoods worldwide.

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Say Goodbye to Cloud Anonymity? New US Regulations Demand User Identification

The US Department of Commerce is seeking to end the right of users of cloud services to remain anonymous.

The proposal first emerged in January, documents show, detailing new rules (National Emergency with Respect to Significant Malicious Cyber-Enabled Activities) for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) providers, which include Know Your Customer (KYC) regulation, which is normally used by banks and financial institutions.

But now, the US government is citing concerns over “malicious foreign actors” and their usage of these services as a reason to effectively end anonymity on the cloud, including when only signing up for a trial.

Another new proposal from the notice is to cut access to US cloud services to persons designated as “foreign adversaries.”

As is often the case, although the justification for such measures is a foreign threat, US citizens inevitably, given the nature of the infrastructure in question, get caught up as well. And, once again, to address a problem caused by a few users, everyone will be denied the right to anonymity.

That would these days be any government’s dream, it appears, while the industry itself, especially the biggest players like Amazon, can implement the identification feature with ease, at the same time gaining a valuable new source of personal data.

The only losers here appear to be users of IaaS platforms, who will have to allow tech giants yet another way of accessing their sensitive personal information and risk losing it through leaks.

Meanwhile, the actual malicious actors will hardly give up those services – leaked personal data that can be sold and bought illegally, including by those the proposal says it is targeting.

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UK Government Used Army “PsyOps” Division To Monitor Citizens And Then Lied About It

In January 2021, the UK government said that members of its infamous “77th Brigade do not, and have never, conducted any kind of action against British citizens.”

But it did. And thus it lied.

In 2022, the NGO I work for, Big Brother Watch, began investigating the UK government’s efforts to monitor social media posts and demand their censorship by the platforms. Over the next few months, we filed dozens of Freedom of Information requests, including for information on the 77th Brigade.

In other words, we discovered that the UK government had, in the name of fighting misinformation, spread disinformation.

The Army unit was not just involved in “countering misinformation,” it led the effort. The 77th Brigade monitored social media platforms throughout 2020 and worked alongside soldiers from the Royal Air Force (RAF).

The British Ministry of Defense (MoD) did not respond to requests to comment for this piece.

MoD created the 77th Brigade in 2015 to serve as its “information warfare” or “psychological operations” unit. The 77th Brigade would consist of “a new generation of ‘Facebook warriors’ who will wage complex and covert information and subversion campaigns,” reported the Financial Times in 2015.

When the Army created the 77th Brigade, its leaders told British Members of Parliament (MPs) that its job was to “build stability overseas,” not spy on citizens at home.

How did the UK military evade the ban on spying on UK citizens? A whistleblower from the 77th Brigade, who spoke to Big Brother Watch on condition of anonymity, said it did so by pretending that the British citizens who UK soldiers were spying upon could, perhaps, be foreigners

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Maricopa County and Arizona State Collaborate To Surveil Social Media and Censor “Misinformation”

The Arizona Secretary of State’s Office and the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office have been exposed as doing their best to team up with social media companies, non-profits, as well as the US government to advance online censorship.

This, yet another case of “cooperation” (aka, collusion) between government and private entities to stifle speech disapproved of by federal and some state authorities has emerged from several public records, brought to the public’s attention by the Gavel Project.

The official purpose of several initiatives was to counter “misinformation” using monitoring and reporting whatever the two offices decided qualified; another was to censor content on social platforms, while plans also included restricting discourse to the point of banning users from county-run accounts.

“Online harassment” was another target, and Maricopa County took it upon itself to “identify” – and then report to law enforcement.

One striking example of the mindset behind all this is a draft of a speech County Recorder Stephen Richer delivered to Maricopa Community Colleges.

As reports note, Richer is hoping to be reelected this year, while back in September 2021, he complained that “lies and disinformation” are undermining “the entire election system.”

“And it is in this respect, that the Constitution today is in some ways a thorn in the side of my office. Specifically the First Amendment,” Richer said – before declaring himself “a huge fan of the Constitution.”

When his office was earlier in the month asked to, essentially, “make it make sense” – they didn’t, stating only that Richer “stands by his speech (…) especially the part where he says he’s ‘a huge fan of the Constitution’.”

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SEC Plan to Track Americans’ Stock Investments Sparks Legal Fight

All stock trades conducted on U.S. exchanges will soon be surveilled by the government, according to a newly implemented plan by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The SEC’s “Consolidated Audit Trail” (CAT) mandate would “allow regulators to efficiently and accurately track all activity throughout the U.S. markets,” the SEC stated.

In announcing the launch of this plan, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler stated in September 2023 that “prior to CAT’s creation, regulators lacked a consolidated view of the material information of all orders in [exchange-traded] securities.”

The CAT plan was originally proposed under the Obama administration in 2012 but remained dormant under the Trump administration. It is currently being resurrected under the Biden administration.

This plan ran into some resistance last week, however, from a group of lawyers and retired judges who see it as a historic violation of Americans’ civil rights.

A complaint filed on April 16 by the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), as a prelude to a lawsuit, called the CAT mandate “an unprecedented scheme by an administrative agency … to unilaterally set in motion one of the greatest government-mandated mass collections of personal financial data in United States history.”

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