Tag: mass surveillance

This FTC Workshop Could Legitimize the Push for Online Digital ID Checks

In January 2026, the Federal Trade Commission plans to gather a small army of “experts” in Washington to discuss a topic that sounds technical but reads like a blueprint for a new kind of internet.

Officially, the event is about protecting children. Unofficially, it’s about identifying everyone.

The FTC says the January 28 workshop at the Constitution Center will bring together researchers, policy officials, tech companies, and “consumer representatives” to explore the role of age verification and its relationship to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA.

It’s all about collecting and verifying age information, developing technical systems for estimation, and scaling those systems across digital environments.

In government language, that means building tools that could determine who you are before you click anything.

The FTC suggests this is about safeguarding minors. But once these systems exist, they rarely stop where they start. The design of a universal age-verification network could reach far beyond child safety, extending into how all users identify themselves across websites, platforms, and services.

The agency’s agenda suggests a framework for what could become a credential-based web. If a website has to verify your age, it must verify you. And once verified, your information doesn’t evaporate after you log out. It’s stored somewhere, connected to something, waiting for the next access request.

The federal effort comes after a wave of state-level enthusiasm for the same idea. Texas, Utah, Missouri, Virginia, and Ohio have each passed laws forcing websites to check the ages of users, often borrowing language directly from the European Union, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Those rules require identity documents, biometric scans, or certified third parties that act as digital hall monitors.

In these states, “click to enter” has turned into “show your papers.”

Many sites now require proof of age, while others test-drive digital ID programs linking personal credentials to online activity.

The result is a slow creep toward a system where logging into a website looks a lot like crossing a border.

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‘Intellexa Leaks’ Reveal Wider Reach of Predator Spyware

Highly invasive spyware from consortium led by a former senior Israeli intelligence official and sanctioned by the US government is still being used to target people in multiple countries, a joint investigation published Thursday revealed.

Inside Story in Greece, Haaretz in Israel, Swiss-based WAV Research Collective, and Amnesty International collaborated on the investigation into Intellexa Consortium, maker of Predator commercial spyware. The “Intellexa Leaks” show that clients in Pakistan – and likely also in other countries – are using Predator to spy on people, including a featured Pakistani human rights lawyer.

“This investigation provides one of the clearest and most damning views yet into Intellexa’s internal operations and technology,” said Amnesty International Security Lab technologist Jurre van Bergen.

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WHO–Gates Unveils Blueprint For Global Digital ID, AI-Driven Surveillance, & Life-Long Vaccine Tracking For Everyone

In a document published in the October Bulletin of the World Health Organization and funded by the Gates Foundation, the World Health Organization (WHO) is proposing a globally interoperable digital-identity infrastructure that permanently tracks every individual’s vaccination status from birth.

The dystopian proposal raises far more than privacy and autonomy concerns: it establishes the architecture for government overreach, cross-domain profiling, AI-driven behavioral targeting, conditional access to services, and a globally interoperable surveillance grid tracking individuals.

It also creates unprecedented risks in data security, accountability, and mission creep, enabling a digital control system that reaches into every sector of life.

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U.S. Tech Giants Palantir and Dataminr Embed AI Surveillance in Gaza’s Post-War Control Grid

American surveillance firms Palantir and Dataminr have inserted themselves into the U.S. military’s operations center overseeing Gaza’s reconstruction, raising alarms about a dystopian AI-driven occupation regime under the guise of Trump’s peace plan.

Since mid-October, around 200 U.S. military personnel have operated from the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) in southern Israel, roughly 20 kilometers from Gaza’s northern border. Established to implement President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan—aimed at disarming Hamas, rebuilding the Strip, and paving the way for Palestinian self-determination—the center has drawn UN Security Council endorsement.

Yet no Palestinian representatives have joined these discussions on their future. Instead, seating charts and internal presentations reveal the presence of Palantir’s “Maven Field Service Representative” and Dataminr’s branding, signaling how private U.S. tech companies are positioning to profit from the region’s devastation.

Palantir’s Maven platform, described by the U.S. military as its “AI-powered battlefield platform,” aggregates data from satellites, drones, spy planes, intercepted communications, and online sources to accelerate targeting for airstrikes and operations. Defense reports highlight how it “packages” this intelligence into searchable apps for commanders, effectively shortening the “kill chain” from identification to lethal action.

Palantir’s CTO recently touted this capability as “optimizing the kill chain.” The firm secured a $10 billion Army contract over the summer to refine Maven, which has already guided U.S. strikes in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq.

Palantir’s ties to Israel’s military run deep, formalized in a January 2024 strategic partnership for “war-related missions.” The company’s Tel Aviv office, opened in 2015, has expanded rapidly amid Israel’s Gaza operations. CEO Alex Karp has defended the commitment, declaring Palantir the first company to be “completely anti-woke” despite genocide accusations.

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EU Push to Make Message Scanning Permanent Despite Evidence of Failure and Privacy Risks

The European Union has a habit of turning its worst temporary ideas into permanent fixtures. This time it is “Chat Control 1.0,” the 2021 law that lets tech companies scan everyone’s private messages in the name of child protection.

It was supposed to be a stopgap measure, a temporary derogation of privacy rights until proper evidence came in.

Now, if you’ve been following our previous reporting, you’ll know the Council wants to make it permanent, even though the Commission’s own 2025 evaluation report admits it has no evidence the thing actually works.

We obtained a copy of the report for you here.

The report doesn’t even hide the chaos. It confesses to missing data, unproven results, and error rates that would embarrass a basic software experiment.

Yet its conclusion jumps from “available data are insufficient” to “there are no indications that the derogation is not proportionate.” That is bureaucratic logic at its blandest.

The Commission’s Section 3 conclusion includes the sentence “the available data are insufficient to provide a definitive answer” on proportionality, followed immediately by “there are no indications that the derogation is not proportionate.”

In plain language, they can’t prove the policy isn’t violating rights, but since they can’t prove that it is, they will treat it as acceptable.

The same report admits it can’t even connect the dots between all that scanning and any convictions. Section 2.2.3 states: “It is not currently possible…to establish a clear link between these convictions and the reports submitted by providers.” Germany and Spain didn’t provide usable figures.

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Files expose Britain’s secret D-Notice censorship regime

Documents obtained by The Grayzone reveal how British soldiers and spies censor news reporting on ‘national security,’ coercing reporters into silence. The files show the Committee boasting of a “90% + success rate” in enforcing the official British line on any controversial story – or disappearing reports entirely.

A new trove of documents obtained by The Grayzone through freedom of information (FOI) requests provide unprecedented insight into Britain’s little-known military and intelligence censorship board. The contents lay bare how the secretive Defence and Security Media Advisory (DSMA) Committee censors the output of British journalists, while categorizing independent media as “extremist” for publishing “embarrassing” stories. The body imposes what are known as D-Notices, gag-orders systematically suppressing information available to the public.

The files provide the clearest view to date of the inner workings of the opaque committee, exposing which news items the British national security state has sought to shape or keep from public view. These include the bizarre 2010 death of a GCHQ codebreaker, MI6 and British special forces activity in the Middle East and Africa, the sexual abuse of children by government officials, and the death of Princess Diana. 

The files show the shadowy Committee maintains an iron grip over the output of legacy British media outlets, transforming British journalists to royal court stenographers. With the Committee having firmly imposed themselves on the editorial process, a wide range of reporters have submitted “apologies” to the board for their media offenses, flaunting their subservience in order to maintain their standing within British mainstream media.

In addition, the documents also show the Committee’s intentions to extend the D-Notice system to social media, stating its desire to engage with “tech giants” in a push to suppress revealing disclosures on platforms like Meta and Twitter/X.

How The Grayzone obtained the files

The DSMA Committee describes itself as “an independent advisory body composed of senior civil servants and editors” which brings together representatives of the security services, army, government officials, press association chiefs, senior editors, and reporters. The system forges a potent clientelist rapport between journalists and powerful state agencies, heavily influencing what national security matters get reported on in the mainstream, and how. The Committee also routinely issues so-called “D-Notices,” demanding media outlets seek its “advice” before reporting certain stories, or simply asking they avoid particular topics outright.

The DSMA Committee is funded by and housed in Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MOD), chaired by the MOD’s Director General of Security Policy Paul Wyatt, and 36-year British Army  veteran Brigadier Geoffery Dodds serves as its Secretary, raising serious questions about the extent to which British ‘news’ on national security could effectively be written by the Ministry of Defence.

Even though the MOD explicitly retains the right to dismiss its Secretary, the DSMA Committee insists it operates independently from the British government. This means the Committee isn’t subject to British FOI laws.

So how did The Grayzone obtain these files?

The unprecedented disclosure was the result of an effort by the Committee to assist Australia’s government in creating a D-Notice system of their own. In doing so, it established a papertrail which Canberra was forced to release under its own FOI laws. Australian authorities fought tooth and nail to prevent the documents’ release for over five months, until the country’s Information Commissioner forced the Department of Home Affairs to release them.

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EU Council Approves New “Chat Control” Mandate Pushing Mass Surveillance

European governments have taken another step toward reviving the EU’s controversial Chat Control agenda, approving a new negotiating mandate for the Child Sexual Abuse Regulation in a closed session of the Council of the European Union on November 26.

The measure, presented as a tool for child protection, is once again drawing heavy criticism for its surveillance implications and the way it reshapes private digital communication in Europe.

Unlike earlier drafts, this version drops the explicit obligation for companies to scan all private messages but quietly introduces what opponents describe as an indirect system of pressure.

It rewards or penalizes online services depending on whether they agree to carry out “voluntary” scanning, effectively making intrusive monitoring a business expectation rather than a legal requirement.

Former MEP Patrick Breyer, a long-standing defender of digital freedom and one of the most vocal opponents of the plan, said the deal “paves the way for a permanent infrastructure of mass surveillance.”

According to him, the Council’s text replaces legal compulsion with financial and regulatory incentives that push major US technology firms toward indiscriminate scanning.

He warned that the framework also brings “anonymity-breaking age checks” that will turn ordinary online use into an exercise in identity verification.

The new proposal, brokered largely through Danish mediation, comes months after the original “Chat Control 1.0” regulation appeared to have been shelved following widespread backlash.

It reinstates many of the same principles, requiring providers to assess their potential “risk” for child abuse content and to apply “mitigation measures” approved by authorities. In practice, that could mean pressure to install scanning tools that probe both encrypted and unencrypted communications.

Czech MEP Markéta Gregorová called the Council’s position “a disappointment…Chat Control…opens the way to blanket scanning of our messages.”

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Chat Control 2.0: EU Moves Toward Ending Private Communication

Between the coffee breaks and the diplomatic niceties of Brussels bureaucracy, a quiet dystopian revolution might be taking place. On November 26, a roomful of unelected officials could nod through one of the most consequential surveillance laws in modern European history, without ever having to face the public.

The plan, politely titled EU Moves to End Private Messaging with Chat Control 2.0, sits on the agenda of the Committee of Permanent Representatives, or Coreper, a club of national ambassadors whose job is to prepare legislation for the European Council. This Wednesday, they may “prepare” it straight into existence.

According to MEP Martin Sonneborn, Coreper’s diplomats could be ready to endorse the European Commission’s digital surveillance project in secret.

It was already due for approval a week earlier before mysteriously vanishing from the schedule. Now it’s back, with privacy advocates watching like hawks who suspect the farmer’s got a shotgun.

The Commission calls Chat Control 2.0 a child-protection measure. The branding suggests moral urgency; the text suggests mass surveillance. The proposal would let governments compel messaging services such as WhatsApp or Signal to scan users’ messages before they’re sent.

Officials insist that the newest version removes mandatory scanning, which is a bit like saying a loaded gun is safer because you haven’t pulled the trigger yet.

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Escape the Digital Purse Seine

Due to the relatively short lifespan of human beings, it can be difficult to put our own life experiences in perspective with history. This is why we have the saying, “Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.” Combine a lack of historical knowledge with the fact that human nature doesn’t change much, and you have a recipe for human-caused misery, repeated over and over.

In Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Cask of Amontillado,” we see an example of human nature gone awry, with lethal results. From the first, the reader is privy to Montresor’s disgust toward Fortunato and his desire to exact revenge for a perceived insult. As the story progresses, it should be evident to Fortunato that Montresor has ill intent, but Fortunato cannot imagine the evil, so he continues into the depths of the catacomb, willingly walking toward his own demise while being plied with wine and called “friend.”

Even as Montresor is about to place the last stone that will seal Fortunato’s death in chains behind the brick wall, Fortunato calls it a good joke that they will laugh about later. Montresor agrees, drops his torch into the opening, places the final brick, and piles old bones of his ancestors in front, where half a century later “no mortal has disturbed them.”

There are analyses interpreting Poe’s story, and its intended message, but surely one lesson is to pay attention when all the signs indicate that you are in a bad situation, even as others try to convince you of their solicitude and concern for your well-being. This is the dire situation of humanity today, in the form of the digital prison that is being formed right before our eyes under the guise of convenience, efficiency, and safety.

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GrapheneOS Quits France, Citing Unsafe Climate for Open Source Tech

GrapheneOS, the privacy-focused Android operating system, has ended all operations in France, saying the country is no longer a safe place for open source privacy projects.

Although French users will still be able to install and use the software, the project is moving every related service, including its website, forums, and discussion servers, outside French territory.

Until now, GrapheneOS used OVH Bearharnois, a hosting provider based in France, for some of its infrastructure. That setup is being dismantled.

The Mastodon, Discourse, and Matrix servers will operate from Toronto on a mix of local and shared systems. These changes are designed to remove any dependency on French service providers.

The developers said their systems do not collect or retain confidential user data and that no critical security infrastructure was ever stored in France. Because of that, the migration will not affect features such as update verification, digital signature checks, or downgrade protection.

The decision also applies to travel and work policies. Team members have been told not to enter France, citing both personal safety concerns and the government’s endorsement of the European Union’s Chat Control proposal.

That measure would allow authorities to scan private communications for illegal material, something privacy developers see as incompatible with secure digital design.

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