Tag: privacy

France’s Encryption Crackdown Could Break Secure Messaging for Everyone

France is attempting to pass a new surveillance law requiring the inclusion of secret encryption backdoors by providers, to serve intelligence agencies and police.

Critics say this attack on secure communications is the worst of its kind in the European Union (EU) and are urging citizens to put pressure on lawmakers to prevent the adoption of the so-called Narcotrafic law, which has cleared the country’s Senate and is now in the National Assembly.

Among those raising the alarm over the law is the well-known end-to-end encrypted email service Tuta, which reiterates the fundamental argument against building any backdoors into any encrypted app – something that French legislators now need to hear: once broken for one, encryption is broken for all.

“A backdoor for the good guys only is not possible,” says a blog post on Tuta’s site.

It adds that the idea to give law enforcement the ability to remotely activate cameras and microphones, expand “black boxes” authorization, and further facilitate online censorship (allegedly only related to the use and sale of drugs) might be presented by those behind the proposed law as needed to fight organized crime – but that, at the same time, it goes against a number of existing laws.

Keep reading

Ontario school children face compelled medical surveillance or suspension

Ontario school children are currently caught in the middle of an ongoing issue regarding student rights, medical privacy, and the power of public health authorities. Under the Immunization of School Pupils Act (ISPA), students attending Ontario schools are required to be vaccinated against certain diseases unless exempt for medical, religious, or philosophical reasons.

However, the recent push by public health officials to have students disclose their vaccination status and face suspension for non-compliance is raising serious privacy concerns.

The problem lies in the ambiguity between ISPA and the Education Act. ISPA stipulates vaccine requirements, but suspension orders are the responsibility of school principals under the Education Act, not public health authorities. This confusion is leading to violations of students’ fundamental right to a free public education, with some students at risk of being unlawfully suspended for failing to disclose their vaccination status.

The pressure to disclose private medical information is causing significant distress among parents and children alike. There are increasing concerns about the safety of centralized digital health databases, which have been vulnerable to data breaches and unauthorized access. With healthcare data a prime target for cyberattacks, parents are understandably worried about the security of their children’s sensitive medical records—which is big business for hackers.

Parents are resisting this growing pressure, with some viewing the disclosure demands as a violation of the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA). PHIPA requires informed consent before the collection of medical information and protects against coercion. However, the current approach by threatening suspension or else puts this principle into question.

The Ministry of Education was contacted for clarification, but media representatives Ingrid Anderson and Brook Campbell failed to respond days later. The inquiry focused on the confusion between ISPA and the Education Act, and how these conflicting laws are affecting students’ right to education. Additionally, clarification was sought on how medical privacy is being protected for parents wishing to uphold PHIPA.

Keep reading

Biden’s IRS Caught Leaking Taxpayer Information of Over 400,000 Americans Including Pres. Trump as Leftists Sue to Stop DOGE Over Alleged ‘Privacy’ Concerns – Elon Musk Responds

As liberals whine and sue to block DOGE from accessing obtaining government department records, a damning report released today has exposed that the Biden regime exposed hundreds of thousands of Americans to potential fraud and identity theft, including President Trump.

The House Judiciary Committee released a new disclosure today that revealed the IRS under Joe Biden leaked taxpayer records of over 400,000 innocent Americans. The committee notes that Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) launched an investigation into information leaks last year.

The committee also reveals that in May 2024, an IRS spokesman attempted to downplay a leak that exposed this information. This turned out to be at least a partial cover-up.

“New disclosure reveals that the Biden IRS leaked taxpayer information of over 405,000 Americans — including President Trump’s. The IRS’s admission confirms the Committee’s suspicion and recent reports that show the scope of the leak was much broader than what the Biden Administration’s IRS initially led the public to believe,” the post reads.

“In May 2024, an IRS spokesman stated that “[m]ore than 70,000” taxpayers were affected. We found out that it’s actually over 405,000 taxpayers! This is a MASSIVE scandal. Jim Jordan first launched his inquiry into these leaks last year.”

Keep reading

House Republicans launch group for comprehensive data privacy legislation

Republican leaders on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce are forming a working group designed to help write a comprehensive data privacy bill.

John Joyce of Pennsylvania, the committee’s vice chairman and a physician, will lead the group, according to a press release issued on Wednesday. The working group currently includes nine Republicans and no Democrats.

The committee is inviting “stakeholders” to work with members to draft legislation that can “get across the finish line,” the press release said, quoting Joyce and committee Chairman Brett Guthrie of Kentucky.

Congressional leaders have worked on comprehensive data privacy legislation in the past, but have never succeeded in getting a floor vote due to sharp dissent over what protections and consumer rights should be included. In that vacuum, 13 states have enacted their own.

“We strongly believe that a national data privacy standard is necessary to protect Americans’ rights online and maintain our country’s global leadership in digital technologies, including artificial intelligence,” the Republicans’ announcement says. “We are hopeful that we can start building a strong coalition to address this important issue.”

In January, more than three dozen industry groups sent a letter to Republican and Democratic leaders of the Commerce Committee on each side of Congress, imploring them to pass data privacy legislation that would preempt the state laws.

The provisions proposed by the industry groups are similar to laws in states like Texas and Kentucky, which experts say are weaker than those in other states.

Data privacy legislation had been scheduled for a House Energy and Commerce markup last June but it was cancelled due to controversy over its text. 

Keep reading

UK Government Secretly Orders Apple to Build Global iCloud Backdoor, Threatening Digital Privacy Worldwide

Imagine waking up one morning to find out your government has demanded the master key to every digital iPhone lock on Earth — without telling anyone. That’s exactly what British security officials have tried to pull off, secretly ordering Apple to build a backdoor into iCloud that would allow them to decrypt any user’s data, anywhere in the world. Yes, not just suspected criminals, not just UK citizens — everyone. And they don’t even want Apple to talk about it.

This breathtakingly authoritarian stunt, first reported by The Washington Post, is one of the most aggressive attempts to dismantle digital privacy ever attempted by a so-called Western democracy. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect from regimes that plaster their leader’s face on every street corner, not from a country that still pretends to believe in civil liberties.

This isn’t about catching a single terrorist or cracking a single case. No, this order — issued in secret last month by Keir Starmer’s Labour government — demands universal decryption capabilities, effectively turning Apple into a surveillance arm of the UK government. Forget warrants, forget oversight, forget even the pretense of targeted investigations. If this order were obeyed, British authorities would have the power to rifle through anyone’s iCloud account at will, no justification required.

The officials pushing for this monstrosity are hiding behind the UK’s Investigatory Powers Act of 2016, a law so Orwellian it’s lovingly referred to as the “Snoopers’ Charter.” This piece of legislative overreach forces tech companies to comply with government spying requests while making it illegal to even disclose that such demands have been made. It’s the surveillance state’s dream—limitless power, zero accountability.

Keep reading

Whistleblower Exposes TransUnion’s Shocking Outsourcing Scandal: Sensitive U.S. Data and Intelligence Databases are Being Handled by Underpaid Workers in India

In an alarming revelation sent to The Gateway Pundit by a reader who wished to remain anonymous, a former Senior QA Analyst for TransUnion has detailed how the company’s outsourcing policies, reliance on H1B visa workers, and mandatory DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) training have systematically displaced American tech workers—including those working on critical U.S. intelligence databases.

The anonymous source, who worked in the intelligence database sector for over 17 years, revealed how their role evolved from an entry-level assistant to a senior analyst responsible for training law enforcement officers and overseeing the quality assurance of highly sensitive databases.

These restricted systems are used by local, state, and federal law enforcement, as well as other government agencies, for intelligence gathering and investigative purposes.

Yet despite their extensive experience and dedication, the whistleblower’s position was ultimately eliminated as TransUnion shifted operations offshore to India.

The whistleblower disclosed that TransUnion moved thousands of U.S.-based jobs to offices in Chennai and Pune, India, leaving sensitive Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and critical intelligence databases in the hands of foreign workers.

Keep reading

Apple Reaches $95M Settlement Over Lawsuit Accusing ‘Siri’ Of Eavesdropping On Consumers

Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a lawsuit that accuses the company of infringing on its users’ privacy by utilizing “Siri,” Apple’s artificial intelligence (AI) assistant, to eavesdrop on individuals with Apple devices.

The agreed upon settlement, which was filed on December 13th, 2024, in Oakland, California, is currently awaiting approval by a U.S. district judge.

The 5-year-old lawsuit alleged that Apple would activate Siri without the user’s knowledge “for over a decade.” The suit continued, claiming that Apple would continue to record, unbeknownst to the phone owner, sharing conversations and certain key words with advertisers in order to push products and services.

Apple has long marketed itself as a “pioneer” in protecting its consumers privacy. However, users have also long suspected that their device is listening to them after specific ads for products or services have been presented via social media apps after simply discussing topics or figures out loud that are related.

Two plaintiffs in the suit recall that after merely mentioning Air Jordan shoes, their iPhone began showing them advertising for the shoes more often. Another noted that after discussing a specific surgical treatment with his doctor, he began receiving medical ads related to that treatment.

The claims fly in the face of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s claim that the right to privacy is a “fundamental human right.”

If the district judge approves the settlement, tens of millions of Apple consumers who owned devices beginning in September 17th, 2014, would be able to file claims, receiving up to $20 per device, depending on the volume of the claims, according to court documents.

Keep reading

IRS Failed To Properly Dispose of Sensitive Tax Documents, Report Finds

Earlier this year, a federal judge sentenced a former IRS contractor to five years in prison for leaking the tax returns of multiple high-profile billionaires. The case involves genuine wrongdoing by someone entrusted with people’s private information. But a new report from the U.S. Treasury Department found the IRS itself was routinely negligent with taxpayer documents in its possession.

“The IRS receives and creates a significant volume of sensitive documents and is responsible for protecting these sensitive documents from receipt to disposal,” according to a report from the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). Specifically, federal agencies must “shred, burn, mulch, pulp, or pulverize sensitive documents beyond recognition and reconstruction.”

The TIGTA report notes that since 2009, the IRS has contracted with an unnamed “outside national vendor” to do this. The vendor provides IRS facilities with locked bins to store sensitive documents, which are later picked up to dispose of the documents securely.

This vendor services “387 (75 percent) of 514 IRS facilities,” the report notes, while another 17 facilities contract with local companies. But for the rest, it’s apparently a free-for-all: “We found that the IRS is unaware of what sensitive document destruction capabilities are in place for the 110 facilities not covered under a contract. For example, the IRS initially thought the Andover, Massachusetts, facility was covered by a local sensitive document destruction contract. After we inquired about the contract, the IRS discovered that this facility was not covered by any contract.”

When the auditors then performed a site visit at that facility, they found “trash containers being used for all waste, including sensitive documents that contained tax information and Personally Identifiable Information.”

Keep reading

Global Age Verification Measures: 2024 in Review

EFF has spent this year urging governments around the world, from Canada to Australia, to abandon their reckless plans to introduce age verification for a variety of online content under the guise of protecting children online. Mandatory age verification tools are surveillance systems that threaten everyone’s rights to speech and privacy, and introduce more harm than they seek to combat.

Kids Experiencing Harm is Not Just an Online Phenomena

In November, Australia’s Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, claimed that legislation was needed to protect young people in the country from the supposed harmful effects of social media. Australia’s Parliament later passed the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024, which bans children under the age of 16 from using social media and forces platforms to take undefined “reasonable steps” to verify users’ ages or face over $30 million in fines. This is similar to last year’s ban on social media access for children under 15 without parental consent in France, and Norway also pledged to follow a similar ban.

No study shows such harmful impact, and kids don’t need to fall into a wormhole of internet content to experience harm—there is a whole world outside the barriers of the internet that contributes to people’s experiences, and all evidence suggests that many young people experience positive outcomes from social media. Truthful news about what’s going on in the world, such as wars and climate change is available both online and by seeing a newspaper on the breakfast table or a billboard on the street. Young people may also be subject to harmful behaviors like bullying in the offline world, as well as online.

The internet is a valuable resource for both young people and adults who rely on the internet to find community and themselves. As we said about age verification measures in the U.S. this year, online services that want to host serious discussions about mental health issues, sexuality, gender identity, substance abuse, or a host of other issues, will all have to beg minors to leave and institute age verification tools to ensure that it happens. 

Keep reading

DARPA’s “Theory of Mind” Program Aims to Predict and Influence Behavior, Raising Privacy Concerns

A recent recruit of the US Department of Defense (DoD) Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Eric Davis – who joined earlier this year – has come up with a scheme dubbed, “the Theory of Mind.”

According to reports, it’s another DARPA shot at developing, this time algorithmic capabilities to predict, monitor, incentivize, and modify people’s future behavior.

This ambitious to say the least, and “upcoming” program, the existence of which has now – for some reason – been made public as a “special notice,” is framed as targeting adversaries and better equipping those making decisions within the US security apparatus, to either deter, or “incentivize” said adversaries.

The announcement could be there to act as a deterrent in and of itself, and there’s no doubt the US, and many other countries around the world are invested in finding ways to predict and control people.

Keep reading