Tag: privacy

Bio-Digital Vaccine Passports and ‘On Patient Medical Recordkeeping’

Did you know that the only safe medical data is data that is stored inside your own body?

I didn’t know that either until Nic Hulscher recently discovered some very interesting research papers about ‘On Patient Medical Recordkeeping’ technology.

The quote below is from an article that was published in PubMed six years ago, in December 2019: “Accurate medical recordkeeping is a major challenge in many low-resource settings where well-maintained centralized databases do not exist, contributing to 1.5 million vaccine-preventable deaths annually.”

It took humans several hundred years to figure out that we are not able to maintain accurate medical records, but now we finally know.

And it’s a lucky thing that we only figured this out now, because we are finally reaching the stage where we are able to reliably record medical data: by encoding them into every living human body – in particular data about received vaccines.

There’s even a cute – no, more than cute: a heart warming acronym for this brilliant new record keeping method: OPMR.

The following quote is from an article in ‘Nature Materials’ from February 2025:

“We developed a robust on-patient medical record-keeping (OPMR) technology using a dissolvable microneedle patch (MNP) that delivers a quantum dot (QD)-based near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent dye encapsulated in poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) microparticles into the skin to encode medical information. This dye, once deposited into the dermis, is invisible to the naked eye, offering patient data privacy and anonymity, but provides discrete NIR signals that can be detected using a NIR imaging system.”

Isn’t it wonderful that we have found a way to not only make it impossible to lose medical records but to keep our medical records truly private and anonymous – and especially the number of vaccine microneedle patches we got administered? Nobody will ever know – except all the folks who detect the oh so discrete Near Infrared signals with the help of the NIR imaging system. And maybe it won’t be folks much longer who detect them but some friendly AI agent. Which makes it even more sublime.

We can also stop stressing about our medical records being unavailable when China or some other country cuts the subsea cables to crash the internet:

“By depositing the dye in a predefined pattern that correlates to a specific set of information, the technology can be imaged by healthcare workers to support next-dose decisions without requiring internet connectivity or the use of centralized databases.”

See? Internet connectivity is not required. Marvelous. Life-saving ‘next-dose decisions’ won’t be blocked ever – internet or not.

Keep reading

The Disguised Return of The EU’s Private Message Scanning Plot

A major political confrontation over online privacy is approaching as European governments prepare to decide on “Chat Control 2.0,” the European Commission’s revised proposal for monitoring private digital communications.

The plan, which could be endorsed behind closed doors, has drawn urgent warnings from Dr. Patrick Breyer, a jurist and former Member of the European Parliament, who says the draft conceals sweeping new surveillance powers beneath misleading language about “risk mitigation” and “child protection.”

In a release sent to Reclaim The Net, Breyer, long a defender of digital freedom, argues that the Commission has quietly reintroduced compulsory scanning of private messages after it was previously rejected.

He describes the move as a “deceptive sleight of hand,” insisting that it transforms a supposedly voluntary framework into a system that could compel all chat, email, and messaging providers to monitor users.

“This is a political deception of the highest order,” Breyer said.

“Following loud public protests, several member states, including Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, and Austria, said ‘No’ to indiscriminate Chat Control. Now it’s coming back through the back door disguised, more dangerous, and more comprehensive than ever. The public is being played for fools.”

Under the new text, providers would be obliged to take “all appropriate risk mitigation measures” to prevent abuse on their platforms. While the Commission presents this as a flexible safety requirement, Breyer insists it is a loophole that could justify forcing companies to scan every private message, including those protected by end-to-end encryption.

“The loophole renders the much-praised removal of detection orders worthless and negates their supposed voluntary nature,” he said.

He warns that it could even lead to the introduction of “client-side scanning,” where users’ devices themselves perform surveillance before messages are sent.

Unlike the current temporary exemption known as “Chat Control 1.0,” which allows voluntary scanning of photos and videos, the new draft would open the door to text and metadata analysis. Algorithms and artificial intelligence could be deployed to monitor conversations and flag “suspicious” content.

Keep reading

Fannie Mae officials ousted after sounding alarm on sharing confidential housing data

A confidant of Bill Pulte, the Trump administration’s top housing regulator, provided confidential mortgage pricing data from Fannie Mae to a principal competitor, alarming senior officials of the government-backed lending giant who warned it could expose the company to claims that it was colluding with a rival to fix mortgage rates.

Emails reviewed by The Associated Press show that Fannie Mae executives were unnerved about what one called the “very problematic” disclosure of data by Lauren Smith, the company’s head of marketing, who was acting on Pulte’s behalf.

“Lauren, the information that was provided to Freddie Mac in this email is a problem,” Malloy Evans, senior vice president of Fannie Mae’s single-family mortgage division, wrote in an Oct. 11 email. “That is confidential, competitive information.”

He also copied Fannie Mae’s CEO, Priscilla Almodovar, on the email, which bore the subject line: “As Per Director Pulte’s Ask.” Evans asked Fannie Mae’s top attorney “to weigh in on what, if any, steps we need to take legally to protect ourselves now.”

While Smith still holds her position, the senior Fannie Mae officials who called her conduct into question were all forced out of their jobs late last month, along with internal ethics watchdogs who were investigating Pulte and his allies.

The dismissals rattled the housing industry and drew condemnation from Democrats. It also gave Pulte’s critics evidence to support claims that he has leveraged the nonpublic information available to him to further his own political aims.

“This is another example of Bill Pulte weaponizing his role to do Donald Trump’s bidding, instead of working to lower costs amidst a housing crisis,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee. “His behavior raises significant questions, and he needs to be brought in front of Congress to answer them.”

The episode marks the latest example of Pulte using what is typically a low-profile position in the federal bureaucracy to enhance his own standing and gain the attention of President Trump. He’s prompted mortgage fraud investigations of prominent Democrats who are some of the president’s best known antagonists, including Sen. Adam Schiff of California, New York Attorney General Letitia James and California Rep. Eric Swalwell.

In June, he ordered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to prepare a proposal for the firms to accept cryptocurrency, another industry Trump has boosted, as part of the criteria for buying mortgages from banks. Last week, he persuaded Trump about the allure of a 50-year mortgage as a way to increase home buying and building – a proposal that was widely criticized because it would drastically increase the overall price of a loan.

Pulte also has focused on large home construction companies, which have drawn Trump’s ire. Pulte requested confidential Fannie Mae data and has publicly signaled that he is considering a crackdown if the companies do not increase construction volume.

“I’m looking at the Fannie Mae builder data and with the top three homebuilders we buy EASILY over $20 billion in THEIR LOANS!” he posted to X in early October.

In a brief statement, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which Pulte leads, did not address questions from the AP, but said the agency “requires its regulated entities to carry out their operations in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations.”

Keep reading

German States Expand Police Powers to Train AI Surveillance Systems with Personal Data

Several German states are preparing to widen police powers by allowing personal data to be used in the training of surveillance technologies.

North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg are introducing legislative changes that would let police feed identifiable information such as names and facial images into commercial AI systems.

Both drafts permit this even when anonymization or pseudonymization is bypassed because the police consider it “impossible” or achievable only with “disproportionate effort.”

Hamburg adopted similar rules earlier this year, and its example appears to have encouraged other regions to follow. These developments together mark a clear move toward normalizing the use of personal information as fuel for surveillance algorithms.

The chain reaction began in Bavaria, where police in early 2024 tested Palantir’s surveillance software with real personal data.

The experiment drew objections from the state’s data protection authority, but still served as a model for others.

Hamburg used the same idea in January 2025 to amend its laws, granting permission to train “learning IT systems” on data from bystanders. Now Baden-Württemberg and North Rhine-Westphalia plan to adopt nearly identical language.

In North Rhine-Westphalia, police would be allowed to upload clear identifiers such as names or faces into commercial systems like Palantir’s and to refine behavioral or facial recognition programs with real, unaltered data.

Bettina Gayk, the state’s data protection officer, warned that “the proposed regulation addresses significant constitutional concerns.”

She argued that using data from people listed as victims or complainants was excessive and added that “products from commercial providers are improved with the help of state-collected and stored data,” which she found unacceptable.

The state government has embedded this expansion of surveillance powers into a broader revision of the Police Act, a change initially required by the Federal Constitutional Court.

The court had previously ruled that long-term video monitoring under the existing law violated the Basic Law.

Instead of narrowing these powers, the new draft introduces a clause allowing police to “develop, review, change or train IT products” with personal data.

This wording effectively enables continued use of Palantir’s data analysis platform while avoiding the constitutional limits the court demanded.

Across North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg, and Hamburg, the outcome will be similar: personal data can be used for training as soon as anonymization is judged to be disproportionately difficult, with the assessment left to police discretion.

Gayk has urged that the use of non-anonymized data be prohibited entirely, warning that the exceptions are written so broadly that “they will ultimately not lead to any restrictions in practice.”

Baden-Württemberg’s green-black coalition plans to pass its bill this week.

Keep reading

Open Table is spying on you — and ratting out your bad habits like being late, canceling to restaurants

What happens at the dining table no longer stays at the dining table.

If the city’s servers suddenly always seem to know your go-to drink order, or how you always order extra croutons on your salad – you’re not going crazy.

Reservation platform OpenTable is spying on its users and compiling personal information on guests to share with restaurants, both good and bad, from wine preferences to whether they cancel a same-day reservation.

This allows eateries to highlight things to your preference, save preferred seating or — if your AI notes reveal poor etiquette — cancel your reservation altogether, sources tell The Post. 

“It’s not just spending habits or if they like Coca-Cola or bottled water. Now, we’re getting a taste of what a diner’s behavior at a restaurant is like: If they’re a late canceler, if they leave reviews a lot,” Shawn Hunter, a general manager for Sojourn Social on the Upper East Side told The Post of the feature he first noticed two weeks ago.

Keep reading

Dem-run city hires inspectors to snoop in residents’ garbage cans to make sure they’re recycling properly

Residents in a California city can expect to see trash inspectors lifting their garbage cans in the early morning hours as the city continues to crack down on recycling. 

Officials are sending teams of Compliance Officers or ‘lid lifters’ to walk through neighborhoods before trash collection and monitor whether residents are properly sorting their trash and recycling. 

The initiative in San Diego was launched following the passage of a law in the California State Senate (SB 1383), which established a new organic waste recycling program. 

The city will not issue citations to those who violate the recycling rules, but instead will place an ‘oops’ tag on the bin, notifying the owner that they made a mistake. 

Some bins may have a ‘do not collect’ sticker on them, which requires homeowners to sift through their trash and call the city for a new pickup.  

The lid lifters won’t be sifting through garbage cans and are only tasked with inspecting what they can see after looking inside the bins. 

City Waste Reduction Program Manager Alexander Galasso told local ABC affiliate, KGTV: ‘Waste doesn’t end when you come to the trash can.’

‘There is a life after waste and we want to make sure that these are sorted correctly, because not only does it impact our staff and trucks, but it impacts what goes into our landfill.’

Keep reading

Time to Pay Attention: Europe Just Eviscerated Monetary Privacy, and It’s Coming Here Next

By 2027, the European Union will have completed the most invasive overhaul of its financial system in modern history. Under Regulation (EU) 2024/1624, cash transactions above €10,000 will be illegal—no matter if it’s a private sale, a used car, or a family heirloom. 

“Persons trading in goods or providing services may accept or make a payment in cash only up to an amount of EUR 10 000 or the equivalent in national or foreign currency, whether the transaction is carried out in a single operation or in several linked operations which appear to be linked.” — Regulation (EU) 2024/1624, Article 80, paragraph 1

Simultaneously, the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) forces all crypto service providers to implement full-blown surveillance via mandatory identity verification and reporting. An anonymous Bitcoin transfer? That window is closing. And rounding out the trifecta is the European Central Bank’s digital euro, which promises privacy—just not too much of it.

This isn’t a proposal. It’s happening. And if you think it’s just about catching criminals, you haven’t been paying attention.

The justification, as always, is safety. European officials cite €700 billion in annual money laundering as the reason for the crackdown, framing the new rules as a bold stand against crime and corruption. But what they’re building isn’t a net—it’s a cage. These laws don’t distinguish between a cartel kingpin and a retiree who prefers cash. They treat every transaction like a threat, every citizen like a suspect, and every private interaction as a problem to be solved by surveillance.

Keep reading

UK Crime Agency Backs “Upload Prevention” Plan to Scan Encrypted Messages

Britain’s Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has decided that privacy needs a chaperone.

The group has launched a campaign urging tech companies to install client-side scanning in encrypted apps, a proposal that would make every private message pass through a local checkpoint before being sent.

The IWF calls it an “upload prevention” system. Critics might call it the end of private communication disguised as a safety feature.

Under the plan, every file or image shared on a messaging app would be checked for sexual abuse material (CSAM).

The database would be maintained by what the IWF describes as a “trusted body.” If a match is found, the upload is blocked before encryption can hide it. The pitch is that nothing leaves the device unless it’s cleared, but that is like claiming a home search is fine as long as the police do not take anything.

As has been shown in Germany, this technology would not only catch criminals. Hashing errors and false positives happen, which means lawful material could be stopped before it ever leaves a phone.

And once the scanning infrastructure is built, there is nothing stopping it from being redirected toward new categories of “harmful” or “illegal” content. The precedent would be set: your phone would no longer be a private space.

Although the IWF is running this show, it has plenty of political muscle cheering it on.

Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips praised the IWF campaign, saying: “It is clear that the British public want greater protections for children online and we are working with technology companies so more can be done to keep children safer. The design choices of platforms cannot be an excuse for failing to respond to the most horrific crimes…If companies don’t comply with the Online Safety Act they will face enforcement from the regulator. Through our action we now have an opportunity to make the online world safer for children, and I urge all technology companies to invest in safeguards so that children’s safety comes first.”

That endorsement matters. It signals that the government is ready to use the already-controversial Online Safety Act to pressure companies into surveillance compliance.

Ofcom, armed with new regulatory powers under that Act, can make “voluntary” ideas mandatory with little more than a memo.

The UK’s approach to online regulation is becoming increasingly invasive. The government recently tried to compel Apple to install a back door into its encrypted iCloud backups under the Investigatory Powers Act. Apple refused and instead pulled its most secure backup option from British users, leaving the country with weaker privacy than nearly anywhere else in the developed world.

Keep reading

FBI Seeks To Unmask Anonymous Web Archiving Service Owner

The subpoena, dated last Tuesday and posted publicly on Archive.today’s X account, states it relates to a federal criminal investigation being conducted by the FBI, as The Verge reported. However, the document provides no specific details about what alleged crime is under investigation.

The FBI is requesting comprehensive identifying information from Tucows, including customer or subscriber name, address of service, and billing address associated with Archive.today, per The Verge report.

Beyond basic contact details, the subpoena demands an extensive array of data such as telephone connection records, including incoming and outgoing calls and SMS or MMS records, payment information like credit card or bank account numbers, internet connectivity session times and durations, device identifiers, IP addresses, and details about services used such as email, cloud computing, and gaming services.

The subpoena instructs Tucows not to disclose its existence indefinitely, as any such disclosure could interfere with an ongoing investigation and enforcement of the law, as recounted by Gizmodo. 

That request became moot when Archive.today publicly posted the document. Journalist Max Blumenthal, editor of The Grayzone, drew attention to the subpoena on X, emphasizing that Archive.today is used by journalists and researchers to “document edits to articles, bypass subscription walls and avoid giving traffic to the failing corporate media.”

Keep reading

Europe’s AI Surveillance Race Against the Rules That Protect Privacy

Europol’s deputy executive director, Jürgen Ebner, is urging the European Union to relax its own legal restraints on artificial intelligence, arguing that the rules designed to protect citizens are slowing down police innovation.

He wants a system that allows the agency to skip lengthy rights checks in “emergency” situations and move ahead with new AI tools before the usual data protection reviews are complete.

Ebner told POLITICO that criminals are having “the time of their life” with “their malicious deployment of AI,” while Europol faces months of delay because of required legal assessments.

Those safeguards, which include evaluations under the GDPR and the EU’s AI Act, exist to stop unaccountable automation from taking hold in law enforcement.

Yet Ebner’s comments reveal a growing tendency inside the agency to treat those same checks as obstacles rather than vital protections.

He said the current process can take up to eight months and claimed that speeding it up could save lives.

But an “emergency” fast track for AI surveillance carries an obvious danger. Once such shortcuts are created, the idea of what qualifies as an emergency can expand quickly.

Technologies that monitor, predict, or profile people can then slip beyond their intended use, leaving citizens exposed to automated systems that make judgments about them without transparency or recourse.

Over the past decade, Europol has steadily increased its technical capabilities, investing heavily in large-scale data analysis and decryption tools.

These systems are presented as essential for fighting cross-border crime, yet they also consolidate immense quantities of personal data under centralized control.

Without strong oversight, such tools can move from focused investigation toward widespread data collection and surveillance.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has already promised to double Europol’s workforce and turn it into a central hub for combating organized crime, “navigating constantly between the physical and digital worlds.”

A legislative proposal to strengthen the agency’s powers is planned for 2026, raising questions about how much authority and access to data Europol will ultimately gain.

Ebner, who oversees governance at Europol, said that “almost all investigations” now involve the internet and added that the cost of technology has become a “massive burden on law enforcement agencies.”

He urged stronger collaboration with private technology firms, stating that “artificial intelligence is extremely costly. Legal decryption platforms are costly. The same is to be foreseen already for quantum computing.”

Keep reading