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Data retention: ATO renews push to be part of ‘metadata’ regime
The Australian Taxation Office has reiterated its frustration at being excluded from the list of government agencies able to obtain warrant-free access to telecommunications ‘metadata’ as part of the data retention regime.
How To Stop Facebook From Identifying Your Face
If you’ve been on Facebook lately, you might have noticed a new notification in your feed explaining how the company uses its facial recognition technology and manages the accompanying data.
What Price Are You Really Paying To Get Your 5th Coffee Free?
Loyalty cards and programs often offer feel-good assurances like “we care about your privacy” but a growing body of evidence shows that when a business gives a reward with one hand, it takes far more with the other.
Jakarta restores internet access in Papua, but with a warning
Jakarta announced on Thursday that it had restored internet access in Papua and West Papua, saying that security conditions in the country’s easternmost regions had improved over the past few weeks.
Ombudsman urges closure of whistleblower surveillance loophole
It comes as Australian Federal Police remain tight lipped about the raid of the Canberra home of a diplomat and defence adviser.
Online Depression Tests Are Collecting And Sharing Your Data
Casually browsing the web comes with the expectation that you’re probably going to be tracked by data brokers who are thirsty for your internet habits, but one might also expect that on certain corners of the web, your information is treated with more sensitivity.
A huge database of Facebook users’ phone numbers found online
Hundreds of millions of phone numbers linked to Facebook accounts have been found online. The exposed server contained more than 419 million records over several databases on users across geographies, including 133 million records on U.S.-based Facebook users, 18 million records of users in the U.
AI, big data and the future of humanity
“We are probably one of the last generations of homo sapiens.
ACCC puts loyalty programs on notice
Australia’s consumer watchdog has put the operators of the country’s large customer loyalty schemes on notice after handing down a damning report into the way they conduct business. Almost nine in ten Australian adults are members of loyalty schemes and the average person has at least four.
Bringing democracy to the internet
CHRIS HATZIS Eavesdrop on Experts, a podcast about stories of inspiration and insights. It’s where expert types obsess, confess and profess. I’m Chris Hatzis, let’s eavesdrop on experts changing the world - one lecture, one experiment, one interview at a time.
Don't Play in Google's Privacy Sandbox
Last week, Google announced a plan to “build a more private web.” The announcement post was, frankly, a mess. The company that tracks user behavior on over ⅔ of the web said that “Privacy is paramount to us, in everything we do.”
Data laws creating 'honey pots' for theft and violence, watchdog warns
Victoria’s privacy watchdog has urged Canberra to wind back its data retention laws, warning that the amount of personal information being stored was creating “honeypots” for potential fraud, identity theft and violence against unsuspecting Australians.
Google says hackers have put ‘monitoring implants’ in iPhones for years
An unprecedented iPhone hacking operation, which attacked “thousands of users a week” until it was disrupted in January, has been revealed by researchers at Google’s external security team.
Two states admit bulk interception practices: why does it matter?
Six years after NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents providing details about how states' mass surveillance programmes function, two states – the UK and South Africa – publicly admit using bulk interception capabilities.
Steve Wozniak Says Big Tech Companies Like Apple Should Be Broken Up
Steve Wozniak has always been a straight-shooter who speaks his mind. And the Apple cofounder is not shying away from some bold statements this week, telling Bloomberg News that he thinks the Big Tech companies should be broken up. And that includes Apple.
Digital civic space under attack
The treacherous world of cyber attacks is becoming an increasingly pressing problem for civil society.
Apple says sorry for listening in on Siri conversations
The use of humans to listen to audio recordings is particularly troubling to privacy experts because it increases the chances that a rogue employee or contractor could leak details of what is being said, including parts of sensitive conversations.
'Well done': home affairs chief Mike Pezzullo praised police for raiding journalist's home
The head of the Department of Home Affairs, Mike Pezzullo, congratulated the Australian federal police for conducting raids on journalists, new documents reveal.
Mum’s warning about online privacy: “I can’t fix this”
NSW-based mum, Tammy, is horrified about a breach in her daughter’s privacy. It turns out her daughter’s school used her eight-year-old’s image on an advertisement, without the parents’ express permission.
5G radiation health risks have been hyped, but Dr Karl explains why you don't need to worry
Whether you like it or not, 5G is coming. And it's promising blisteringly fast download speeds — up to 1 gigabyte per second — which is almost as astonishing as the amount of negative publicity it's getting.
Australia ranks last in affordable broadband
Australia is coming last in affordability rankings for entry-level broadband services. Of developed (OECD) nations, Australia is at 36th. Japan is first, US 6th, UK 7th, New Zealand 21st.
iTWire - Sharing patient health data for secondary use denounced by doctors
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Don’t lose focus: Ten reasons to worry about facial recognition technology
Facial recognition technology is spreading fast. Already widespread in China, software that identifies people by comparing images of their faces against a database of records is now being adopted across much of the rest of the world.
Edward Snowden says Facebook is spying on you
The U.S. government is not the only one that's watching you. So warns famed NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, who on Thursday called Facebook to task for spying on its users. What's more, he promised to teach people how to fight back against such corporate surveillance.
Bluetooth is bad and you should stop using it
Everyone uses Bluetooth. Perhaps they shouldn't. The technology that we've come to rely on to connect our phones, smart speakers, cars, vibrators, and toasters is problematic for reasons more serious than pairing issues.
Twitter claims it already bans extremist content as Morrison pushes issue at G7
Twitter claims it is banning most terrorist-related accounts before they even tweet, as the prime minister, Scott Morrison, pushes for the tech companies to be more transparent around what they’re doing to fight terrorism online.
Australia’s data encryption laws an oppression of freedom: Joseph Carson
Australia’s data encrytion laws, which compel tech firms to give police and security agencies access to encrypted messages, are an oppression of human rights, according to a visiting cyber expert.
Why encryption matters to your security and privacy
Encryption is simply the process of converting information or data into a code that only the selected parties can read.
How companies selling spyware are helping to promote family violence
Worried parents or controlling spouses who use spyware to monitor their loved ones are likely breaking the law, a new study has warned.
Don’t Let Encrypted Messaging Become a Hollow Promise
Why do we care about encryption? Why was it a big deal, at least in theory, when Mark Zuckerberg announced earlier this year that Facebook would move to end-to-end encryption on all three of its messaging platforms? We don’t just support encryption for its own sake.
What Would Happen If the Whole Internet Just Shut Down All of a Sudden?
A world in which the internet suddenly stops: surely the TV show’s already in development. Sprawling cast, gorgeous visuals, tediously on-the-nose themes. Some handsome B-lister tearing around the country in pursuit of his wayward kids, or the shadowy sect that pulled the plug in the first place.
Privacy researchers devise a noise-exploitation attack that defeats dynamic anonymity
Privacy researchers in Europe believe they have the first proof that a long-theorised vulnerability in systems designed to protect privacy by aggregating and adding noise to data to mask individual identities is no longer just a theory.
Stop Doxing Yourself With Your Pet Photos
Lucio, a 4-month-old German shepherd, gets tricked into sitting still for two fucking seconds. (Photo: Andrew Couts / Gizmodo) People are hyper-vigilant these days about protecting their personal information, all the little details about themselves that can lead to stalking or harassment online.
Facial recognition is now rampant. The implications for our freedom are chilling
Last week, all of us who live in the UK, and all who visit us, discovered that our faces were being scanned secretly by private companies and have been for some time.
Sydney Has One Of The Highest Surveillance Levels In The World
Heavy surveillance is often the subject of terrifying dystopian films because it goes straight to our core fear of being watched. A new report has revealed the world’s most-surveilled cities – and Sydney isn’t far from the top.
‘It's techno-racism’: Detroit is quietly using facial recognition to make arrests
For the last two years, Detroit police have been quietly utilizing controversial and unreliable facial recognition technology to make arrests in the city.
Amazon Says The Face Recognition Tech It Sells to Cops Can Now Detect ‘Fear’
Amazon has faced public outrage for providing cloud services to the U.S. government, including law enforcement agencies that conduct mass-raids and separate families at the southern border.
Major security flaw exposes fingerprints of more than 1 million people
Exposed passwords are bad enough. But fingerprint and facial recognition data? That’s terrifying.
Bureaucrats defend targeting Nine as 'foreign agents'
Bureaucrats have defended their decision to write to the Nine Network after it aired footage of a One Nation candidate groping dancers in a US strip club, telling a parliamentary inquiry into media freedom the broadcaster was not a target of foreign interference laws.
Facebook Said It Wasn't Listening to Your Conversations. It Was.
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Police Raids On Journalists Almost Stopped A Huge Banking Scoop In Its Tracks
One of Australia's top journalists has revealed that a whistleblower source for a groundbreaking scoop "absolutely freaked out" and almost pulled out of the story after seeing federal police raid the national broadcaster and a journalist's home in June.
NBN’s unfinished line As soon as the network rollout is finished, the upgrades will have to begin
Communications minister and former Optus executive Paul Fletcher is in a $51 billion game of chicken with the telco industry he used to work for, as the wholesale NBN Co clambers towards profitability on the back of retailers like Telstra, which reported a 40 per cent dive in earnings this morning.
Facebook admits to secretly recording and transcribing users’ conversations
Facebook has confirmed that it has been paying third party contractors to transcribe user conversations that they recorded in secret.
The legal netherworld of meme and reposting accounts.
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Press freedom disconnect The joint intelligence committee inquiry is too important to fail
Is the federal government serious about the parliamentary inquiry into press freedom, or is it just going through the motions to keep the issue off the front pages? At this morning’s public hearing in Sydney, it was hard to avoid the impression of a disconnect between the grave message coming from
Why an Australian charter of rights is a matter of national urgency
If anyone doubts the need for a charter of rights in Australia, the Banerji decision of the High Court handed down last week demonstrates why legislative protection for our common law freedoms has become a matter of national urgency. We have it from the most authoritative source.
Google Hackers Found 10 Ways to Hack an iPhone Without Touching It
While the iPhone is one of the most secure consumer devices on the market, it’s certainly not infallible.
Laws to protect journalists and whistleblowers require urgent reform
The June 2019 Australian Federal Police raids on journalist Annika Smethurst’s home and the headquarters of the ABC highlight the need to rein in secrecy and mass surveillance laws that damage Australia’s democracy, the Human Rights Law Centre will tell a parliamentary inquiry today.
Opinion Here's how tech giants profit from invading our privacy, and how we can start taking it back
An entire industry exists to trade on your personal data - everything from your shopping habits to your political views and medical conditions. The results can genuinely harm consumers. Australia’s consumer watchdog has recommended major changes to our consumer protection and privacy laws.