Skip to main content

Privacy

See All Stories

Privacy is a growing concern in today’s world. Follow along with all our coverage related to privacy, security, what Apple and other companies are doing to keep your information safe, and what steps you can take to keep your information private.

FTC bans General Motors from selling driving data without permission, adding to case for CarPlay 2

FTC bans General Motors from selling driving data without permission | Corvette ZR1 Coupe interior

The Federal Trade Commission has taken action against General Motors and OnStar for selling location and driving data from millions of GM car owners, allegedly without informed consent. This data was collected as frequently as every three seconds.

Both companies have been banned from selling location and driving behavior data for a period of five years, and will need to ensure they disclose any future sharing plans, and obtain proper consent for it …

Expand Expanding Close

Apple was fined $2.1B last year, but could pay it all off in a week

Apple was fined $2.1B last year, but could pay it all off in a week | Close-up of a hand flicking through a stack of $100 bills

Apple was fined a global total of more than $2.1B last year for antitrust violations, but the sum was only the equivalent of just over a week’s worth of free cash flow.

Encrypted email company Proton put together its latest Tech Fines Tracker, in which Google was the most heavily-fined company, with Apple in second place …

Expand Expanding Close

Washington State suing T-Mobile over data breach impacting 79 million people

Washington State suing T-Mobile over data breach impacting 79 million people | T-Mobile ad in Times Square

Washington State is suing T-Mobile over a 2021 security breach which exposed the personal data of some 79 million people, including 2M Washington residents. Data exposed included social security numbers, phone numbers, physical addresses, unique IMEI numbers, and driver’s license information.

The carrier is accused of failing to follow industry-standard cybersecurity processes, which allowed the breach to go unnoticed for four months …

Expand Expanding Close

Apple will pay $95 million to settle Siri privacy lawsuit, and you might get a cut [Update]

Siri privacy lawsuit

Update January 6, 2025: In a new statement to 9to5Mac, Apple says:

Siri has been engineered to protect user privacy from the beginning. Siri data has never been used to build marketing profiles and it has never been sold to anyone for any purpose. Apple settled this case to avoid additional litigation so we can move forward from concerns about third-party grading that we already addressed in 2019. We use Siri data to improve Siri, and we are constantly developing technologies to make Siri even more private.

Find more details in our new story on the subject.


Over five years ago, Apple was hit with a lawsuit over ‘unlawful and intentional recording’ of Siri interactions. Now finally, the case is coming to an end, with Apple agreeing to pay $95 million in a settlement.

Expand Expanding Close

PSA: Look out for hyper-personalized phishing attacks, powered by AI

Hyper-personalized phishing attacks, powered by AI | Man typing on MacBook

Phishing attacks are about to get a whole lot more convincing. A new report warns that scammers are now using AI to scrape information about you from your online profiles in order to send hyper-personalized emails which target your login credentials.

By finding out everything from your employer to your interests, scammers can send emails which have a far greater chance of appearing to be genuine …

Expand Expanding Close

Passkeys were supposed to be secure and simple; here’s how they fail

Passkeys were supposed to be secure and simple; here's how they fail | Close-up of a finger about to press the Touch ID button on a MacBook

I’ve been arguing that passwords are horrible for the best part of a decade now, and was an enthusiastic early adopter of the far better approach of passkeys.

Passkeys were supposed to achieve the holy grail of an approach which is both more secure than passwords and so easy to use that everyone would adopt them. But a new piece outlines four problems with the technology …

Expand Expanding Close

US Army soldier arrested over data breach extortion of AT&T and Verizon

US Army soldier arrested over data breach extortion of AT&T and Verizon | Photo shows Seal of the Army

A US Army soldier has been arrested on suspicion of extorting money from AT&T and Verizon, following data breaches which saw a massive amount of customer data obtained.

The 20-year-old was arrested near the Army base in Fort Hood, Texas, on suspicion of being the cybercriminal known as Kiberphant0m – and statements by his mother aren’t likely to help …

Expand Expanding Close

Enhanced Visual Search shares your photos with Apple by default, to identify landmarks

Enhanced Visual Search shares your photos with Apple by default | Screengrabs shown

A developer has noted that Apple’s Photos app shares your iPhone photos with Apple by default, for an iOS 18 feature known as Enhanced Visual Search.

This is an expansion of the older Visual Look Up feature, which can recognize objects within your photos, but a privacy note in the Settings app implies that it sends more data to Apple …

Expand Expanding Close

Massive Marriott and Starwood data breaches require 13 fixes, says the FTC

Massive Marriott and Starwood data breaches require 13 fixes | Marriott hotel shown

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has responded to a series of massive Marriott and Starwood data breaches, ordering the companies to make no fewer than 13 changes to ensure it can’t happen again.

More than 344 million customers were impacted by three separate security breaches, which revealed personal data that included credit card details and passport information …

Expand Expanding Close

An Apple smart doorbell would be a sure-fire winner – for all of us

An Apple smart doorbell would be a sure-fire winner | Nest doorbell shown

A report over the weekend suggested an Apple smart home doorbell with support for Face ID is in development. It follows an earlier report of an Apple smart home camera next year.

While it could be argued that both are commodity products, and that Apple’s most important contribution is the HomeKit platform rather than the hardware, there seems little doubt about the opportunity here …

Expand Expanding Close

Most popular home internet routers in US may be banned as national security risk

Most popular home internet routers in US may be banned as national security risk | TP-Link wireless router on a red background

The most popular home internet router brand in the US may be banned from sale in the country over fears that it represents a threat to national security.

Three separate US agencies have opened investigations into TP-Link routers, which account for 65% of the US market, in part because badged versions are supplied to customers by more than 300 ISPs …

Expand Expanding Close

DOJ forced Apple to hand over customer call and message data without the required authorization

DOJ did not follow procedure when demanding customer call and message data from Apple | Office of the Inspector General report graphic

An official government report has concluded that the Trump-era Department of Justice (DOJ) did not obtain the required authorizations before demanding customer call and message data from Apple and others.

It also failed to obtain authorization from the Attorney General before imposing a gag order on Apple, preventing it from disclosing the fact that it had been forced to hand over the personal data

Expand Expanding Close

Scan your iPhone for Pegasus spyware using a $1 app

Scan your iPhone for Pegasus spyware using a $1 app (screengrabs shown)

A newly-released app lets you regularly scan your iPhone for Pegasus spyware – which can access almost all the data on a phone – for a one-off cost of just one dollar.

A mobile security firm created the app, which allows you to scan your iPhone or Android phone and send the results to them for analysis – and they’ve so far detected seven phones infected by the spyware …

Expand Expanding Close

Data brokers may be banned from selling your personal data without good reason

Data brokers may be banned from selling your personal data | People in an office working with data

Data brokers may be banned from selling your personal data without legitimate justification, under a new proposal by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Back in the summer it was revealed that one of these brokers was hacked, resulting in the compromise of personal data for every person in the US, UK, and Canada.

The proposed change would limit the sharing of sensitive data like your name and social security number by subjecting data brokers to the same rules as credit checking agencies …

Expand Expanding Close

Zoom offers a further $18M for lying to users about video encryption

Zoom offers a further $18M for lying to users about video encryption | Company campus pictured

Popular video conferencing platform Zoom agreed to pay $85M in compensation back in 2021 after it was revealed that the company lied to users about the type of encryption it offered. It has now offered to pay an $18M fine to the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) in order to settle an investigation into the same security and privacy issue.

Zoom disclosed the offer in a regulatory filing …

Expand Expanding Close

Yes, the 10 worst passwords still include ‘password’ and ‘secret’

Some six years after virtual private network company NordVPN started searching data breaches for the most-used passwords, things are every bit as bad as when the company started.

Each year, the company searches the dark web for passwords stolen by malware or exposed in security breaches to determine the most commonly-used passwords, and this year’s crop is as depressing as ever …

Expand Expanding Close

The reported Apple smart home camera will combine ultimate privacy with Apple Intelligence

An Apple smart home camera will combine privacy with Apple Intelligence (Xiaomi camera shown on desk with flowers in vase)

Earlier this week Ming-Chi Kuo suggested that we’ll see an Apple smart home camera in 2026, with the company confident it will prove to be a popular accessory, selling in the tens of millions per year.

Given Apple’s habit of minimizing the number of products it makes, if the report is accurate the company must feel there’s good reason to enter a crowded product category, and I think an Apple camera will likely differentiate itself in two ways: privacy, and Apple Intelligence

Expand Expanding Close

More than 100 million Americans had their health data exposed in a UnitedHealth hack

Patients and doctors were victims of a massive UnitedHealth hack | Doctor using smartphone

A UnitedHealth hack exposed the personal information and health data of more than 100M Americans – the first time the company has put a specific number on the security breach.

A ransomware attack was made on Change Healthcare back in February, but it was only yesterday that the company revealed its “unprecedented magnitude” …

Expand Expanding Close

Manage push notifications

notification icon
We would like to show you notifications for the latest news and updates.
notification icon
You are subscribed to notifications
notification icon
We would like to show you notifications for the latest news and updates.
notification icon
You are subscribed to notifications