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.
Privacy and misuse concerns have been raised about a Microsoft 365 feature that allows companies to spy on employees.
A ‘productivity score’ feature promoted as providing aggregated data on how organizations are performing can be used by managers to monitor individual employees …
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We explained way back in 2014 why you might want to have an Apple ID recovery key. In those days, it was an extra precaution you could take against getting locked out of your account.
Apple abandoned recovery keys when it switched to a smarter two-factor authentication process, before reintroducing them in a new form in iOS 14. However, they now work in a different way. You definitely won’t want to enable one now, and you may not want to do so ever …
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As we covered here earlier this month, Apple will now require developers to provide more privacy details about their apps available on the App Store. The company reminded developers today that all apps must have the new privacy labels as of December 8.
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Hackers who compiled a database of as many as 350,000 Spotify passwords proceeded to store it on a cloud server … without a password. The breach also offers a reminder of a key principle to apply when choosing passwords for your account …
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The US military buys location data from a number of apps, including a Muslim prayer app used by 98 million people, according to a new report today. Another app is a Muslim dating app with more than 100,000 downloads.
Other apps are seemingly random, including a popular Craigslist app, a storm-tracker and a level app to help you install shelves …
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Apple’s ad-tracking system is under attack by a privacy activist with a successful track record of fighting Facebook and other tech giants.
Apple uses its own system known as IDFA (IDentifier For Advertisers) to assign a unique code to each of its devices, so that advertisers can track who has seen particular ads. But privacy campaigner Max Schrems claims that this breaches European law…
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As Apple launched its new macOS operating system to the public yesterday, serious server outages occurred that saw widespread Big Sur download/install failures, iMessage and Apple Pay go down but more than that, even performance issues for users running macOS Catalina and earlier. We learned why that happened at a high-level yesterday, now security researcher Jeffry Paul has shared a deep-dive of his understanding along with his privacy and security concerns for Macs, especially Apple Silicon ones.
Update: Apple has shared a response to Paul’s concerns in an updated support document that includes what macOS does to protect your privacy and security, and three new steps it will take in the future for greater privacy and flexibility.
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Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the concept of the world wide web back in 1989, has announced the first step in his privacy-for-all project, Solid. A Solid server is now available for any organization which wants to begin trialing the platform.
Solid was first announced back in 2018 as a way of giving control of user data to individuals, rather than to online services …
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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has claimed that a pending version of Apple’s ad-tracking policy will hurt small businesses when it is introduced next year. Further, he says Apple could damage the economic recovery from the coronavirus crisis.
Zuckerberg’s attack relates to a privacy change Apple originally made in iOS 14 and subsequently agreed to delay to give the ad industry time to react …
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Almost all popular messaging apps offer link previews, which let users know the content of a URL in advance. However, security researchers Talal Haj Bakry and Tommy Mysk have discovered that these link previews can expose user data in both iOS and Android apps.
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Privacy-focused browser DuckDuckGo has been using Apple Maps since early 2019 and has been improving the integration steadily. Now DuckDuckGo has launched driving and walking directions to further complete the feature set while keeping your location searches completely private.
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Wi-Fi security risks are always something to consider when using any kind of public hotspot, but the FBI has this week issued a specific warning about working from hotels during the coronavirus crisis …
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A team of security researchers has found Bing user data exposed on a server owned by Microsoft. The data comes from both iOS and Android versions of the Bing app. The data exposed includes unique user IDs, search queries, location, and even webpages visited as a result of searches …
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Cisco has warned that an iOS 14 privacy feature can break some network setups used by corporations, schools, colleges, and retail chains.
The potential problems result from the the fact that iPhone and iPads on the latest OS default to using a random MAC address when connecting to Wi-Fi networks …
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If you’ve updated to iOS 14, you can now change your default iOS browser to either Firefox or DuckDuckGo if you wish. Both browsers have been approved by Apple to take advantage of the new option to change your default web browser from Safari. (Google’s Chrome had already been approved.)
Both browsers claim that the switch will further boost your privacy protections …
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Apple’s privacy advertising feature that will now arrive in early 2021 has become a polarizing change. On one side, privacy advocates praise the upcoming default that will ask users if they’ll allow apps to track them and on the other side, third-party developers and advertisers say the move goes too far and will see ad revenue drop as much as 50%. Now Instagram’s CEO has weighed in and says the company will make a strong case against the change.
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The NSA mass surveillance program, which saw the National Security Agency collecting communication records of US citizens without warrant or probable cause, has again been found to be illegal by an appeals court …
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Apple came under considerable flack yesterday after announcing that it was delaying protections against one of the ad industry’s ways to track us. 9to5Mac readers and Twitter users were not impressed.
But ultimately Apple’s latest privacy step won’t make much difference: there’s already a new way for advertisers to track us, and there’s little Apple can do about it: device fingerprinting. Read on to find out how to test whether your devices can be uniquely identified …
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After announcing new iOS privacy requirements back at WWDC in June, Apple has shared a new detailed document for developers as they prepare to create privacy “nutrition labels” for apps. The new iOS 14 feature will apply for all apps that are available in Apple’s App Stores with the goal to better inform consumers with a clear overview of an app’s privacy practices.
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Overcast, favored by many of us as an alternative to Apple’s own Podcasts app, has begun providing podcast privacy alerts for shows in the latest beta version …
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Following Facebook’s multiple warnings including a recent public post about concerns over lost ad revenue due to the iOS 14 privacy changes, other digital publishers have shared similar fears. Like Facebook anticipating up to a 50% drop in revenue, one publisher estimates ad rates on iOS could fall as much as 40%.
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Analysis of the TikTok app revealed references to Chinese servers in the code, which was subsequently removed in an update.
Two security researchers have given very different perspectives on whether or not this raises any privacy concerns …
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A database breach has exposed profile data for nearly 235 million users of TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.
The data appears to have been collected by a practice known as web-scraping, where a company accesses the web interface of a service and then collates data automatically …
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IBM and the Los Angeles city attorney’s office have settled a privacy lawsuit brought after The Weather Channel app was found to be selling user location data without proper disclosure. The lawsuit was filed last year, at which point the app had 45 million active users.
IBM has changed the way that users are informed, and also agreed to donate $1M worth of technology to assist LA County with its coronavirus contact tracing efforts …
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