Cops Keep Getting Arrested for Using Flock to Stalk People

The cases highlight the fact that Flock can be used to track the whereabouts of individual people, that police do not get a warrant in order to use the system, and that, if they have access to the system, they have the technical ability to look up any license plate they want for any reason they want.

#police #stalking #safety #privacy #surveillance #flocksaftey #alpr

https://www.404media.co/cops-keep-getting-arrested-for-using-flock-to-stalk-people/

"We can't read your messages" is only half the story.

Metadata — who you talk to, when, how often, from where — is enough to map your entire life. Most E2EE apps still collect it.

The only safe metadata is metadata that never exists. That's the design constraint we started from.

#privacy #metadata #surveillance #e2ee

RE: https://ec.social-network.europa.eu/@EUCommission/116766280029168108

"W Social" is launching their beta today today, following Eurosky as another European AT Protocol based Bluesky-compatible platform. W's distinctiveness is that it requires identity verification, using the separate "W identity" app that "scans your passport or national identity card and verifies you directly on your own device."

Unsurprisingly, W has a lot of backing from EU power structure -- including Ursula von der Leyen -- and their advisory board includes luminaries like Marc Placzek, Chief Privacy Officer at Sam Altman's Tools for Humanity (makers of the Orb identity verification device). A cynic might say that it's being built as a platform designed to fit in well with the surveillance-industrial complex.

So, it'll be interesting to see how it works out. See the replies for some good articles on W social.

#WSocial #atproto #surveillance

Jacob Urlich 🌍 boosted

European Commission » 🌐 2026-06-17
@EUCommission@ec.social-network.europa.eu

A strong Europe needs independent digital spaces.

We believe true digital sovereignty thrives on a competitive, contestable, open ecosystem where diverse platforms co-exist.

Today, we’re expanding our presence to W, the new social media. By being on W, we want to boost alternatives and support all efforts toward a decentralised web.

And we continue to invest into our presence on the Fediverse!

Alt...

A promotional graphic with a deep purple background, inviting viewers to "Connect with us on" a platform symbolized by a large stylized letter "W." The "W" has a 3D effect, with the left half in white and the right half in a light mint green. Five large, yellow five-pointed stars curve along the top, right, and bottom edges, reminiscent of the European Union flag. In the bottom right corner, there is a small, white institutional logo representing the European Commission.

Privacy is not only the right to hide information.

It is also the right not to be converted into a usable model without remainder.

A person is more than the profile, score, category, prediction, or behavioral trace that can be extracted from them.

That is the core argument of The Right Not To Be Modeled:

https://zenodo.org/records/20335428

#PrivacyMatters #Surveillance #Privacy #AIethics #DataEthics #Philosophy

If you don't want unknown entities spying on your emails, setting up email encryption is a great way to protect your #privacy and use your #UserFredom: u.fsf.org/1bq #surveillance #FSF #FreeSoftware #GNU

“My fear is that W Social is just another for-profit Big Tech startup that happens to be based in the EU. We don’t need that. We don’t need more European surveillance capitalists and people farmers. We need ethical alternatives working for the common good.”

– Yours truly, in @_elena’s excellent exposé on W Social.

https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-public-institutions-and-the-theater-of-european-digital-sovereignty/

Do read the article to the end, especially noting the bit about the composition of their board of advisors, which includes an ex-Google AI lead and an ex-Paypal Chief [Violate Your] Privacy Officer who now works at Tools for Humanity (Sam Altman’s “Sci-fi dystopia? Hold my beer…” identity farming startup that wants to scan your eyeballs).

#WSocial #EuropeWashing #PrivacyWashing #BigTech #peopleFarming #surveillance #capitalism #EU #ATProto #fediverse

☀️ Morning everyone,
With the news on the UK's "Phase 2" of the Online Safety Act rolling out, my focus has shifted heavily. Today's tasks are all about digital resilience and decentralization:

👉 Boosting Alternative Networks: I have to push Solent.Social and the broader Fediverse much harder.

👉 Learn New Systems: Exploring alternative platforms, as the upcoming round of strict ID verification rules will likely lock out or restrict access to mainstream spaces like TikTok and YouTube (So maybe looking at PeerTube and Loops).

👉 Content Redundancy: Pushing further into content creation while simultaneously building digital backups on alternative, self-hosted or federated systems like PeerTube or just uploading it directly to Solent.Social

👉 Alternative Comms: Researching Discord alternatives (hoping Fluxer has finally got its decentralized architecture live).

There is an immense amount of work to do before these highly invasive "safety" systems are fully implemented.

At this stage, bringing friends and family over to safer, independent digital spaces isn't just a preference, It’s a necessity! No one should be subject to this level of blanket surveillance. It treats people as criminals right out the gate and company greed causes them to harvest our personal data even further to train AI Models to replace us. This is all getting ridiculous.

#OnlineSafety #OnlineSafetyAct #UKSocialMedia #SocialMediaBan #SocialMediaBanUK #IDVerification #UK #Discord #OnlineSafetyActUK #Surveillance #IDVerify

#Police Are Using AI #Surveillance Cameras to Stalk Partners and Exes | Novara Media

https://novaramedia.com/2026/06/16/us-police-are-using-ai-surveillance-cameras-to-stalk-partners-and-exes/

> Police #officers in the US are using #AI surveillance #cameras to stalk their #partners and ex-partners.

#wife #spouse #girlfriend #girlfriends #stalking #spying

Why the Inquisition Built the Surveillance State

https://clairesalerno.substack.com/p/why-the-inquisition-built-the-surveillance

The real motive behind web 2.0, web 3.0, the cloud, AI, and panopticon nonsense is to identify and isolate heretics.

"They began with the network. If you can find one suspected heretic and interrogate them about their associations, who they speak to, who they share meals with, whose homes they visit and which neighbours are sympathetic, you can build a list of names."

"Then, you visit each of those people on the list and ask them the same questions. From this you can build a map of the entire community, identifying relationships and flagging suspects."

"They used the social fabric of communities and rewarded those who denounced others. They reduced penalties for cooperation, and built the assumption that staying silent is itself suspicious."

"They made it so the rational choice for any individual in the community is to inform on neighbours before neighbours inform on them. This creates a self-policing community. The community does the work, with the institution as the receiving authority."

"Think about that for a moment, because it describes the current digital surveillance apparatus exactly."

#Inquisition #Surveillance #Panopticon #Privacy #Cathars #Censorship

"Realizing your trove exists is terrifying. So is learning that it’s never been more vulnerable."

Bridget Read for New York/Intelligencer: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/your-digital-self-is-vulnerable.html

#Longreads #Privacy #Surveillance #Data #Technology #Internet

#Meta Tapped a #Pentagon Supplier to Prototype Face Recognition for Its Glasses

https://www.wired.com/story/meta-rank-one-computing-face-recognition-smart-glasses/

#FRT #FacialRecognition #SmartGlasses #RayBan #Oakley #privacy #surveillance

Around 52 percent of parents track their 18- to 25-year-old children using smartphone apps, according to a University of Michigan survey.

Is it healthy and the new normal or bordering on surveillance?
https://flip.it/jccv0M

#Surveillance #Privacy #Smartphones

Starmer’s Social Media Ban: the Reinvention of the Surveillance State

Tyranny masquerading as child safety needs you to feel guilty before you feel suspicious. Downing Street is counting on it.

https://reclaimthenet.org/starmers-social-media-ban-surveillance-state

#UK #AgeVerification #IdVerification #privacy #surveillance #dystopia #technology

Free software offers trust and privacy; #Ring offers mass #surveillance: https://u.fsf.org/4aw

Cops are human beings. Despite constantly pretending they’re on a higher plane (see also: Thin Blue Line, etc.), they’re just as fallible as anyone else. Especially now. This occupation is self-selecting. Righting wrongs is rarely the main draw. It’s almost always the immense of amount of power that comes coupled with nearly zero accountability. There […]

Last month I noted how the Trump FCC had unveiled a brand new plan to “stop robocalls.” As with most efforts the proposal doesn’t actually do much to stop robocalls because a well-lobbied U.S. government (1) refuses to hold big companies accountable or collect fines, (2) constantly embraces weak rules that make telemarketers and debt […]

""Every failed attempt to make children safer online is followed by more surveillance and censorship," he said. "Children have rights too and these policies will harm their free expression and privacy rights, and push them into less regulated spaces. Meanwhile the business models driving harms are untouched."

Others questioned whether the measures can realistically be enforced. Mark Jones, an online harms specialist and partner at law firm Payne Hicks Beach, noted that the consultation closed only weeks ago and warned that determined teenagers have a habit of finding ways around restrictions.

"A social media ban only helps if it is genuinely enforceable," Jones said. "If large numbers of young people simply circumvent the restrictions, parents will just lose visibility into where their children are actually spending time online rather than reclaiming any control."

The political case for the crackdown appears relatively straightforward, but the practical one is less so. The government now has to persuade social media companies to enforce the rules and teenagers not to find ways around them."

https://www.theregister.com/personal-tech/2026/06/15/britain-plots-digital-bedtime-after-kicking-under-16s-off-social-media/5255341

#UK #AgeVerification #NannyState #Surveillance #Oligopolies #Censorship #BigBrother #BigTech #Privacy #Anonymity

The Zine from 404media About ICE Surveillance Is Here!

https://www.404media.co/icezine/

"You are holding a zine about the surveillance tools used by ICE, and what we have learned so far about how you can resist this technology.

This zine was reported and written by 404 Media, a journalist-owned investigative website and now, we suppose, a print publication. Our status as a small outfit of reporters who own the means of production (a website), means that we have the freedom to report on the topics we believe are the most important. For the last year, that has been Donald Trumpʼs mass deportation
campaign, and the technology powering it."

PDF Zine: https://www.404media.co/content/files/2026/02/404ICEZINE.pdf

#Zine #Surveillance #USA #ICE #Tech #Technology

Meta plans to add facial recognition to its smart glasses, report claims

“We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns,” the document reads.

#Meta considered adding facial recognition #technology to the first version of its Ray-Ban smart glasses back in 2021, but dropped the plans over technical challenges and ethical concerns. The NYT reports that the company has revived its plans as the #Trump administration has grown closer to Big Tech, and following the unexpected success of its smart glasses."

https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/13/meta-plans-to-add-facial-recognition-to-its-smart-glasses-report-claims/

#BigTech #SmartGlasses #Surveillance #FaceID

‚Bank details, sex and naked people who seem unaware they are being recorded. Behind Meta’s new smart glasses lies a hidden workforce, uneasy about peering into the most intimate parts of other people’s lives…..‘

https://www.svd.se/a/K8nrV4/metas-ai-smart-glasses-and-data-privacy-concerns-workers-say-we-see-everything

#Meta #Surveillance #Privacy #RayBan #SmartGlasses #Data #Technology

Flock Leaked Cops’ License Plate Searches via DuckDuckGo, Bing

Flock appears to be leaking tons of law enforcement vehicle queries and possible user data. Data publicly visible in search result URLs includes: license plate state and numbers, make, model, color, identifiers such as ‘window stickers’ and ‘top rack,’ case number, and more.

#flocksafety #alpr #police #dataleak #surveillance #privacy #technology #tech

https://www.404media.co/flock-leaked-cops-license-plate-searches-via-duckduckgo-bing/

🛡️ #Cybersecurity news & tips across the #fediverse

“australia's #surveillance act after 6 months: not working
starmer wanker: let's do the same shit like #australia but with more strictness. it surely will work.

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:mspg53rhq553n6...”

https://bsky.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:mchshjk3m27xjgaaj56mvevj/post/3mocfe2dlbc22

🤖 via RSS feed. Not an endorsement.

🛡️ #Cybersecurity news & tips across the #fediverse

“We might finally end this #surveillance monstrosity after all. 😎

Trump says FISA extension must...”

https://bsky.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:syr4pyycnawifxcinafpkctu/post/3mobqloghsk2z

🤖 via RSS feed. Not an endorsement.

Rank One, whose board includes a former CIA deputy director and a former FBI science chief, supplied face recognition to Meta for internal development of its smart glasses app.

Alt...

Meta Tapped a Pentagon Supplier to Prototype Face Recognition for Its Glasses

The UK government has adopted the Boris Johnson clown car. They've just announced a ban on under 16s accessing social media.

But, they have not first understood the implications of age verification on everyone else:

"The regulator #Ofcom has been asked to carry out a rapid study to identify the best ways to verify if someone is over 16. "https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ceqdny4l3jdo

What utter stupidity from #KeirStarmer #LisaNandy of #UKLabour. If only Ofcom regulated the companies.

#surveillance #privacy #av

Meta’s pivot from Llama to Muse Spark confirms the shift: the "open" era was just a marketing lure. Now, it's about proprietary lock-in. With 97.6% of revenue still tied to ads, Zuckerberg’s AI subscriptions are just a new tax to fund the surveillance engine. The trap is closing.
​#Meta #AI #Business #Surveillance

#2K115

Alt...

Mark Zuckerberg wearing Meta’s AI-integrated smart glasses, symbolizing the transition from a social media platform to an invasive, closed-loop surveillance ecosystem.

Y’all know self-driving robotaxis are rolling surveillance machines, right?

You think they’re not operating license plate/facial recognition readers on these rolling camera outfits? There’s money to be made selling video footage and search access this data to “law enforcement”. Selling #surveillance is how these things continue to make money even without passengers inside.

#cars #robotaxi

https://sfist.com/2022/05/12/report-sfpd-already-using-surveillance-video-from-self-driving-cars/

Surveillance has harmful effects on cognition and identity - deeper research and social knowledge is needed to foster healthy communities.

#ai #surveillance #surveillancecapitalism #socialmedia #blackposts #darkpatterns #privacy #privacymatters

Alt...

Text describes the harmful effects of surveillance on cognition, identity and mental health.

@cxiao Why does this also feel like it's a massive backdoor being shoved into everything. (See eg; Indian surveillance smartphone app that thankfully got quashed, North Korean OS, etc.) #surveillance

Victory! 702 has Expired!

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/06/victory-702-has-expired

#Section702 #FISA #privacy #surveillance #politics

Controversial #FISA spying law expires tonight. The spying will continue.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/06/controversial-fisa-spying-law-expires-tonight-the-spying-will-continue/

#Section702 #privacy #surveillance #politics