https://cybernews.com/security/global-data-leak-exposes-billion-records/

Speaking of ID verification companies being shady, #IDMerit, a global AI-based identity verification and "Know Your Customer" (KYC) solutions provider, left a terabyte of user data and biometrics on the open web. The breach exposed approximately 1 billion to 3 billion personal records across 26 countries, making it a significant event for data privacy in the financial and fintech.

Call me Cassandra. 🤷🏻‍♀️🤦‍♀️ #infosec #datasec #ageverification #surveillance

Alternatives to facial recognition that Discord could use:

✅ Credit card verification (proves 18+)
✅ Privacy-preserving age tokens
✅ ID check without biometric storage
✅ Parental consent systems

Discord chose the MOST invasive option.

This isn't about age verification. It's about normalising biometric surveillance.

#Discord #Privacy #Surveillance #AgeVerification

#Persona, a provider of identity and age verification services for companies like #Discord and the entire #UK, left their code base open to the web. Of course they did.

Let’s look at what it does, shall we?

The platform performs 269 individual verification checks on user data, far beyond basic age verification.

#Surveillance: Persona’s system screens users against global watchlists, including those for #terrorism, #espionage, and politically exposed persons (#PEPs), using facial recognition and risk scoring. Researchers confirmed that the government-facing and consumer-facing versions of Persona use the same underlying code, suggesting a unified surveillance infrastructure.

Data Retention: Personal data including government ID, phone numbers, names, faces, selfies, IP addresses, browser fingerprints, and device fingerprints—is collected and retained for up to three years.
(1/2)

Nebraska company is supplying ICE with surveillance tech

https://flatwaterfreepress.org/this-nebraska-company-is-supplying-ice-with-surveillance-tech/

#HackerNews #Nebraska #Surveillance #ICE #Tech #Privacy #Concerns #Immigration

Just picking up this story of hackers who exposed hidden surveillance on Persona the age assurance company that Peter Thiel is an investor of. Who would have guess consumer proof of age for kids could feed into a Government surveillance network! https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2026/02/age-verification-vendor-persona-left-frontend-exposed #Persona #surveillance

"What is happening in Minneapolis is a trial balloon. It’s where Trump is testing the limits of his power"...

...to suppress dissent, create fear & intimidation, & break people’s will.

Surveillance is central to this, & Thiel's Palantir is central to Trump's ICE operation. And now the UK.

In the UK, Palantir has access "to our most sensitive personal data.... the entire nation’s medical records."

https://www.thenerve.news/p/technofascism-us-america-fascism-trump-palantir-peter-thiel-uk-nigel-farage-reform

#USPol #EUPol #Palantir #Surveillance #Thiel #Autocracy #NHS #UKPol .

ICE triples Azure data usage to 1.4PB (Jul'25-Jan'26), leans on AI Vision/Video Indexer for surveillance amid facial recognition, phone trackers, drones. ☁️

Reports challenge Microsoft's "no mass surveillance" stance despite contracts; employee concerns rise as policies clash with ICE enforcement reality. ⚖️

🔗 https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/microsoft-azure-data-usage-by-ice-triples-as-reports-question-microsofts-connection-to-mass-surveillance-we-do-not-believe-ice-is-engaged-in-such-activity

#TechNews #Privacy #Cybersecurity #Surveillance #AI #Cloud #Azure #Microsoft #ICE #DigitalRights #DataProtection #Ethics #FOSS #US #USA #Police #Trump #USpol

ICE nutzt Handydaten der Werbeindustrie für Jagd auf Migrant*innen

US-Behörden kaufen Informationen von Hunderten Millionen Handys – eine auch in Europa geläufige Praxis……

https://www.nd-aktuell.de/artikel/1196728.datenbroker-ice-nutzt-handydaten-der-werbeindustrie-fuer-jagd-auf-migranten.html

#ICE #Trump #USA #Technology #Surveillance #Smartphone #Europa #EU #Überwachung

How to Organize Safely in the Age of Surveillance
#surveillance #protest

https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-organize-safely-in-the-age-of-surveillance/?fbclid=IwY2xjawQFichleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZA80MDk5NjI2MjMwODU2MDkAAR5ZsarM09-PsUSlDDp_sDrosdVbtwOoEsxASFcjO3kfvAYvE1tYH6rzpR0tlA_aem_dUTjPIjDcjUY6bitjbIuAA

Help me Fedi! Recommend your favorite reports and papers about #adtech and #surveillance or #privacy.
In particular I am looking not just for reports about what data brokers sell but specifically info about how they use ad tech to collect data and build user profiles.
🙏

It's "funny" how so many conspiracy theories about USA just turn out to be true. This time it's the turn of USA scanning citizen's faces for surveillance. Tho i am not sure if this is real news.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zZ98DPIp0a4

#usa #1984 #privacy #surveillance #ai

From threat modeling to encrypted collaboration apps, we’ve collected experts’ tips and tools for safely and effectively building a group—even while being targeted and tracked by the powerful.

Alt...

How to Organize Safely in the Age of Surveillance

Online privacy is vital
#signal #privacy #surveillance #technology

https://youtu.be/0H9wDxfMoKo?si=mlK5qwaDL7kC4yfD

Study of 10,000 users across 680 websites:

- 99.2% clicked "Accept All"
- 0.4% customised settings
- 0.4% clicked "Reject All"

GDPR cookie law INCREASED consent to tracking by creating annoying barriers people dismiss without reading.

This is what happens when you regulate surveillance without banning it.

#GDPR #Privacy #Surveillance

"U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has relied extensively on Microsoft’s cloud storage and artificial intelligence products while escalating its campaign of mass arrests and deportations in recent months, files obtained by +972 Magazine, Local Call, and The Guardian reveal.

ICE more than tripled the amount of data it holds on Microsoft servers between July 2025 and January 2026, at the same time as the agency’s crackdown on migrants broke new records and sparked mass protests across the United States. Whereas last July the agency was storing around 400 terabytes of data in Microsoft’s cloud platform, Azure, by the end of January that had risen to almost 1,400 terabytes — equivalent to approximately 490 million images.

The leaked documents do not specify the kinds of information stored by ICE on Microsoft servers, but they do indicate that the agency has used Azure to house large amounts of data, in addition to making use of AI tools that search and analyze images and videos.

ICE employs a powerful arsenal of surveillance technology, reportedly using facial recognition software, drones, phone location tracking, mobile spyware, and even tapping school cameras. The leaked documents show ICE is using Microsoft’s AI video analysis tools including Azure AI Video Indexer and Azure Vision, which enable customers to analyze images, read text, and detect certain words, faces, emotions, and objects in audio and video files."

https://www.972mag.com/ice-microsoft-azure-leaked-files/

#USA #Trump #Immigration #ICE #Microsoft #Surveillance #AI #Azure #CloudComputing #Spyware #FacialRecognition

New Report Helps #Journalists Dig Deeper Into Police #Surveillance Tech

A new report released today offers journalists tips on cutting through the sales hype about police surveillance tech & report accurately on costs, benefits, #privacy , & #accountability as these invasive & often ineffective tools come to communities across the nation.

The “Selling Safety” report is a joint project of the EFF, the Center for Just #Journalism (CJJ), and #IPVM.

https://www.eff.org/press/releases/new-report-helps-journalists-dig-deeper-police-surveillance-technology

#SanJose Can Protect #Immigrants by Ending #Flock #Surveillance System

As #ICE and other federal agencies continue their assault on civil liberties, local leaders are stepping up to protect their communities. This includes pushing back against automated license plate readers, or ALPRs, which are tools of mass surveillance that can be weaponized against immigrants, political dissidents and other targets.
#civilliberties #privacy #alpr #rights #civilrights

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/02/op-ed-san-jose-can-protect-immigrants-ending-flock-surveillance-system

404 Media: Leaked Email Suggests Ring Plans to Expand ‘Search Party’ Surveillance Beyond Dogs

"Ring’s controversial, AI-powered “Search Party” feature isn’t intended to always be limited only to dogs, the company’s founder, Jamie Siminoff, told Ring employees in an internal email obtained by 404 Media....404 Media also obtained two earlier emails Siminoff sent to all Ring employees, about how Ring could have potentially been used to help find Charlie Kirk’s killer, and about the company’s “Community Requests” feature...."

(registration wall)
https://www.404media.co/leaked-email-suggests-ring-plans-to-expand-search-party-surveillance-beyond-dogs/

#privacy #bigbrother #surveillance #ring #ai

This evening Ofcom are going to announce plans to require platforms to deploy fuzzy matching aka algorithmic hash matching to try and detect intimate image abuse. Welcome to the new age of automated widespread generalised surveillance of images. #surveillance #ofcom

Leaked Email Suggests Ring Plans to Expand ‘Search Party’ Surveillance Beyond Dogs

https://www.404media.co/leaked-email-suggests-ring-plans-to-expand-search-party-surveillance-beyond-dogs/

#Ring #Amazon #privacy #surveillance #AI #enshittification #dystopia #technology

🇮🇱️ The Israeli Spyware Firm That Accidentally Just Exposed Itself

｢ Israeli surveillance company Paragon Solutions briefly exposed its own spyware dashboard on LinkedIn, revealing the hidden architecture of a billion-dollar surveillance empire built on the backs of journalists, activists, and ordinary people ｣

https://ahmedeldin.substack.com/p/the-israeli-spyware-firm-that-accidentally

#infosec #privacy #surveillance #israel

Re: https://aus.social/@oscarjiminy/116088416344226862

Folks're up in arms re invasion of privacy and proxy panopticon of Ring's law enforcement/flock collaboration but the end-game's already here. law enforcement can bypass protection protocols and buy from data brokers

'Governments seeking to consolidate power, suppress dissent, or control marginalized populations will find in these AI technologies an attractive toolset. Surveillance platforms like facial recognition software and automated target selection systems, especially when paired with biometric databases or predictive policing algorithms, can become instruments of mass control and political persecution'

#panopticon #surveillance #democracy #humanRights #biggerPicture

I really recommend this article to people with "good intentions" who want to censor social media, impose age verification systems, and implement surveillance systems that violate basic human rights.

"Far from ‘drowning in evidence’, real researchers – not pop psychologists – are scouring a great desert looking for puddles. The majority of studies have found either no relationship between social media usage and mental illness, or effects so small that they are practically meaningless. A Journal of Public Health study published just last month which examined 25,000 young people in the UK found no correlation between time spent on social media and worsening mental health.

In addition to the proposed ban on social media, there has been an effort to reduce the use of smartphones by children by banning them in schools, on the basis that they disrupt learning. Again, there is little hard evidence to back this up. One large British study from last year found that schools adopting phone bans had no better student outcomes in terms of learning, behaviour or mental health than those without bans. In the US, as bans have proliferated, our standardised testing scores for youth have continued to decline. In my home state of Florida, testing scores reached their lowest levels in 20 years following the introduction of bans. Smartphone bans seem similarly ineffective in your country as well. This week, the British Medical Journal published a study finding that Britain’s school smartphone bans have shown ‘little impact on pupils’ mental wellbeing or quality of life’.

Some advocates argue that social media and smartphones promote bullying among kids. In fact, according to the US National Center for Education Statistics, bullying among youth declined during the smartphone and social media age, even with cyberbullying included into the figures."

https://spectator.com/article/there-is-no-evidence-that-social-media-harms-childrens-mental-health/?edition=us

#SocialMedia #MentalHealth #Teens #Bullying #SocialNetworks #Surveillance #Censorship #HumanRights

Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash

Following intense backlash to its partnership with Flock Safety, a surveillance technology company that works with law enforcement agencies, Ring has announced it is canceling the integration.

#surveillance #DHS #ice #FlockSafety #ring #amazon #privacy #technology #tech

https://www.theverge.com/news/878447/ring-flock-partnership-canceled

This is a warning in a bank app.
At least the app works (for now) if you deny these privileges.

There's no way I am granting this, it's #surveillance and the bank has no place spying on my device/s or even the surrounding devices, many which belong to other people.

THIS is how crowd sourced surveillance works. Your device is spying on other devices and reporting back.

That's what BT and WiFi "scanning" does.

Big tech has made the public spy on one another, the walls have eyes and ears!

Alt...

Bank app requesting privileges

L'Assemblée a adopté une proposition de loi macroniste portée par le député Paul Midy autorisant l'expérimentation jusqu'à fin 2027 de la surveillance algorithmique dans les commerces "afin de prévenir les vols". Le texte, soutenu par le RN, fait cauchemarder les défenseur des libertés. Le texte prévoit d'informer le public lorsque cette technologie est employée, selon ses défenseurs. C'est le minimum... Nous voilà rassurés.

#Politique #Surveillance #Tech #Renaissance #Macron #DirectAN #Vol