Tech Companies Shouldn't Be Bullied into Doing Surveillance

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/02/tech-companies-shouldnt-be-bullied-doing-surveillance

#HackerNews #TechCompanies #Surveillance #Privacy #Rights #DigitalFreedom #EFF

Inside #Chicago’s #surveillance #panopticon
Law enforcement and security advocates say this vast monitoring system protects public safety and works well. But activists and many residents say it’s a surveillance panopticon that creates a chilling effect on behavior and violates guarantees of #privacy and #freespeech.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/02/23/1132740/inside-chicago-surveillance-panopticon/
https://archive.ph/kJD2R

I'd like to think the damage is already done, but I know that some people are settling back down now that this news is out.

Discord delay global rollout of age verification to improve transparency and add more options

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/02/discord-delay-global-rollout-of-age-verification-to-improve-transparency-and-add-more-options/

#Discord #AgeVerification #Transparency #Privacy #Security #Surveillance #AI #Tech #Gaming

Age verification laws force platforms to collect IDs, biometrics or behavioral data, directly conflicting with data minimization principles. 🔍

Recurring checks and stored proof for regulators create breach-prone archives, exposing everyone—not just minors—to surveillance risks. 🔒

🔗 https://spectrum.ieee.org/age-verification

#TechNews #Privacy #Security #Surveillance #DataProtection #DigitalRights #BigTech #AI #Biometrics #KidsOnline #Profiling #Cybersecurity #EU #USA #AgeVerification #Law #Biometrics

Colorado’s SB26-051 would make OSes (Windows, Android, iOS, Linux) collect an “age signal” at setup and expose it via API to every app in broad age brackets 📊

Even if “minimal data” is promised, normalising OS‑level age tagging for all apps raises serious long‑term risks for privacy and user autonomy 🔒

🔗 https://itsfoss.com/news/colorado-age-attestation-bill/

#TechNews #Privacy #Security #Surveillance #DataProtection #DigitalRights #BigTech #AI #KidsOnline #AgeVerification #Profiling #Cybersecurity #US #USA #Colorado #Linux

EU’s Chat Control law is in the final stretch: countries dropped plans for mandatory mass scanning and explicit encryption backdoors, but “voluntary” scanning and broad risk rules remain on the table 📡

Age checks could tie private chats to IDs or face data, sidelining anonymous, secure communication for many people 🔒

@edri

🔗 https://edri.org/our-work/chat-control-is-in-the-final-stretch-but-it-could-be-a-marathon-not-a-sprint/

#TechNews #Privacy #Security #Encryption #Surveillance #AgeVerification #EU #Europe #BigTech #AI #DataProtection #HumanRights #Freedom #Internet

Facial recognition is one of the technologies police are claiming help them clear cases, but I wonder at what point we are going to find out how exactly how many people are in jail/prison who were improperly identified. #FacialRecognition #police #prison #surveillance
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/25/facial-recognition-error-prompts-police-to-arrest-asian-man-for-burglary-100-miles-away

Hegseth threatens to blacklist Anthropic over AI-controlled weapons and mass surveillance of American citizens
#AI #Surveillance

https://www.npr.org/2026/02/24/nx-s1-5725327/pentagon-anthropic-hegseth-safety

Hegseth threatens to blacklist Anthropic over AI-controlled weapons and mass surveillance of American citizens
#AI #Surveillance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBF2GTTK1JU

"The US Air Force had sent the Rivet Joint, one of the world’s most powerful surveillance aircraft, to gather intelligence before a hostile operation. The UK also owns three of the planes and last month dispatched one to the North Atlantic to support the seizure of the Marinera tanker, which the US said had transported sanctioned oil for Venezuela.

Equipped with cutting-edge military technology, the Rivet Joint can pick up radar signals, geolocate enemy systems and intercept communications from 150 miles away.

Exactly how it does this is kept strictly under wraps. But we can reveal that an Australian tech company called Appen has performed work for a secretive US military unit, code-named Big Safari, that installs the planes’ tech systems.

Appen recruits gig workers from all over the world to help train AI systems. The company’s latest annual report says it has a workforce of a million people who speak over 500 languages.

Many of these gig workers are paid very little. Some are from countries that have faced attacks from US armed forces. None were told by Appen that they may have been working for the US military."

https://restofworld.org/2026/gig-workers-us-military-appen/

#Surveillance #AI #GigEconomy #Militarism #USA #GigWorkers

Americans are destroying #Flock #surveillance #cameras | TechCrunch

people across the United States are dismantling and destroying Flock surveillance cameras, amid rising public anger that the license plate readers aid U.S. #immigration authorities and #deportations.
#alpr #privacy #immigrants #security

https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/23/americans-are-destroying-flock-surveillance-cameras/

I heard an excellent #podcast on #WMPG this afternoon about the #AI #Surveillance state and how #TechBros are bullying towns into hosting #DataCenters! A must-listen!

AI Surveillance Cameras in Maine

30 mins - First Aired December 15, 2025

WMPG-FM. Univ of So. Maine - Weekly - Mondays - 1:00 PM
Producer & Host: Richard Rudolph, PhD.

"The podcast is an interview of #DylanOliver, a native of #HodgsonME who is a staff member of the Alliance for Secure AI. Dylan talked about how a number of communities in the state have installed AI surveillance cameras which log and store every single car that passes by a given location, creating a searchable database of our movements regardless of whether anyone is suspected of a crime or not. He also talked about how the data can be shared with federal and local agencies for 'investigative purposes' even if a local police department chooses to restrict data to its own officers."

Listen / Download:
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/ai-surveillance-cameras-in-maine--68997956?utm_medium=app&utm_source=widget&utm_campaign=episode-title&deep_link_value=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.spreaker.com%2Fepisode%2Fai-surveillance-cameras-in-maine--68997956%3Futm_medium%3Dapp%26utm_source%3Dwidget%26utm_campaign%3Depisode-title&af_channel=widget

Web page for #CommunityVoicesForChange:
https://www.wmpg.org/wmpg-podcasts/community-voices-for-change/

#USPol #DataCenter #TechBullies #AISurveillance #MainePol #ThoughtCrime #AllianceForSecureAI #ACAB #Orwellian

Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/23/americans-are-destroying-flock-surveillance-cameras/

#usa #surveillance #flockcameras

Agents🚨working for the #DHS used facial recognition & lic plate readers to surveil & threaten legal observers watching offs in ME, activists said in a lawsuit filed Mon.

Class action suit: filed in the US Dist Court of ME, accuses Noem & her agency of violating the #1A by using #surveillance tech to intimidate the observers. Complaint details:🚨mult incidents....

The suit⚡is seeking an injunction barring the agency from using surveillance tech to threaten...

#ICE #USPol
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/23/dhs-accused-of-using-surveillance-tech-to-track-legal-observers-in-maine-00792722

Alt...

Photos from a lawsuit filed in Maine show Department of Homeland Security agents allegedly scanning legal observers' faces and license plates:

Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/23/americans-are-destroying-flock-surveillance-cameras/

#HackerNews #Americans #Flock #Surveillance #Cameras #Privacy #Activism #TechNews

Discord's age verification rollout has ties to Palantir co-founder and panopticon architect Peter Thiel

The company has informed some users in the UK they may be part of "an experiment" with Persona, an age verification vendor whose investors include Peter Thiel, co-founder of ICE's premier surveillance provider, Palantir.

#Discord #ageverification #surveillance #privacy #palantir #ice #peterthiel #socialmedia #technology #tech

https://www.pcgamer.com/software/platforms/oh-good-discords-age-verification-rollout-has-ties-to-palantir-co-founder-and-panopticon-architect-peter-thiel/

"The global spike in authoritarianism couldn’t possibly be as efficient, or as widespread, if not for the metastasizing mass surveillance tech apparatus following our every movement, every trip to the bathroom or grocery store, every visit to a website or a TikTok video." #surveillance

https://www.salon.com/2026/02/20/big-tech-still-dreams-of-mass-surveillance-now-people-are-pushing-back/

Some open-source projects make me ask: "Do we really need that?" While the goal behind OpenPlanter, keeping tabs on the government, might be valid, surveillance is surveillance, no matter the license.
#opensource #surveillance
https://www.marktechpost.com/2026/02/21/is-there-a-community-edition-of-palantir-meet-openplanter-an-open-source-recursive-ai-agent-for-your-micro-surveillance-use-cases/

The use of automatic license plate readers has exploded across the country in recent years. But as President Trump's immigration enforcement crackdown has escalated in recent months, residents of various American cities are urging local leaders to stop using them. @npr reports:

https://flip.it/wvqhIA

#Tech #Technology #Surveillance #Immigration

After having put it down for 3(?) years, I finished Predict and Surveil: Data, Discretion, and the Future of Policing by Sarah Brayne. 📖

Good overview of the use of big data in policing and predictive policing. Not a lot of analysis along a critical race or surveillance studies angle, but I guess it’s a good companion to Benjamin, Alexander, Browne, Muhammad. Written in a very compelling way.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/d1667f0d-be89-4304-a5fd-01bcac16b9ca #books #bookstodon #police #surveillance #bigData #sociology

“Nothing to hide” is a dangerous myth: it turns a fundamental right into a moral test and ignores how data is stored, combined, and used to judge or manipulate us over time 🔍

Privacy isn’t about hiding crimes, it’s about keeping control of our lives in a world of profiling, data brokers, shifting laws, and client‑side scanning 🔒

#Privacy #Security #Surveillance #DataProtection #DigitalRights #BigTech #AI #Tracking #Profiling #Cybersecurity #Freedom #HumanRights #NothingToHide #OpenSource #FOSS

There’s something to be said about how neoliberalism, in pursuit of transforming public services to private, has obscured what democracy dictates public.

In policing, we have privatized surveillance such that companies control what data even police have access to, let alone defendants. Where processes and their resultant data used to be subpoenable, now we have strict NDAs and proprietary claims.

This is a major impediment to justice, accountability, equality. #police #surveillance #AI

"How do you bring people of all ages, backgrounds, and technical abilities into a mass movement without exposing them to monitoring and targeting by a government—and in particular Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, agencies with paramilitary ambitions, a tendency to break the law, and more funding than some countries’ militaries.

Organizing safely in an age of surveillance increasingly requires not only technical security know-how, but also a tricky balance between secrecy and openness, says Eva Galperin, the director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit focused on digital civil liberties. “You may want to limit access to some information to a smaller group of people, and you need to consider the platforms you are using, so that when law enforcement shows up to Google with a subpoena, there’s nothing sensitive it can hand over,” says Galperin. “But you have to weigh that against the fact that the majority of organizing is done in public, with other people, because the power of organizing is in numbers and solidarity.”

There’s no simple set of tech tips that can help organizers safely build a movement while facing that dilemma, but there are approaches, guidelines and tools that can help. WIRED asked technologists, activists, aid groups, and cybersecurity experts for their guidance on how to organize and collaborate in an age of surveillance. Here’s what we found."

https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-organize-safely-in-the-age-of-surveillance/

#USA #Trump #Activism #ICE #Immigration #Surveillance #PoliceState #CyberSecurity

On sait maintenant ce que cachent les boîtes de surveillance financées par les nazis américains et incidemment à quoi sert vraiment la vérification d'âge comme sur Discord :
- La vérification d'âge sert avant tout à croiser la personne avec des bases de "terroristes" (souvenez-vous de l'acceptation de ce mot), jusqu'à celles de "escroquerie sentimentale" ou en rapport avec le risque politique.
- OpenAI (ChatGPT) maintien une base des données de comportement de ses utilisateurs, qu'ils vendent, avec un service de chatbot pour l'opérer.
- Des boîtes collectent et vendent à des gouvernements des bases similaires, s'appuyant sur tout ce qui passe sur les réseaux sociaux.
- Tout cela sert à identifier des personnes "dangereuses".

https://www.therage.co/persona-age-verification/

Bienvenu dans l'enfer capitalo-nazi.

#ia #politique #internet #openai #surveillance #discord

anyone happen to know of any published academic work where a researcher tracked themself being surveilled? surveillance studies autoethnography?

or any qualitative research about surveillance systems like Flock or Ring?

#surveillance #SurveillanceStudies #commodon

Data brokers, privacy (pers: I f. hate LinkedIn) - I Verified My LinkedIn Identity. Here's What I Actually Handed Over
https://thelocalstack.eu/posts/linkedin-identity-verification-privacy
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47098245

Persona (identity verification service)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persona_(identity_verification_service)

Data brokers | mass surveillance | privacy | NSA | Palantir | Thiel | Persona | Acxiom | 🤨
https://mastodon.social/@persagen/110798402537056707

#LinkedIn #Persona #DataBrokers #surveillance #privacy #capitalism #billionaires #Thiel #Palantir #ICE #DHS #authoritarianism #Trump

Alt...

Data brokers, privacy (pers: I fhate LinkedIn) - I Verified My LinkedIn Identity. Here's What I Actually Handed Over https://thelocalstack.eu/posts/linkedin-identity-verification-privacy https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47098245 #LinkedIn #Persona #DataBrokers #surveillance #privacy #capitalism #billionaires #Thiel #Palantir #ICE #DHS #authoritarianism #Trump

Building social media that never needs to see your face.

No facial recognition.
No fingerprint scans.
No biometric surveillance.

Because your face is yours. Forever.

Founding member waitlist: https://snugg.social
Launch: March 2026

#privacy #biometrics #surveillance #snugg

Age verification vendor Persona left frontend exposed, researchers say

Runs facial recognition against watchlists and politically exposed persons, screens “adverse media” across 14 categories (including terrorism and espionage), and assigns risk and similarity scores.

"pRoTeCt tHe KiDs"

https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2026/02/age-verification-vendor-persona-left-frontend-exposed

#Persona #AgeVerification #privacy #surveillance #dystopia #AI #technology #Discord #Roblox #OpenAI #ChatGPT #Lime

"I have been charged with allegedly destroying multiple "flock" cameras around the Suffolk, VA area."

"I have hired a lawyer and incurred some minor costs so far in the process."

"I welcome anything that is within someone's budget (if you are hurting in this economy, keep your money! Talk to your community about privacy and security instead)."
--
...The Feeling When a fundraising campaign speaks directly to you.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/jeff-sovern-legal-fund
#privacy #security #flock #fundraising #surveillance

The #govt could stop the #surveillance tomorrow and little would change.

The #cameras are on people's faces, in stores and on doorbells. Devices #spy on other devices and report on you as you move about.

Facial recognition will be the eyes of every #glasshole wearing a camera from #bigtech

What needs to change is #society.
They need to appreciate #privacy instead of #oversharing and realise you need it for good #mentalhealth.

The walls don't spy, but your neighbours' devices do.

Alt...

AI rendition of the digital panopticon