News

2021

April

15

• Big tech Is pushing states to pass privacy laws. Yes, be suspicious. The Markup found industry fingerprints on at least five bills around the country—weak laws, experts say, that are designed to preempt stronger privacy protections. Mostly, industry has advocated for two provisions. The first

• Facebook is urged to scrap plans for an Instagram for children. An international coalition of 35 children’s and consumer groups called on Instagram to scrap its plans to develop a version of the popular photo-sharing app for users under age 13. Instagram’s push for

14

• ¿Qué son los pasaportes de vacunas, y por qué algunos los detestan tanto?. En lo que respecta a los documentos emitidos por el gobierno, la “Tarjeta de registro de vacunación por COVID-19” es tan insípida como un 1099 del IRS. La cartulina blanca,

• Columna: ¿Por qué una empresa invertiría millones para comprar Ancestry, si no le interesan los datos de ADN de sus usuarios?. Shirley Ruge está fascinada desde hace mucho tiempo por su árbol genealógico. En un momento, explorarlo significó pasar infinidad de horas revisando registros en juzgados y bibliotecas.

12

• As variants surge, patchwork surveillance efforts ramp up. The nation dramatically stepped up its surveillance for coronavirus variants in recent weeks, but experts say there’s much further to go if the Washington region—and the rest of the country&mdash

• The U.S. government’s new $30 million effort to stop pandemic scams. Under the American Rescue Plan, signed by Biden on March 11, $24 million went to fund full-time employees at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to address unfair or deceptive acts or practices, including those related to the

08

• Facebook leak exposes personal data on half a billion users. Telephone numbers were just the top layer of what was stolen. Security researcher Alon Gal detailed that a person’s Facebook ID, full name, location, past location, birthdate, email address, account creation date, relationship

05

• Online scammers traffic in fake COVID vaccination cards. Fraudulent COVID-19 vaccination cards are being sold online, and authorities have warned individuals not to buy or make one — which is illegal. The FBI’s alert comes a month after the Federal Trade

• 533 million Facebook users’ personal information exposed online. Personal information on more than 500 million Facebook users — previously leaked and now made more widely available — was shared online Saturday, according to the news site Insider, worrying experts who said the compromised data

01

• Advocates urge FTC to get tough on Google to protect kids' privacy. Two advocacy groups want the Federal Trade Commission to take a tougher stance against Google, accusing its app store of recommending apps that transmit kids' personal information such as

March

30

• What happens when ICE asks Google for your user information. You’re scrolling through your Gmail inbox and see an email with a strange subject line: A string of numbers followed by “Notification from Google.” It may seem like a phishing scam

29

• 'Vaccine passports' are on the way. The effort has gained momentum with a growing number of companies saying they will require proof of vaccination before opening again.

• Anyone with a cell phone can now make deepfakes. Deepfake generators Wombo, MyHeritage and Avatarify are booming without many guardrails. We're not ready for what could happen next.

25

• Gatekeepers: These tech firms control what’s allowed online. A bunch of companies, stacked on top of each other like layers in a cake, operate the pipes and services that keep the Internet running. 1. Platforms: A platform is an online forum. That might not

• CFPB’s new team has a message for banks it regulates: We’re back. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is already sending a message that it’s getting tougher. On-site examinations are up, banking executives tell consultants. Big banks aren’t the only businesses likely to get

24

• Biden to reassert consumer watchdog agency sidelined by Trump. Biden's administration has pinpointed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as a tool to help deliver on promises to address systemic racial inequality.

23

• Hackers roban contraseñas de Netflix para quedarse con los datos de pago. Las claves de los servicios de streaming no suelen ser muy seguras, y al sacar tus datos de pago, los piratas informáticos podrían ingresar después en tus cuentas bancarias.

22

• ¿Compartes tu contraseña de Netflix? Esto te interesa. La compañía dijo que estaba probando una función con un número limitado de usuarios, una medida que parece dirigida a limitar la práctica común

18

• Amazon is selling its health-care service to other companies. Amazon Care allows employees and their families to text or video chat with health-care providers, usually within 60 seconds of their request, and in some cases, it sends doctors to make home visits. Now Amazon will

• Your face is not your own. An investigator ran the face through an unusual new facial-recognition app she had just started using, called Clearview AI. The team behind it had scraped the public web — social media, employment sites, YouTube, Venmo