The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has fined Facebook £500,000 for serious breaches of data protection law. In July, the ICO issued a Notice of Intent to fine Facebook as part of a wide ranging investigation into the use of data analytics for political purposes. After considering representations from the company, the ICO has issued the…
Category: Featured News
EPIC FOIA: Records Show DHS Ignored Privacy, First Amendment Threats of Media Monitoring Program
From EPIC.org: EPIC has obtained records concerning “Media Monitoring Services,” a controversial DHS project to track journalists, news outlets, and social media accounts. The records, released in EPIC’s FOIA lawsuit against the federal agency, reveal that the DHS bypassed the agency’s own privacy officials and ignored the privacy and First Amendment implications of monitoring the coverage…
Shock, Anger, Disappointment’: An Amazon Employee Speaks Out
Trevor Timm reports: In June, more than 100 Amazon employees signed a letter to CEO Jeff Bezos, strongly protesting the company’s push to sell its controversial facial recognition software, known as “Rekognition,” to local police departments around the country. The letter has now been signed by more than 450 employees, and an Amazon employee published an…
Surveillance Capitalism: Monetizing the Smartphone User
Back in June, 2015, I posted a link to an article on “surveillance capitalism.” Did you take note at the time? This week, Rex Lee reports: Today, people, businesses, government officials, and law makers are unaware of the business model that supports their favorite technology such as smartphones and connected products that are supported by the Android,…