Ashley Belanger reports: The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that weakening end-to-end encryption disproportionately risks undermining human rights. The international court’s decision could potentially disrupt the European Commission’s proposed plans to require email and messaging service providers to create backdoors that would allow law enforcement to easily decrypt users’ messages. This ruling came after…
Category: Surveillance
BakerHostetler Files Amicus Brief on Behalf of 30 Hospitals and Health Systems
BakerHostetler writes: As noted back in December 2022, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has issued dramatic guidance (often called the Bulletin) that targets the use of so-called Internet “tracking technologies” on the public websites of HIPAA-covered entities. Fueled by this guidance, healthcare providers have faced a dual threat…
Stalkerware apps PhoneSpector and Highster appear shut down after NY settlement
Zack Whittaker reports: The makers of two phone surveillance services appear to have shuttered after the owner agreed to settle state accusations of illegally promoting spyware that his companies developed. PhoneSpector and Highster were consumer-grade phone monitoring apps that facilitated the covert surveillance of a person’s smartphone. Commonly dubbed stalkerware (or spouseware), these apps are typically…
Maine School Will Begin Biometric Scanning, Data Collection for Students
Steve Robinson reports: A public high school in Maine is among the first in the state to adopt biometric scanning technology to track student attendance. Caribou High School in Aroostook County (RSU 39) has contracted with IdentiMetrics to implement a system that scans students’ fingerprints, stores the data, and creates a tracking system so that…