Reading up on surveillance

Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth is driving a workforce transformation by requiring employees to submit keystroke data for AI training and pushing costly initiatives like the metaverse.

EU research arm warns VPNs are a loophole enabling minors to bypass age-verification laws, with some policymakers calling for age checks on VPN access.

Palantir employees internally criticize the company's deepening ties with Trump-era immigration enforcement and military actions, calling it a 'descent into fascism.'

A Reddit researcher uncovered that Meta funneled $2 billion through nonprofits to lobby for age verification laws that would force Apple and Google to build OS-level age verification while exempting Meta's own platforms.

Age-verification tools required by child-safety laws effectively surveil and de-anonymize all adult internet users, not just protect minors.

Anthropic refused DoW surveillance and weapons use, so OpenAI stepped in, but the deal's "all lawful use" clause leaves dangerous loopholes.

A software engineer reverse-engineering his DJI Romo vacuum found identical credentials exposed live feeds from 7,000 other units, a flaw DJI later fixed.

Across the US, people are vandalizing Flock license plate cameras in protest of the company's data sharing with ICE and immigration authorities.

MuMu Player Pro for macOS silently executes 17 system reconnaissance commands every 30 minutes, capturing processes, network data, and hardware info without disclosure.

Amazon Ring aired a Super Bowl ad promoting its AI-powered neighborhood surveillance to find lost dogs, reigniting backlash over privacy and mass surveillance concerns.

ICE subpoenaed Google for a student journalist's bank and credit card data following a pro-Palestinian protest, revealing the broad sweep of administrative subpoenas.

A Palantir app called ELITE maps deportation targets for ICE, using address confidence scores and immigrant density to guide raids.

A researcher found a hardcoded ArcGIS API key exposed 53 times in Flock Safety's public code, giving unrestricted access to the mapping layers consolidating surveillance data from 12,000 deployments.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp publicly defends the company's work assisting Trump administration immigration enforcement, acknowledging it is controversial but lawful and necessary.

An interactive tool maps how many US homes pass automated license plate readers on routes to essential services, revealing the scale of passive surveillance.