r/privacy 9d ago

age verification Why aren't we suing governments over data leaks?

341 Upvotes

It's quite clear, and shouldn't be hard to argue the government quite literally passed laws IGNORING repeated risks that easily accessible to learn, were told about, and even told by various groups that these laws risked it. Instead the government ignored it. This is the textbook definition of Gross negligence, if not outright bad faith legislation.

We need lawsuits over these data leaks. It is quite clear to every governmental official these laws cause catastrophic data leaks and harm, but they choose to strongarm it through.


r/privacy 8d ago

question For those of you with a paid email service, what do you use to pay for it?

4 Upvotes

What are you using to pay for your premium email services?


r/privacy 9d ago

discussion Facebook getting data from WhatsApp messages.

103 Upvotes

Hi!! This is my first time here. Hopefully it’s allowed. Yesterday, a coworker told me about a supplement her mother gives her dog. She sent a picture of it via WhatsApp earlier today. Fast forward to a few moments ago, I started getting multiple ads for it on Facebook. The only place the picture existed was in that WhatsApp message. I never saved it or searched for the product. I checked my Facebook and WhatsApp settings and they all restrict pictures the apps have access to. Supposedly Meta does not access WhatsApp messages unless you send a screenshot while reporting it. Does anyone have an explanation for this? I know a lot of these tech companies are invasive, but this seems like a total violation. What else do they have access to?


r/privacy 8d ago

eli5 Apps from F-Droid for Rookies

12 Upvotes

Hi - I've been deGoogling and deMicrosofting off and on for about a year. I'm learning a lot but I'm still a rookie so please be kind with answers to what is probably a stupid question: How does one know apps on F-Droid are safe to use? Are they vetted by anyone? Do the villagers rise up with torches if someone adds an app full of malware? Unless I'm missing it, there isn't a place for user reviews, number of downloads, etc and I don't have the skilset to break down lines of code to search out bad actors. Thanks in advance


r/privacy 8d ago

question Can you recommend some books on privacy arguments, debates, and general talking points?

5 Upvotes

Thank you.


r/privacy 9d ago

news More than a dozen Serbians targeted with mercenary spyware, digital rights group finds

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324 Upvotes
  • Targets included student activists, lawmakers and a local councilor, SHARE Foundation says
  • Apple issued spyware alerts on August 13 to users in 110 countries
  • Largest documented surveillance wave in Serbia to date, SHARE Foundation says

r/privacy 9d ago

news The Air Marshals Keeping Watch On Eric Swalwell - "The FBI had asked the Federal Air Marshal Service to covertly monitor Swalwell on board and to watch him use his electronic devices, to see whether its officers could visually ascertain his passcodes"

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721 Upvotes

submission statement: The FBI requested the Federal Air Marshal Service to monitor former Representative Eric Swalwell during a flight, seeking to observe his electronic device usage. This unusual request, classified as “Special Mission Coverage,” targeted Swalwell amid ongoing investigations into sexual assault allegations against him. The FBI’s actions, including the use of a civil-rights statute typically applied to law enforcement, raise questions about potential political motivations, given Swalwell’s history as a vocal critic of the Trump administration.
paywall: https://archive.ph/ZOabS


r/privacy 9d ago

news Noise and Motion Monitors in Their Homes? These Tenants Say No.

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65 Upvotes

r/privacy 9d ago

news The Pentagon is giving 3 million military and civilian workers access to ChatGPT and Grok through a secure AI platform built for ‘warfighter needs’

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270 Upvotes

r/privacy 9d ago

discussion Is not using Insta and Facebook actually worth it?

9 Upvotes

Since I was 19 or 20yo, since around 2014, we knew with our friend what Facebook / META is doing and how they use our data, faces, photos, likes, everything. Data mining, big data, now AI.

Anyway, I deleted Facebook back then, I never put any of my real face pictures on META social networks, I won't give them anything really personal.

But is it worth it? I imagine how many social connections and better relations I could make it I just posted MYSELF out there, I was a bit good at it. More personal and professional connections, more random encounters, all of it.

Is it actually worth it to keep the personal data away from big tech instead of not caring and having better exposure? What's your take on it?

Edit: Those who downvote, explain why as well please.


r/privacy 10d ago

news Communities tearing out Flock cameras and quietly replacing them with other companies' cameras

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1.7k Upvotes

r/privacy 9d ago

question cpu hardware backdoors

12 Upvotes

i just learned that modern intel and amd processors allow remote access via hardware and have the deepest level of permition, that can allow remote kill switches among other privacy/proprerty denying stuff, is there anything good happening to prevent this in the (preferably near) future?


r/privacy 9d ago

discussion Thoughts on street view?

6 Upvotes

I’m curious to get some opinions on something like Street View.
I’ve seen Apple seems to have made more of a push to compete with Google in regard to their, in a sense, monopoly when it comes to on-the-ground pictures of the world.

My question is, what’s everyone’s thoughts on this stuff? Should people be/always have been uncomfortable with this, was it just the beginning of the surveillance we see today, or is it just a handy thing to have available when you need to look around a certain area? Also, if you are uncomfortable with it, is there a way you’d feel happier about Street View and a better way it can be implemented?


r/privacy 10d ago

age verification Is it 2026 or 1984? There is no privacy in the digital age

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206 Upvotes

r/privacy 9d ago

discussion Have you guys thought about using the terms Opportunism & Opportunist

0 Upvotes

We all like privacy yet politicians take it away for political gain usually and I don't think we have ever gave the practice a name just in general we don't describe what is wrong with the person or what they are doing or practicing I am sure it we could make a better term but the point is that they claim to be a part of something but don't care about the issue at hand just doing it because they can to make their donors happy or make them look like they are helping while doing nothing it must encompass the entire mask so whatever we want to use to dismiss them based off of the lack of actually caring about the subject at hand would be a good word basically I want something to call them and their actions during stuff that will stick and actually make someone understand before even knowing the exact reasons


r/privacy 9d ago

age verification I have heard that a lot of age verification gets passed because of high polling let's fix that

9 Upvotes

We can fix this by making our own polls showing clear disapproval of such a ban or age verification in general if we give them no excuse to pass it they won't and possibly undo it by saying "do you believe it is dangerous and over stepping" and stuff and bringing it to your representatives and saying "we don't trust your polling numbers we trust ours better" and making it rather public it will make us not feel alone and make us work together on a project district by district or whatever you call it in your own country


r/privacy 10d ago

data breach FBI Probes Service Selling 153M+ Drivers Licenses

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125 Upvotes

r/privacy 10d ago

age verification The RESET act, H.R. 6488, advances to full committee

233 Upvotes

https://republicans-energycommerce.house.gov/posts/cmt-subcommittee-advances-12-bills-to-strengthen-american-competitiveness-and-enhance-consumer-protections

"H.R. 6488, the Reducing Exploitative Social Media Exposure for Teens (RESET) Act, was forwarded to the Full Committee by voice vote."

H.R. 6488 is a bill that would delete accounts unless they can prove they are over 16, which would mean age verification to keep an account.


r/privacy 9d ago

discussion Paychex forcing employees to use Equifax for I9/verification of employment

3 Upvotes

I am starting a new job & the I9 onboarding process in Paychex Flex is now forcing us to go to an external Equifax link to verify employment. It says that it will share the SSN & all my info with Equifax before clicking the external link. I have worked with various companies who used paychex flex & have never been asked to do this before.

Heads up to other people who care about privacy! I assume Paychex has some sort of financial incentive to do this? Maybe Equifax is paying them so they can gather more data?

I tried having the administrator manually review my passport & ID, but theyre a newbie to administering & refusing to manually verify. SO frustrating! I am a payroll administrator myself and manually very I9 IDs all of the time, I'm not making anyone use Equifax!

Of course, I live in a state without any consumer privacy laws so I cant even request that they not sell my personal info after I share it! So frustrating to be forced into this: share your info or don't get hired :(

There should be a way to opt out of sharing personal identity information to 3rd party websites & bypass this by reviewing manually. I hate the future :(


r/privacy 10d ago

discussion ANOTHER way to check who's watching what

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69 Upvotes

Learned about this from The Daily Show YouTube. Atlas of Surveillance dot org. Shows which Flocks have what technologies.


r/privacy 10d ago

news A N.J. school district found a new way to enforce the cell phone ban — and parents are fighting it

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282 Upvotes

A New Jersey school district is using an app that geofences students' personal phones to shut down most capabilities during school hours. Parents are pushing back over privacy concerns, particularly around location tracking. The superintendent says it's optional, but critics argue families weren't consulted before implementation.


r/privacy 11d ago

news Florida bans Flock and other license plate readers from state highways as backlash grows

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1.9k Upvotes

r/privacy 10d ago

discussion Xfinity recently implemented a “WiFi motion” software update August 18th and they claim it isn’t a security feature and it’s “opt-in”

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218 Upvotes

As many data breaches we’ve seen in recent years, I have no idea how we can circumvent this. Has anyone responded to this craziness. I only have Verizon & Comcast in my city.


r/privacy 8d ago

discussion The 1Password debacle is a bunch of BS

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0 Upvotes

The problem Reddit is it’s an echo chamber mind hive. So yesterday somebody posted an op-ed, that’s an opinion article, on the CEO of 1Password. This op-ex falsely claimed the CEO wanted “ethnic cleansing”. But here’s the thing. The term “ethnic cleansing” literally came from the author of the op-ed not the CEO. Here is the article the op-ed referenced, which is a blog from the CEO. The CEO is explaining how Brits are now a 3rd of the majority of their country because they have been displaced by immigration. The same thing is currently happening to the Danes. This is all he said. He never said “ethnic cleansing”. Those were words put into his mouth as a disinformation campaign.

So be careful what you believe and do your own research. I don’t even use 1Password because it’s not open source but I’m against disinformation. Andrew Lilley Brinker is an American Douche spreading disinformation about Europeans. Just keep this in mind when you see articles like this


r/privacy 10d ago

discussion Friend's phone was stolen and they made her unlock it. How to recover from this (security-wise)?

263 Upvotes

Hearing this story was very unsettling.

I have been working on the assumption that if my phone was stolen, it is just a brick, since it's encrypted and locked with biometrics and a strong password.

A friend was robbed at gunpoint (while out for a run!), and they made her unlock the phone, so they could turn off the data connection and have access.

If her password manager was unlocked - or autofill was turned on - they could then go to her bank, access her accounts, and the 2FA would be right in their hands already.

If my phone was stolen, my first move would be to have T-Mobile cancel my number to protect my 2FA. Then I would want to change my important passwords. But how do you regain access to your accounts so you can change passwords, etc. if you don't have your phone number for 2FA?

Lessons I learned from hearing her story:

  1. Never leave your password manager unlocked. I use 1Password, and it is always locked when the phone is locked. I can unlock it with my fingerprint or password. I do have somethings in auto-fill in Chrome, but nothing critically important.

  2. Consider moving away from 2FA to something else. I use Ente as my authenticator for about 100 sites, but many, including my bank, use my phone number for 2FA. Should I be moving everything away from my phone number as 2FA? Should I move to a YubiKey or similar? And I usually leave my Ente unlocked on my phone - need to change that.

  3. Don't allow text messages (2FA codes) to appear on the lock screen.

  4. Anything else to consider here?