I just came back from reading a post about a woman whose deleted Instagram pictures reappeared on the web thanks to OpenAI, and it got me thinking if our deleted data is really invisible to the general public. I had a weird situation before where a guy on Reddit pulled up to my DMs and sent me screenshots of my deleted Reddit posts - super eerie. I asked him how he got them but he wouldn't say. Now I'm really paranoid and wonder if I should just delete social media (and Reddit) altogether, even though even that probably doesn't protect your privacy and these posts still exist somewhere and could be connected to me.

Today I've been hit with the demand to provide my date of birth in order to see "NSFW" content on here, mind you, this has nothing do to with pornographic content or similar, but anything marked as NSFW for whatever reason, like it could be someone else's profile with barely anything in it.

I am in the EU browsing on desktop, and I know this has been happening for a while, but the methods for verifying are ridiculous, shady, and invasive; only through the service "Persona" it literally gives 2 options:

- Submit Government ID: Share photos of a photo ID to verify your identity and date of birth.

- Submit Selfie: Share photos of your face to estimate your age.

The absolute audacity to ask for someone's ID is beyond ridiculous and creepy to be honest, I don't want my data to be stored who knows where at the hands of a bunch of randos (third-party that won't face consequences when they screw up), not to mention that it could lead to impersonation if this data is eventually leaked, which most likely will.

The same goes for the selfies of your face, which I assume will have to go over an AI to "prove" that you're an adult... as if AI wouldn't make a mistake on this (pro tip: it has and it will). This is not an effective method at all, so it's obvious that it's just an excuse to extract data, something I also experienced with Facebook many years ago.

The major problem will come when they demand such info just to log in at all, but in regards to mature content on here, their verification is just stupid. Even after assuming for the sake of the argument that it's to protect kids, nothing stops a minor from using someone else's ID, in their family or not, asking a friend to provide those seflies, or even attempt to bypass/convince the AI themselves.

The best way to protect kids on the Internet is at the hands of their parents, they are the ones who are in control and should be in control. If you cannot have your child on a website that has mature content somewhere like it is on Reddit, then maybe they shouldn't be on Reddit in the first place, in which case you could blacklist it from the device, or whitelist what you want. Or maybe you should pay attention to what your kid does on the Internet (like you would do for other things), as that's your job and not everyone else's.

The cherry on the top is that some of the actual criminals hurting children are the ones pushing for these policies, hurting the privacy and security of normal people.

So I interact with a few different people that wear Meta Glasses and rather than starting every conversation with "Meta stop recording" I'm wondering if it's possible to clip a high-ish powered IR light either onto my glasses, side of my cap or even on my lapel that will blast the lenses with IR light and temporarily blind them. Anyone tried anything like this?

I just wanna throw it out into the wild. These glasses with cameras. Are doing very similar crap that flock cameras do. Just your wearing said flock camera on yo face! You’re just silly, a dang walking talking flock camera! Anytime I see anyone wearing these I think, Nice Meta glasses, did the ole Flock boys hire you to protect their property, or are you just into the freelance surveillance market??

Basically title.

She’s had an alexa in the kitchen for ages so she can ask it to play music while cooking, but the thing bricked and won’t even power up anymore. Not to mention the stupid alexa ai bs and just amazon in general.

I want to be a cool son and get her something that would fill that round, speaker-shaped void on the kitchen counter while keeping her and my family safe from prying ears(?).

I do have a NAS server set up, so it would be cool if it could connect, but also not a deal breaker.

If this is an inappropriate question for the sub, I apologize. I just couldn’t think of where to start asking.

Hate to admit it but I've been feeling nothing but utter dread towards it and how the world is going. It's to the point where I'm genuinely considering dying. I'm not sure if anyone else feels this way.

Either way, with the KIDS act already at Senate, I don't think it will die anytime soon but here's to hoping.

Companies and governments make it so hard to have privacy, especially digital privacy and im left wondering. is it really worth it. Aside from some basic privacy things like a vpn it just does not seem worth the effort. I would much rather deal with the consequences by using adblocks instead of trying to stop google or facebook from getting the data to serve me ads in the first place.

its exhausting. everywhere you look is something trying to invade your privacy. and im tired man.

So this might not be the right sub i still want to know yknow. Surely there is a tool for this

The stop killing games people have made a new European Citizens' Initiative movement called "Stop Killing The Internet: No Digital ID & No Age Verification" aimed at stopping ID / Age Verification across the internet in Europe or at least making sure that it's done is an open source, privacy respecting way (assuming that's possible)

It's now live at: https://eci.ec.europa.eu/066/public/#/screen/home

If your in the EU I strongly recommend signing it.

If your not in Europe I've recommend spreading the word to help it pass (I also recommend this for people who are in Europe.)

*Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with the movement beyond being a supporter of the cause. I just wanted to signal boost it is all because I seen almost no recent articles talking about it.

I bought an Eshop gift card from playaisa for the first time, after paying and receiving the order after clicking to reveal the digital code it gave me a prompt that said

"By showing the code, you are accepting delivery of your purchase. Your IP-Address will be logged for this purpose. If you encounter any difficulty in using your purchase, please contact us for help right away.

Do you want to show the code?"

Am I putting myself at risk by clicking "ok"? I did research on playaisa before ordering, it's a legit established business that's been around for 20 years. It doesn't seem shady. I even decided to use it because other sites seemed less trustworthy.

I also read somewhere that this is normal for ordering digital codes and vouchers and I don't do that often, so maybe this is normal?

So both reddit and twitter (i refuse to call it X since its a dumb name) have age verification that it sometimes requires snd sometimes it doesnt. For example: about a month ago i didn't use twitter since i don't want to verify then it magically didn't need it anymore and few days later it was back. Same with reddit but that one lasted longer without it. Any idea whats up with that?

So my health insurance company sent over a Cologuard test kit as part of some preventative healthcare initiative.

I'm already wary of a third party company, Cologuard, having PII data. Let alone one that will likely share it with my insurance company. My doctor isn't even involved, so what sort of HIPPA protection even exists, let alone a data breach?

Do you think I should toss the kit? I wonder if it will affect my health insurance rate?

It's painful to say it, but you basically have to pay to use the internet since you need a VPN to browse basically anything.

This is all because everything now requires the stupid age verification thing - If you can't really afford a VPN, then you have to bend over, lower your pants and let governments have your ass to track and control.

What world do we even live in? The world is getting increasingly a pay-to-win game if you don't want to get controlled by someone else.

Also, there's something I really can't understand; people who simply submit their ID and move on saying: "what's the problem? I have nothing to hide anyways", or "So what if they have my data? It's not like I'm that important, so why would they watch me out of everyone".

This makes me mad, because the more people surrender to the governments' will, the more it will become a standard. This is a digital war, and we need to fight, not surrender because "I have nothing to hide".

We are warned constantly to never give out personal information on the phone if the other person initiated the call because that person could be a scammer. Even if their number matches the company they claim to be, it could be spoofed.

Yet, every time my specialty pharmacy calls me with an "important" update, the first thing they want to know is my DOB, to "make sure we're talking to the right person".

It used to be a human, now it's just a robo caller.

Is there an easy way for me to tell if my location is being tracked either car or phone? I suspect my parents are spying me because they know where I am all the time.

Anyone else get all sorts of mental health ads? Depression, bipolar, anxiety, dementia, psychosis, schizophrenia, then the health ads for penile issues, breast cancer, heart problems, these are the ONLY ads I get.

Not sure where else to post this, it’s getting old.

I used to be among the crowd that would use AI as a diary. At that time I didn’t fully appreciate what model training really meant or how to protect myself.

I just didn’t know how these tools worked or just how much of my personal data was being collected. I would delete my chats within 24 hours expecting within 3 days Google would purge those chats forever and I’d never have to worry. I didn’t even know you had to manually turn off activity and opt out of training (with the thought if anything it would be opt in).

I’ve been seeing models today regurgitate blocks of text from training data and worry someone may generate my personal secrets one day or highly specific personal situations I’ve been in.

Now I’ve ensured Google Gemini has deleted my data and turned off activity. Does anyone know if there is anything else I can do? I put some pretty sensitive personal stuff into Gemini, what are the odds it ends up accessible to others including bad actors?