Apple has patented a piece of technology which would allow government and police to block transmission of information, including video and photographs, from any public gathering or venue they deem “sensitive”, and “protected from externalities.”
In other words, these powers will have control over what can and cannot be documented on wireless devices during any public event. And while the company says the affected sites are to be mostly cinemas, theaters, concert grounds and similar locations, Apple Inc. also says “covert police or government operations may require complete ‘blackout’ conditions.”
Read moreThe federal government is making progress on developing a surveillance system that would pair computers with video cameras to scan crowds and automatically identify people by their faces, according to newly disclosed documents and interviews with researchers working on the project.
The Department of Homeland Security tested a crowd-scanning project called the Biometric Optical Surveillance System — or BOSS — last fall after two years of government-financed development. Although the system is not ready for use, researchers say they are making significant advances. That alarms privacy advocates, who say that now is the time for the government to establish oversight rules and limits on how it will someday be used.
Read moreNew Zealand has passed legislation allowing its main intelligence agency to spy on residents and citizens. Parliament voted 61 to 59 on Wednesday to expand the powers of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB). GCSB was only previously allowed to spy on those with no right to reside in New Zealand.
The new legislation follows a row over the GCSB's surveillance of internet mogul Kim Dotcom, a German national with New Zealand residency. GCSB worked with US officials to investigate Mr Dotcom over allegations of online piracy and money laundering. Mr Dotcom, who denied the charges, is fighting extradition to the US.
Read moreGuardian editors on Tuesday revealed why and how the newspaper destroyed computer hard drives containing copies of some of the secret files leaked by Edward Snowden. The decision was taken after a threat of legal action by the government that could have stopped reporting on the extent of American and British government surveillance revealed by the documents.
It resulted in one of the stranger episodes in the history of digital-age journalism. On Saturday 20 July, in a deserted basement of the Guardian's King's Cross offices, a senior editor and a Guardian computer expert used angle grinders and other tools to pulverise the hard drives and memory chips on which the encrypted files had been stored.
Read moreWe are now in, roughly, week 11 of what has become a more or less steady stream of revelations about the NSA's efforts to collect and analyze huge amounts of the data people create every day online.
Given what is now known, are the disclosures of the NSA's programs reshaping how people use the Internet? If so, this is a phenomenon that could in turn reshape, in a very basic way, what the Internet is -- what information it holds. A new report from the analytics firm Annalect finds what it calls "substantial" changes in Americans' behavior and attitudes since June.
Read moreDefence barrister Mark McDonald said that messages written online are being used increasingly by the Crown Prosecution Service and police. His comments come after an American teenager had a manslaughter charge upgraded to murder, partly because he had boasted about speeding on Twitter, according to prosecutors.
Mr McDonald told Metro: "There can be naivety, in that people believe they can say things on social media and it won't be used against them. "Social media is also used as a tool by people in the Crown Prosecution Service or the police; for instance, they may ask someone alleging rape to send a message to the person they are accusing asking why they did it. Their reply can then be used in evidence."
Read morePeople sending email to any of Google's 425 million Gmail users have no "reasonable expectation" that their communications are confidential, the internet giant has said in a court filing.
Consumer Watchdog, the advocacy group that uncovered the filing, called the revelation a "stunning admission." It comes as Google and its peers are under pressure to explain their role in the National Security Agency's (NSA) mass surveillance of US citizens and foreign nationals. "Google has finally admitted they don't respect privacy," said John Simpson, Consumer Watchdog's privacy project director.
Read moreOfficials demanded Monday that an advertising firm stop using a network of high-tech trash cans to track people walking through London’s financial district.
The Renew ad firm has been using technology embedded in the hulking receptacles to measure the Wi-Fi signals emitted by smartphones, and suggested that it would apply the concept of “cookies” — tracking files that follow Internet users across the Web — to the physical world. “We will cookie the street,” Renew Chief Executive Kaveh Memari said in June. But the City of London Corporation insisted that Renew pull the plug on the program, which captures smartphones’ serial numbers and analyzes signal strength to follow people up and down the street.
Read moreThe former head of the National Security Agency said Sunday that not only does ending the NSA’s domestic surveillance programs seems unlikely, but he images those endeavors could expand in scope during the coming years.
Former NSA chief Michael Hayden told television host Bob Schieffer of CBS’ Face the Nation over the weekend that the current program that collects the metadata of millions of American phone customers on a regular basis for the United States government could in the future perhaps be used to soak up even more statistics about US citizens.
Read moreCommunications sent between Germany’s two leading email providers will now be encrypted to provide better security against potential NSA surveillance. Experts say the move will do little to thwart well-equipped snoopers.
The "E-mail made in Germany" project has been set up in the wake of US surveillance revelations made by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. National Security Agency documents show that the agency intercepts 500 million phone calls, texts, and emails in Germany each month. "Germans are deeply unsettled by the latest reports on the potential interception of communication data," said Rene Obermann, head of Deutsche Telekom, the country’s largest email provider.
Read moreAxarhöfði 14,
110 Reykjavik, Iceland