Privacy

Nothing makes you more paranoid about privacy than working in a marketing department. Trust me on this. For example, did you know that marketers track every time you open an email newsletter—and where you were when you did it?

Apple caused a small panic among marketers in September 2021 by effectively making this tracking impossible in the default Mail app on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. I, personally, switched to Apple Mail as soon as the feature was announced. You might feel the same way, but marketers feel as though they've lost a useful tool.

Last year, Apple enacted App Tracking Transparency, a mandatory policy that forbids app makers from tracking user activity across other apps without first receiving those users’ explicit permission. Privacy advocates praised the initiative, and Facebook warned it would spell certain doom for companies that rely on targeted advertising. However, research published last week suggests that ATT, as it’s usually abbreviated, doesn’t always curb the surreptitious collection of personal data or the fingerprinting of users.

Google may be collecting far more personal data and information than you might realize. Every search you perform and every YouTube video you watch, Google is keeping tabs on you. Google Maps even logs everywhere you go, the route you use to get there and how long you stay, no matter if you have an iPhone or an Android. It can be eye-opening and possibly a little unsettling looking into everything Google knows about you.

Location data sharing from wireless carriers has been a major privacy issue in recent years. Marketers, salespeople, and even bounty hunters were able to pay shadowy third-party companies to track where people have been, using information that carriers gathered from interactions between your phone and nearby cell towers. Even after promising to stop selling the data, the major carriers—AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon—reportedly continued the practice in the US until the Federal Communications Commission proposed nearly $200 million in combined fines.

Apple has announced impending changes to its operating systems that include new “protections for children” features in iCloud and iMessage. If you’ve spent any time following the Crypto Wars, you know what this means: Apple is planning to build a backdoor into its data storage system and its messaging system.

In early 2019, a bug in group FaceTime calls would have let attackers activate the microphone, and even the camera, of the iPhone they were calling and eavesdrop before the recipient did anything at all. The implications were so severe that Apple invoked a nuclear option, cutting off access to the group-calling feature entirely until the company could issue a fix. The vulnerability—and the fact that it required no taps or clicks at all on the part of the victim—captivated Natalie Silvanovich.

After more than a year of living online, you’d be forgiven if the line between reality and digital life started to get blurry. And the latest viral face-swapping app, Voilà AI Artist, isn’t helping by turning all your friends and loved ones into Pixar-style animated characters, renaissance paintings, and 2D cartoons. If you haven’t already been swept up by the app, here’s what it does and why you might want to be careful using it.

Unlucky owners of Eufycam security cameras were horrified earlier today when they opened their app for the equipment and saw video streams from strangers' homes instead of their own.

A software bug was blamed for the fault, which has been corrected, we're told.

Thousands of Amazon employees, including those who developed private-label goods for the e-commerce giant, enjoyed years of access to sensitive third-party seller data, according to a new report.

AirDrop, the feature that allows Mac and iPhone users to wirelessly transfer files between devices, is leaking user emails and phone numbers, and there's not much anyone can do to stop it other than to turn it off, researchers said.

AirDrop uses Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy to establish direct connections with nearby devices so they can beam pictures, documents, and other things from one iOS or macOS device to another. One mode allows only contacts to connect, a second allows anyone to connect, and the last allows no connections at all.