Tag Archives: surveillance

Israel restricts COVID-19 phone tracking to ‘special cases’

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Israel’s original plan to track the phones of COVID-19 sufferers won’t get very far. The country’s cabinet has restricted the use of the Shin Bet security agency’s phone surveillance to “specific and special cases” where officials can’t determine an...

Banjo CEO resigns to preserve the company’s AI surveillance deals

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Banjo is shuffling its leadership in a bid to keep its AI surveillance business with Utah and other customers worried about CEO Damien Patton’s racist past. Patton has resigned from the CEO position effective immediately, with CTO Justin Lindsey taki...

Utah pauses Banjo’s AI surveillance after learning of owner’s racist past

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Utah is putting its AI surveillance system on ice after learning of its creator’s background. The state has suspended (via Salt Lake Tribune) Banjo’s contract after learning that company head Damien was part of the Dixie Knights of the Ku Klux Klan a...

Israel barred from COVID-19 phone tracking without new legislation

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Israel will have to abide by stricter oversight if it wants to keep tracking the phones of people infected with COVID-19. The country’s Supreme Court has ruled that the government can’t keep tracking residents’ phones unless it drafts legislation cov...

WhatsApp claims spyware firm launched attacks with US servers

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Facebook just escalated its lawsuit over surveillance firm NSO Group’s WhatsApp call exploit attacks. The WhatsApp team has filed accusations that NSO relied on US-based servers to stage its spyware attacks using Pegasus software. NSO reportedly used...

Israel stops using phone tracking to enforce COVID-19 quarantines

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Israel’s use of phone tracking technology to track COVID-19 patients has come to a partial end. A parliamentary oversight committee has halted use of the tracking to enforce quarantines after raising privacy concerns. The privacy violations outweigh...

Judge denies Twitter effort to reveal US surveillance requests

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Twitter has been thwarted in its six-year battle to offer greater transparency for US surveillance requests. District Judge Yvonne Gonalez Rogers has denied Twitter’s request for a summary judgment allowing it to reveal more details of the national s...

Microsoft pulls its smaller investments in facial recognition tech

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Microsoft has been vocal about setting limits on facial recognition, and it's now backing that up with its financial support -- or lack thereof. The company is ending minority investments in facial recognition startups and is pulling its stake in An...

The surveillance profiteers of COVID-19 are here

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Our worlds are so upside-down and backwards right now that Wired claims Surveillance Could Save Lives Amid a Public Health Crisis, and privacy activist Maciej Cegłowski flat-out stated We Need A Massive Surveillance Program.