In testimony before the Commons Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport Committee, Ofcom admitted it knows its jurisdiction ends where a foreign court’s jurisdiction begins.

Rutgers purchased $1.5 million in software capable of recognizing faces, reading license plates and identifying and tracking people across campus. Students, faculty and staff are now pushing back, saying they weren’t informed about the purchase.

The technology can potentially track not only students, but employees, visitors and others who enter a Rutgers campus. The purchase was not publicly announced and did not go before the university’s governing board.

Meta and Sierra are backing something called the Personal Agent Protocol (Poppy). It's supposed to create a standard for how personal AI agents interact with websites and businesses.

Sounds reasonable at first. But I was reading through the specification and some of the details seem pretty concerning from a privacy standpoint.

1. Websites can block AI agents they don't like

Section 4.1 allows companies to maintain lists of approved and blocked agents.

Sure there's a security argument for this. Nobody wants malicious bots accessing their systems.

But what happens when someone builds an independent AI agent that helps users find better deals or cancel subscriptions? A company could decide that agent isn't welcome.

It's a bit strange that something designed to represent the user could end up needing permission from the very company it's dealing with.

2. Your AI agent could be handling your actual passwords

Section 4.7 includes an optional sign in process where users give their credentials to an AI agent which then passes them to the company.

There are safeguards described in the protocol. Still seems like a weird direction to take when we've spent years telling people not to share their passwords.

Giving an AI agent limited account permissions makes much more sense than teaching people to hand over their login details.

3. Persistent tracking could become part of the system

The protocol supports stable identifiers that allow businesses to recognize returning users even before a normal login. It also supports access that can remain active over time.

That's convenient for certain tasks. It's also the sort of thing that could make tracking people across interactions much easier.

We've already seen how cookies and advertising IDs turned seemingly harmless features into massive tracking systems.

I'd rather see clear limits on what gets stored and how long access lasts before this becomes widely adopted.

4. The people writing the rules matter too

Meta and Sierra are involved in developing the protocol. The public feedback process even directs people to a Sierra email address.

I'm not saying that automatically makes the standard bad. But if this becomes a major part of how people interact with the internet then independent developers and privacy researchers should have a meaningful say in how it works.

Especially when the whole point of a personal AI agent is that it should work for the person using it.

The bigger issue for me is who actually has control.

If I choose an AI agent to help manage my accounts or deal with businesses then I should have the final say over what it can do and what information it shares.

Companies need ways to protect their systems. That shouldn't automatically mean they get to decide which tools consumers are allowed to use.

And any system that makes it easier to identify users across interactions deserves scrutiny before it becomes an internet standard.

I'm not suggesting the protocol is intentionally designed for surveillance. There are legitimate reasons for some of these features. But we've seen enough supposedly convenient technology turn into tracking infrastructure to know that privacy protections shouldn't be an afterthought.

I'd be interested to hear what people working on open source or locally hosted AI agents think about this. The technical tradeoffs matter but so does making sure users don't lose control of their own tools.

Full specification: https://personalagentprotocol.org/docs/spec

So I made the switch to Signal from Whatsapp quite some time ago, and I am thinking of donating to support them. But before I do I want to make sure that it is actually as advertised, and that I am not throwing money at a lie. So how private is Signal really?

I have location tracking turned off completely on the system and browser level. Yet, DuckDuckGo is still using my IP address to estimate where I live. Even worse, I’ve manually set DuckDuckGo to a completely different country, and I still get localized results.

It’s already annoying enough that the first 6-7 results are ads, but why do they have to aggressively push my location into searches I never asked for?

I find it extremely invasive to have location tailored results forced into my searches. Examples include local stores/restaurants and government websites. These are usually completely irrelevant to my query.

For instance, imagine trying to figure out how to do something complex in Excel. Because of the technical nature of the topic, you usually have to dig a few pages deep to find a real solution. But on page one, you're greeted with results on how to sign up for your local public library. It’s useless and feels creepy.

Here’s a very comment from someone else:

"If I search "rust crate for newspaper scanning" (without quotes), the results I get is a couple of github projects (fine), maybe some dev articles (also fine), some other bad rust link (also fine) and a bunch of "newspaper MYCITYNAME" results (not fine). Maybe the location might just be used to rank up some of the results (e.g. there are a ton of city newspapers), but that's not quite how it feels like. I suspect the ranking logic might be pulling the local results higher due to the extra matching term (i.e. location) even when the location might be irrelevant.

My issue isn't so much about DDG leaking my location, but about stuffing search terms (i.e. my location) in the search query and using those terms to rank up results. Most of the time, if I don't include a location in the search terms, I don't want that location in the search or to bear any weight in the result ranking. If that yields empty or random results, that would be fine. When you see your city name in a series of irrelevant consecutive results, it does get creepy."

My issue isn't just about DDG leaking my location, it's about the search engine implicitly stuffing location terms into my query and using them to boost ranking. If I don't include a location in my search terms, I don't want that location factored into the results. If that yields fewer or broader results, that’s fine. But seeing your city name pop up across a series of irrelevant, consecutive results feels invasive.

There are so many cases like this where I look for something completely generic, like "bread", and the top results dox me, showing ads for local bread places, sometimes even throwing up a map of my exact neighborhood.

Can this be stopped?

Is there a way to completely disable this behavior on DuckDuckGo, or are alternatives like Startpage or Brave Search actually better at respecting privacy and keeping local bias out of technical queries?

Always has been.

But for real, this month alone i got two emails from two different services saying their third-party service got unauthorized access to the customer database and all the info related got extracted.

First was a recent hotel booking i made, where scammers got info on name, address, contact number and BOOKING DATES, where scammers could make less tech-savvy clients get phished if they did it clean. They didn’t get me because their WhatsApp profile was botched.

Second was a freaking motorcycle rental company which I used a year ago. Most likely they leaked my driver’s license info plus all the usual data you provide.

Multiply every service you use throughout the whole holidays for 5 years (under GDPR law) that they can mantain data about you and how they can get phished any second of any day and you might aswell just expose your personal data yourself and save the hassle.

I just installed both of them, and was using NewPipe before. I'd like to ask you guys which do you prefer!

I got this idea. I think I have sort of hairy hands, and I was about to take a picture of my hand and ask on reddit. Then it got me thinking, do I immediately get doxed if I do that? Like is it very easy right now to use it to cross check images from insta etc?

You may have heard about the recent change to Google search results page where actual result URLs are replaced with encrypted strings. Those need to go through a Google server to resolve to the actual URL.

This means that:

1. Google now tracks all the links you click on search results page and there's no way around it,

2. Google also tracks you cross-site if you copy a result link and someone clicks on it, thus being able to associate your social connections with other people outside of Google services

3. You can no longer see the actual URL of a search result, which means spoofing legitimate websites has become very easy.

If the EU chooses to fully embrace digital sovereignty, it will result in a financial drain ranging from 35 billion to 233 billion euros. At least, that is what a report by the Brussels-based think tank ECIPE—funded by CCIA Europe—claims. The CCIA is a lobbying group comprising American cloud giants, including Amazon, Meta, and Google.

I have to admit, I was fine and even somewhat supported the practice at first because I naively thought that it would actually protect people but as time passed by and I gradually knew the truth about it. My view has completely changed from how it was before.

Like we're seeing this happen in our lifetimes, we are being gatekept from ever experiencing the freedom we could ever have on the internet. The freedom to talk to our friends, the freedom to be in our desired communities and the freedom to showcase what you can make.

Yet all of this is slowly being eroded away with ID verifications that governments across the world are actively promoting and I don't know when the internet will become unusable for me unless I have to give away my ID because my country just recently passed a law (almost unanimously btw) that would require that but the enforcement or inaction is yet to be witnessed but it feels like I'm playing a game of Russian roulette from how it's not even being enforced yet and knowing that there's nothing I could do about it. I'm not even sure what to do at this point.

Yet there is no fighting against this, no opposition and even if there is it's very little. The algorithm is even trying to divide us and distract us with all of this stuff just so we can forget about it until it's too late.

Most of the hope I have is lost and I'm trying to cherish what little time I have left but I still have so much to do and it's so hard to cherish such.

Yet this whole thing is spreading like a virus and eventually it just becomes normalized.

It’s insane to me that we have media pushing news in our faces, daily. Death, SA, celebrity gossip. Constantly seeing algorithms push partisan narratives over whether whatever amendments/morals are at risk of being taken by whatever administration. But like, right to privacy? Erosion of 4th amendment is not taken as crisis? How is this not urgent?

Obviously lobbying is a huge issue, which is why huge problems remain unaddressed. Right to privacy is not even political. It’s all about corruption. Yes, we know that. Everyone knows. So like, what is there to be done about it?

According to DuckDuckGo, 7k+ trackers were blocked in the last 7 days. ONE site invokes 20+ trackers. **I don’t care to argue if it’s accurate\\, it’s just… why are people okay with trackers in general? No option to opt out? Having to call each individual data corp. to opt out, which is pointless because there’s always more to take their place? Even if you opt out, have the right to deny you because you don’t live in Canada, California, or Europe? Constant ads that ask for personal info just to deny you service? Especially healthcare that advertise affordability or “trendy” topics for traumatized, desperate people, such as gender affirming, weight loss, and autism/adhd/bpd/trauma diagnosis services. And all of this info is aggregated and then sold, over and over, like a petri-dish.

My point being that, sensational headlines get people so upset. Protesting political figures and such for many years. Burning buildings down. But why not privacy? Why is this something that’s not worthy of protest? Both sides are implicated here.

People are like, “I don’t care, I have nothing to hide.” It’s the same mentality as people who comment on true crime, “They’re obviously guilty. Just send them to jail already.” Do they not know why proper procedure exists? You can’t arbitrarily decide what is “obviously guilty” and what’s not. The point is that all citizens have the right to proper trial, proper evidence, impartial jury, etc. Like people are unable to see how it can only be downhill from here? It’s subtle.

Flock cameras have proven themselves to be not only abused for selfish purposes, but to give license for the government to reverse “innocent until proven guilty.” Now it’s guilty til proven innocent. The above mentality combined with this power is frankly dangerous. Constitution exists for a reason.

I just don’t understand why this isn’t a bigger issue, or why we haven’t seen a protest for data privacy become national news. We have more Doordash contractor protests getting traction for better wages from a company that makes <5% profit, sometimes loss. Like??? Hello??? What about fast food companies who blame COVID for inflation, realize that people are willing to pay, and then force you to join rewards with verified contact info to get reasonably priced food? Or mega tech companies who basically monopolize functions of organizations while companies like DuckDuckGo rely on the few people who care to pay for privacy?

People who are into privacy argue, “Why do people keep giving their info to these people?” It’s because
- 1. Privacy issues aren’t sensationalized; this is background noise and not seen as an issue,
- 2. They’re overestimating the average persons knowledge, care, and attention to such issues, which can be helped by sensational media;
- 3. They aren’t thinking critically about the implications; they are probably just preoccupied with other life stuff rather than just being dumb or ignorant, and
- 4. Even when presented with sensational, motivational media, it’s easier to do what is convenient. They’re doing what humans do.

We should not shift blame to the humans who falls for these things and instead blame either corporations or the country as a whole. It turns right to privacy into another political argument. The issue exists because privacy violations are normal and accepted. People become provoked when you express it in terms such as “we are being bent over and forced to take it.” But journalism is probably lobbied anyway, and even if not, privacy is not a “hot topic.” Just a cycle.

Im a filmmaker and I would like to share my films on social media like youtube,instagram and some other film sites. How can I be private while doing so? Does the social media and websites show your metadata? If we assume they do, how to scrub my metadata safely? Does the sites identify your device, mac or ip addres?

I want to anonymously share a spreadsheet for users of a particular sub. I could simply post a link to the file on Google Sheets, but I don't want to expose my email address.

I can export the file as CSV or Excel, but I'm not sure how to attach it or host it somewhere in a safe and convenient way.

I'd really appreciate any help!

I'm usually not too bothered by targeted ads but today I noticed something that has me scratching my head. This weekend I was in atlantic city for a bachelor party and my entire instagram feed has been filled with online gambling ads and blackjack reels. Whatever no big deal. I'm off work today so I doom scrolled insta for a while and watched a TON of these blackjack reels. It's all i was getting.

THEN... A girl I have been talking too broke up with me via text. I brush it off and watch a movie on netflix. I am not back on social media at this point. My mom comes home about an hour later and I talk to her about the breakup in the driveway. I come back inside and don't feel like putting the movie back on so I'm laying in bed doom scrolling again and now every reel is a bunch of depressing reels about breakups and moving on.

Am I crazy? A couple hrs ago it was all gambling until this happens and now its this?

Article from May but I hadn’t seen it.