Privacy and Security
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Viral Chinese Deepfake App Zao Sparks Privacy Concerns The just-launched app Zao lets users slap their own faces onto movie clips, letting them cosplay as Leonard DiCaprio or Wolverine within seconds. It's only available in China, where it's a massive viral hit. Zao's success has spurred plenty of concerns about privacy violations. -
A Malware-Ridden Google Play App Had Over 100 Million Downloads A malicious app has been downloaded more than 100 million times directly from the Google Play app store. The app, called CamScanner, allowed mobile devices to create PDFs. Here's how that app slipped through, and what it means for the cyber-safety of app downloaders everywhere. -
Surprise! Posting a Block of Text Won’t Protect You on Social Media A 2012 internet hoax is making the rounds again, tricking naïve social media users into sharing a big block of legal text that in no way, shape, or form protects them, their pictures, or their data from being shared online. -
The Facial Recognition Fightback In the space of two weeks, there have been three landmark incidents in the use of facial recognition in the US and the UK. So why is the public fighting back against facial recognition and why now? -
Trump Plans to Tackle Social Media “Bias” with Censorship Paper President Donald Trump hopes to pass an executive order that would see social media companies face closer scrutiny from the government, following his repeated allegations that the platforms show bias against conservative viewpoints. -
Huawei Announces HarmonyOS – One OS to Rule Them All At its annual developers conference, Huawei finally lifted the lid on its brand new operating system. Called HarmonyOS, the new operating system is set to work on a variety of devices — including smartphones. So, will HarmonyOS spell the end for Android? -
FaceApp’s Russian Ties Spur Fears of Online Photo Privacy FaceApp's viral images come with a policy offering little data privacy, a company based in Russia, and 80 million users' photos. Should we be worried? The app's backlash might not be entirely justified, but it definitely says a lot about how public opinion on photos has evolved. -
Google Pays Contract Workers “A Few Cents” to Transcribe Your Conversations Google has been paying contractors to listen and transcribe Google Home recordings of completely unaware users. One of the contractors decided to blow the whistle to a Dutch-language news site, revealing that some of the conversations are up to a minute long. -
US Tech Giants Are Reportedly Selling to Huawei Despite Ban In May, the Trump administration issued a blanket ban on US companies supplying hardware or software to the Chinese tech giant Huawei. Now a new report claims that tech companies including Intel and Micron sold millions of dollars worth of products since the ban was announced. -
5 Things We Learned from BBC Interview with Facebook’s Nick Clegg Today, Nick Clegg, Facebook's Vice-President of Global Affairs and Communications, sat down for an interview on BBC radio, and faced a grilling on his company's activities, past and present. Up for discussion were regulation, the Christchurch shooting, and Russian meddling. -
Chrome Restricts Ad-Blockers: What This Means For You Google Chrome may be one of the most popular browsers out there, but it has provoked plenty of ire recently in the way that it handles ad-blocking extensions. Critics have suggested that recent changes to Chrome will make dedicated ad blocking plugins ineffective. -
US Immigration Now Asks For Your Social Media Details People wishing to travel to the US are now being asked to provide their social media details on visa applications, as well as their phone numbers from the past five years. These new visa rules are expected to impact 15 million people and give the US Government tonnes of data.