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"The principle of privacy, if we want privacy, needs to be fought for at every level. It has become a terrible cliche to talk about George Orwell's nightmare vision of 1984, but read the book again and be reminded of the horror it depicts. And then realise how short a step it is from the telescreen to your iPhone screen."

""Think about what information is going to be collected," she said. "And how comfortable you are with that information potentially flowing to just anybody … [Companies] are certainly sharing [user data] and they don't really have to tell you who they're sharing it with or why." Such items might include "smart devices" that track our behavior, such as sleep and fitness trackers, as well as popular self-discovery tools such as DNA testing kits. With the help of experts, we broke down the privacy implications of some of this season's latest offerings - so you can give the gift of privacy."

"Emma Carr, the deputy director general of Big Brother Watch, believes that the technology ignores customers' privacy, and branded it "disproportionate". "This is a clear example of profit trumping privacy," she said. "The use of surveillance technology by shops, in order to provide a better or more personalised service, seems totally disproportionate.""

"The study by US-based thinktank the Technology Policy Institute (TPI) is the first that attempts to quantify the value of online privacy and data. It assessed how much privacy is worth in six countries by looking at the habits of people in the United States, Germany, Mexico, Brazil, Columbia and Argentina."

"In the fawning media coverage of the Obama campaign's technological prowess, it did not occur to observers at the time to call this a startling invasion of privacy. And it wasn't, or at a very minimum, the privacy risks were arguably outweighed by the benefits. A tool like this could be the future of politics: door-to-door canvassing for the digital age, and a welcome antidote to impersonal broadcast TV ads or a welcome upgrade from getting a phone call from a stranger telling you to vote."

"The main rationale for increasing state surveillance was to tackle the pandemic effectively to save people's lives. Yet, states are not enthusiastic about abandoning these digital tools, even though the pandemic is winding down. Instead, they are determined to preserve their surveillance capacities under the pretext of national security or preparation for future pandemics. In the face of increasing state surveillance, however, we should thoroughly discuss the risk of digital authoritarianism and the possible use of surveillance technologies to violate privacy, silence political opposition, and oppress minorities. For example, South Korea's sophisticated contact tracing technology that involves surveillance camera footage, cell-phone location data, and credit card purchases has disclosed patients' personal information, such as nationality. It raised privacy concerns, particularly for ethnic minorities, and underlined the risk of technology-enabled ethnic mapping and discrimination."

"If Facebook cared about unfair profiling and privacy abuse, for instance, it would probably not have started grouping its users together based on their "Ethnic Affinity". It wouldn't then allow that ethnic affinity to be used as a basis for excluding users from advertisements, and it certainly wouldn't allows that ethnic affinity to be used as a basis for potentially illegal discrimination in real estate advertising."

"The vast majority of emails flooding inboxes across Europe from companies asking for consent to keep recipients on their mailing list are unnecessary and some may be illegal, privacy experts have said, as new rules over data privacy come into force at the end of this week."

"Ministers have paused a planned update to the NHS Covid-19 app after Apple and Google blocked it from their stores over privacy violations. The app, which aids contact tracing in England and Wales, uses technology built by the Silicon Valley companies to track interactions between users with their bluetooth signals and venue "check-ins"."

"Most people are aware of the cookies that track them across the web, and the privacy-invading practices of Google search, but did you know Google's email service, Gmail, collects large amounts of data too? This was recently put into stark focus for iPhone users when Gmail published its app "privacy label" - a self-declared breakdown of the data it collects and shares with advertisers as part of a new stipulation on the Apple App Store."

"Launched in 2006, 23andMe sells tests to determine consumers' genetic ancestry and risk of developing certain illnesses, using saliva samples sent in by mail. Privacy advocates and researchers have long raised concerns about a for-profit company owning the genetic data of millions of people, fears that have only intensified with news of the partnership."

"Some have argued for much greater policing of content online, and companies like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter have talked about hiring thousands to staff up their moderation teams.8 8. April Glaser, Want a Terrible Job? Facebook and Google May Be Hiring,Slate (Jan. 18, 2018), https://slate.com/technology/2018/01/facebook-and-google-are-building-an-army-of-content-moderators-for-2018.html (explaining that major platforms have hired or have announced plans to hire thousands, in some cases more than ten thousand, new content moderators).On the other side of the coin, companies are increasingly investing in more and more sophisticated technology help, such as artificial intelligence, to try to spot contentious content earlier in the process.9 9. Tom Simonite, AI Has Started Cleaning Up Facebook, But Can It Finish?,Wired (Dec. 18, 2018), https://www.wired.com/story/ai-has-started-cleaning-facebook-can-it-finish/.Others have argued that we should change Section 230 of the CDA, which gives platforms a free hand in determining how they moderate (or how they don't moderate).10 10. Gohmert Press Release, supra note 7 ("Social media companies enjoy special legal protections under Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934, protections not shared by other media. Instead of acting like the neutral platforms they claim to be in order obtain their immunity, these companies have turned Section 230 into a license to potentially defraud and defame with impunity… Since there still appears to be no sincere effort to stop this disconcerting behavior, it is time for social media companies to be liable for any biased and unethical impropriety of their employees as any other media company. If these companies want to continue to act like a biased medium and publish their own agendas to the detriment of others, they need to be held accountable."); Eric Johnson, Silicon Valley's Self-Regulating Days "Probably Should Be" Over, Nancy Pelosi Says, Vox (Apr. 11, 2019), https:/

"After a decade or so of the general sentiment being in favor of the internet and social media as a way to enable more speech and improve the marketplace of ideas, in the last few years the view has shifted dramatically-now it seems that almost no one is happy. Some feel that these platforms have become cesspools of trolling, bigotry, and hatred.1 1. Zachary Laub, Hate Speech on Social Media: Global Comparisons, Council on Foreign Rel. (Jun. 7, 2019), https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/hate-speech-social-media-global-comparisons.Meanwhile, others feel that these platforms have become too aggressive in policing language and are systematically silencing or censoring certain viewpoints.2 2. Tony Romm, Republicans Accused Facebook, Google and Twitter of Bias. Democrats Called the Hearing 'Dumb.', Wash. Post (Jul. 17, 2018), https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/07/17/republicans-accused-facebook-google-twitter-bias-democrats-called-hearing-dumb/?utm_term=.895b34499816.And that's not even touching on the question of privacy and what these platforms are doing (or not doing) with all of the data they collect."

"The transparency report is in its third year, but it hasn't prevented attacks from advocates such as Edward Snowden, who called the company "hostile to privacy". "Dropbox is a targeted you know wannabe PRISM partner," he told the Guardian in July 2014. "They just put … Condoleezza Rice on their board … who is probably the most anti-privacy official you can imagine.""

" The children's charity NSPCC has called on Facebook to resume a programme that scanned private messages for indications of child abuse, with new data suggesting that almost half of referrals for child sexual abuse material are now falling below the radar. Recent changes to the European commission's e-privacy directive, which are being finalised, require messaging services to follow strict new restrictions on the privacy of message data. Facebook blamed that directive for shutting down the child protection operation, but the children's charity says Facebook has gone too far in reading the law as banning it entirely."

"According to a report by Sophos, malware and spam are on the rise on social networks such as Twitter, MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn. In the last year, 57% of users report they have been spammed via social networking sites, an increase of 70.6% compared to last year. Furthermore, 36% of users claim they've been sent malware via social networking sites, which is a rise of 69.8% from last year. On the other hand, CEOs of companies are concerned that their employees' usage of social networks is posing a security risk for their company. Sophos has surveyed more than 500 organizations, discovering that 72% of them think social networks are a danger for their companys, with 60% of them tagging Facebook as the biggest security risk, followed by MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn. Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, says that Facebook is the biggest threat because it's the biggest social network out there, but he also places some of the blame on Facebook's own privacy rules. "When Facebook rolled-out its new recommended privacy settings late last year, it was a backwards step, encouraging many users to share their information with everybody on the internet," he says. Interestingly enough (and contrasted to some of the reports we've seen lately), Cluley thinks that simply barring access to Facebook is not the solution. "Social networks can be an essential part of the business mix today," he says, "and the answer is not to bar staff from participating in them but to apply some 'social security' instead.""

"Privacy, transparency, and consent are of utmost importance in this effort, and we look forward to building this functionality in consultation with interested stakeholders. We will openly publish information about our work for others to analyze. All of us at Apple and Google believe there has never been a more important moment to work together to solve one of the world's most pressing problems. Through close cooperation and collaboration with developers, governments and public health providers, we hope to harness the power of technology to help countries around the world slow the spread of COVID-19 and accelerate the return of everyday life."

"The lack of answers the Jacksonville sheriff's office have provided in Lynch's case is representative of the problems that facial recognition poses across the country. "It's considered an imperfect biometric," said Garvie, who in 2016 created a study on facial recognition software, published by the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law, called The Perpetual Line-Up. "There's no consensus in the scientific community that it provides a positive identification of somebody.""

A leading privacy watchdog files a complaint with US regulators urging them to investigate Google's Buzz social network.

"They join attempts by lawmakers to regulate the internet for kids. States have proposed and even passed laws that restrict what children can access online, up to banning certain services entirely. On the federal level, several recently introduced bipartisan bills run the gamut from giving children more privacy protections to forbidding them from using social media at all. Some efforts also try to control the content that children can be exposed to. Critics of such legislation point to privacy issues with age verification mechanisms and fears that forced content moderation will inevitably lead to censorship, preventing kids from seeing material that's helpful along with what's considered harmful."

"The US battle with TikTok over data privacy concerns and Chinese influence has been heating up for years, and recent measures have brought college campuses to the forefront - with a number of schools banning the app entirely on campus wifi. Students have responded, of course, on TikTok. Taking advantage of viral sounds, they have expressed outrage at their favourite app being blocked at universities like Auburn, Oklahoma and Texas A&M in the past few months. "Do they not realize people in college are actually adults?" one user wrote. "We should make our own independent decision to use TikTok or not," another said."