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Google has officially  released  the first developer preview for the Privacy Sandbox on Android 13, offering an "early look" at the SDK Runtime and Topics API to boost users' privacy online. "The Privacy Sandbox on Android Developer Preview program will run over the course of 2022, with a beta release planned by the end of the year," the search giant  said  in an overview. A "multi-year effort,"  Privacy Sandbox  on Android aims to create technologies that's both privacy-preserving as well as keep online content and services free without having to resort to opaque methods of digital advertising. The idea is to limit sharing of user data with third-parties and operate without cross-app identifiers, including advertising ID, a unique, user-resettable string of letters and digits that can be used to track users as they move between apps. Google originally  announced  its plans to bring Privacy Sandbox to Android earlier this February, following

Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla and Twitter's new owner, on Thursday called on adding support for end-to-end encryption (E2EE) to the platform's direct messages ( DM ) feature. "Twitter DMs should have end to end encryption like Signal, so no one can spy on or hack your messages," Musk  said  in a tweet. The statement comes days after the microblogging service  announced  it officially entered into an agreement to be acquired by an entity wholly owned by Elon Musk, with the transaction valued at approximately US$ 44 billion, or US$ 54.20 per share in cash.  The deal, which is expected to be closed over the next six months, will see it becoming a privately held company. "Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated," Musk said in a statement. "I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making t

The introduction of Open AI's ChatGPT was a defining moment for the software industry, touching off a GenAI race with its November 2022 release. SaaS vendors are now rushing to upgrade tools with enhanced productivity capabilities that are driven by generative AI. Among a wide range of uses, GenAI tools make it easier for developers to build software, assist sales teams in mundane email writing, help marketers produce unique content at low cost, and enable teams and creatives to brainstorm new ideas.  Recent significant GenAI product launches include Microsoft 365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot, and Salesforce Einstein GPT. Notably, these GenAI tools from leading SaaS providers are paid enhancements, a clear sign that no SaaS provider will want to miss out on cashing in on the GenAI transformation. Google will soon launch its SGE "Search Generative Experience" platform for premium AI-generated summaries rather than a list of websites.  At this pace, it's just a matter of a short time befo

Google on Tuesday officially began rolling out a new "Data safety" section for Android apps on the Play Store to highlight the type of data being collected and shared with third-parties. "Users want to know for what purpose their data is being collected and whether the developer is sharing user data with third parties," Suzanne Frey, Vice President of product for Android security and privacy,  said . "In addition, users want to understand how app developers are securing user data after an app is downloaded." The transparency measure, which is built along the lines of Apple's " Privacy Nutrition Labels ," was  first announced  by Google nearly a year ago in May 2021. The Data safety section, which will show up against every app listing on the digital storefront, presents a unified view of what data is being collected, for what purpose it's being used, and how it's handled, while also highlighting what data is being shared with thi

A group of academics has designed a new system known as " Privid " that enables video analytics in a privacy-preserving manner to combat concerns with invasive tracking. "We're at a stage right now where cameras are practically ubiquitous. If there's a camera on every street corner, every place you go, and if someone could actually process all of those videos in aggregate, you can imagine that entity building a very precise timeline of when and where a person has gone," Frank Cangialosi, the lead author of the study and a researcher at the MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL),  said  in a statement. "People are already worried about location privacy with GPS — video data in aggregate could capture not only your location history, but also moods, behaviors, and more at each location," Cangialosi added. Privid is built on the foundation of  differential privacy , a  statistical technique  that makes it possibl

Google on Wednesday announced plans to bring its Privacy Sandbox initiatives to Android in a bid to expand its privacy-focused, but also less disruptive, advertising technology beyond the desktop web. To that end, the internet giant said it will work towards building solutions that prevent cross-app tracking à la Apple's App Tracking Transparency ( ATT ) framework, effectively limiting sharing of user data with third-parties as well as eliminating identifiers such as advertising IDs on mobile devices. "The Privacy Sandbox on Android builds on our existing efforts on the web, providing a clear path forward to improve user privacy without putting access to free content and services at risk," Anthony Chavez, vice president of product management for Android security and privacy,  said . Privacy Sandbox , launched in 2019, is Google's umbrella term for a set of technologies that will phase out third-party cookies and curb covert tracking, like  fingerprinting , by redu

The European Union's data protection authority on Tuesday called for a ban on the development and the use of Pegasus-like commercial spyware in the region, stating that the technology's "unprecedented level of intrusiveness" could endanger users' right to privacy. "Pegasus constitutes a paradigm shift in terms of access to private communications and devices, which is able to affect the very essence of our fundamental rights, in particular the right to privacy," the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS)  said  in its preliminary remarks. "This fact makes its use incompatible with our democratic values." Pegasus  is a piece of highly advanced military-grade intrusion software developed by Israeli company NSO Group that's capable of breaking into smartphones running Android and iOS, turning the devices into a remote monitoring tool capable of extracting sensitive information, recording conversations, and tracking users' movements.

Meta Platforms has agreed to pay $90 million to settle a lawsuit over the company's use of cookies to allegedly track Facebook users' internet activity even after they had logged off from the platform. In addition, the social media company will be required to delete all of the data it illegally collected from those users. The development was first reported by  Variety . The decade-old case, filed in 2012, centered around Facebook's use of the proprietary "Like" button to track users as they visited third-party websites – regardless of whether they actually used the button – in violation of the federal wiretapping laws, and then allegedly compiling those browsing histories into profiles for selling the information to advertisers. Based on the terms of the proposed settlement, users who browsed non-Facebook websites that included the "Like" button between April 22, 2010, and September 26, 2011, will be covered. "Reaching a settlement in this cas

French data protection regulators on Thursday found the use of Google Analytics a breach of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws in the country, almost a month after a  similar decision  was reached in Austria. To that end, the National Commission on Informatics and Liberty (CNIL) ruled that the transatlantic movement of Google Analytics data to the U.S. is not "sufficiently regulated" citing a violation of  Articles 44 et seq.  of the data protection decree, which govern the transfers of personal data to third countries or international entities. Specifically the independent administrative regulatory body highlighted the lack of equivalent privacy protections and the risk that "American intelligence services would access personal data transferred to the United States if the transfers were not properly regulated." "[A]lthough Google has adopted additional measures to regulate data transfers in the context of the Google An

Researchers have demonstrated a new type of fingerprinting technique that exploits a machine's graphics processing unit (GPU) as a means to persistently track users across the web. Dubbed  DrawnApart , the method "identifies a device from the unique properties of its GPU stack," researchers from Australia, France, and Israel said in a new paper, adding "variations in speed among the multiple execution units that comprise a GPU can serve as a reliable and robust device signature, which can be collected using unprivileged JavaScript." A device fingerprint or machine fingerprint is information that is collected about the hardware, installed software, as well as the web browser and its associated add-ons from a remote computing device for the purpose of unique identification. Fingerprints can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, a fingerprint algorithm may allow a service provider (e.g., bank) to detect and prevent identity theft and credit card fraud. But

Google on Tuesday announced that it is abandoning its controversial plans for replacing third-party cookies in favor of a new Privacy Sandbox proposal called  Topics , which categorizes users' browsing habits into approximately 350 topics. The new mechanism , which takes the place of  FLoC  (short for Federated Learning of Cohorts), slots users' browsing history for a given week into a handful of top pre-designated interests (i.e., topics), which are retained only on the device for a revolving period of three weeks. Subsequently, when a user visits a participating site, the Topics API selects three of the interests — one topic from each of the past three weeks — to share with the site and its advertising partners. To give more control over the framework, users can not only see the topics but also remove topics or disable it altogether. By labeling each website with a recognizable, high-level topic and sharing the most frequent topics associated with the browsing history,

A software bug introduced in Apple Safari 15's implementation of the IndexedDB API could be abused by a malicious website to track users' online activity in the web browser and worse, even reveal their identity. The vulnerability, dubbed  IndexedDB Leaks , was disclosed by fraud protection software company FingerprintJS, which  reported the issue  to the iPhone maker on November 28, 2021. IndexedDB is a low-level JavaScript application programming interface (API) provided by web browsers for managing a  NoSQL database  of structured data objects such as files and blobs. "Like most web storage solutions, IndexedDB follows a same-origin policy," Mozilla  notes in its documentation  of the API. "So while you can access stored data within a domain, you cannot access data across different domains." Same-origin is a  fundamental security mechanism  that ensures that resources retrieved from distinct  origins  — i.e., a  combination  of the scheme (protocol),

Meta Platforms, the company formerly known as Facebook, on Friday announced the launch of a centralized Privacy Center that aims to "educate people" about its approach with regards to how it collects and processes personal information across its family of social media apps. "Privacy Center provides helpful information about five common privacy topics: sharing, security, data collection, data use and ads," the social technology firm  said  in a press release. The first module, Security, will offer easy access to common tools such as account security settings and two-factor authentication. Sharing will provide specifics about post visibility and settings to archive or trash old posts. Collection and Use will give users a quick glance into the type of data Meta harvests and learn how and why it's used, respectively. Lastly, the Ads section will furnish information regarding a user's ad preferences. The learning hub is expected to be initially limited to a s

The Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés (CNIL), France's data protection watchdog, has slapped Facebook (now Meta Platforms) and Google with fines of €150 million ($170 million) and €60 million ($68 million) for violating E.U. privacy rules by failing to provide users with an easy option to reject cookie tracking technology. "The websites facebook.com, google.fr and youtube.com offer a button allowing the user to immediately accept cookies," the  authority   said . "However, they do not provide an equivalent solution (button or other) enabling the Internet user to easily refuse the deposit of these cookies." Facebook told  TechCrunch  that it was reviewing the ruling, while Google said it's working to change its practices in response to the CNIL fines. HTTP cookies are small pieces of data created while a user is browsing a website and placed on the user's computer or other device by the user's web browser to track online

Meta Platforms on Thursday revealed it took steps to deplatform seven cyber mercenaries that it said carried out "indiscriminate" targeting of journalists, dissidents, critics of authoritarian regimes, families of opposition, and human rights activists located in over 100 countries, amid mounting scrutiny of surveillance technologies. To that end, the company  said  it alerted 50,000 users of Facebook and Instagram that their accounts were spied on by the companies, who offer a variety of services that run the spyware gamut from hacking tools for infiltrating mobile phones to creating fake social media accounts to monitor targets. It also removed 1,500 Facebook and Instagram accounts linked to these firms. "The global surveillance-for-hire industry targets people across the internet to collect intelligence, manipulate them into revealing information and compromise their devices and accounts," Meta's David Agranovich and Mike Dvilyanski said. "These compa

Russia has stepped up its censorship efforts in the country by fully blocking access to the Tor web anonymity service, coinciding with the  ban  of six virtual private network (VPN) operators, as the government continues its efforts to control the internet and crack down on attempts to circumvent locally imposed web restrictions. The Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, also known as Roskomnadzor, the watchdog responsible for monitoring, controlling and censoring Russian mass media, announced the block, accusing it of enabling access to illegal content, Reuters  reported  this week. Russia  accounts  for 15% of all Tor users, with more than 310,000 daily users, second only to the U.S. Tor, short for The Onion Router,  enables  users to automatically encrypt and reroute their web requests through a network of Tor relays for anonymizing network traffic, as well as help bypass censorship and protect their identities from the intern

Twitter on Tuesday announced an expansion to its private information policy to include private media, effectively prohibiting the sharing of photos and videos without express permission from the individuals depicted in them with an aim to curb doxxing and harassment. "Beginning today, we will not allow the sharing of private media, such as images or videos of private individuals without their consent. Publishing people's private info is also prohibited under the policy, as is threatening or incentivizing others to do so," the company's Safety team  said  in a tweet. To that end, the policy also  discourages  users from sharing information such as sign-in credentials that would enable malicious actors to gain access to a person's sensitive information without their authorization. It also forbids users from seeking financial compensation in exchange for posting (or not posting) another individual's private information as part of blackmail schemes. As part o

Italy's antitrust regulator has fined both Apple and Google €10 million each for what it calls are "aggressive" data practices and for not providing consumers with clear information on commercial uses of their personal data during the account creation phase. The Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (AGCM)  said  "Google and Apple did not provide clear and immediate information on the acquisition and use of user data for commercial purposes," adding the tech companies chose to emphasize the data collection as only necessary to improve their own services and personalize user experience without offering any indication that the data could be transferred and used for other reasons. The concerns have to do with how the companies omit relevant information when creating an account and using their services, details which the authority said are critical to making an informed decision as to whether or not to give permission for utilizing their data for comme

Facebook on Wednesday announced it's open-sourcing  Mariana Trench , an Android-focused static analysis platform the company uses to detect and prevent security and privacy bugs in applications created for the mobile operating system at scale. "[Mariana Trench] is designed to be able to scan large mobile codebases and flag potential issues on  pull requests  before they make it into production," the Menlo Park-based social tech behemoth said . In a nutshell, the utility allows developers to frame rules for different data flows to scan the codebase for in order to unearth potential issues — say,  intent   redirection   flaws  that could result in the leak of sensitive data or injection vulnerabilities that would allow adversaries to insert arbitrary code — explicitly setting boundaries as to where user-supplied data entering the app is allowed to come from (source) and flow into (sink) such as methods that can execute code and retrieve or interact with user data. Dat

A new as-yet unpatched weakness in Apple's iCloud Private Relay feature could be circumvented to leak users' true IP addresses from iOS devices running the latest version of the operating system. Introduced as a beta with iOS 15, which was officially released this week,  iCloud Private Relay  aims to improve anonymity on the web by employing a dual-hop architecture that effectively shields users' IP address, location, and DNS requests from websites and network service providers. It achieves this by routing users' internet traffic on the Safari browser through two proxies in order to mask who's browsing and where that data is coming from in what could be viewed as a simplified version of Tor.  However, the feature is available only to iCloud+ subscribers running iOS 15 or macOS 12 Monterey and above. "If you read the IP address from an HTTP request received by your server, you'll get the IP address of the egress proxy," FingerprintJS researcher Se

Google on Friday said it's bringing an Android 11 feature that auto-resets permissions granted to apps that haven't been used in months, to devices running Android versions 6 and above. The expansion is expected to go live later this year in December 2021 and enabled on Android phones with Google Play services running Android 6.0 (API level 23) or higher, which the company said should cover "billions more devices." Google officially released Android 6.0 Marshmallow on October 5, 2015. With Android 11 that came out last year, the internet giant introduced a permission auto-reset option that helps improve user privacy by automatically resetting an app's permissions to access sensitive features like storage or camera if the app in question is left unopened for a few months. "Some apps and permissions are automatically exempted from revocation, like active Device Administrator apps used by enterprises, and permissions fixed by enterprise policy," Google