Free Republic

SACRAMENTO - DNA is back in the spotlight, cracking cold cases. But questions are being raised after the state spent decades collecting the DNA of infants without parents realizing it. California has been collecting newborn blood samples since 1983. Many parents were shocked to hear their children’s blood is being stored in a state database, and possibly even sold to outside researchers. Pricking the toes newborns, to test their blood for certain disorders. The remaining blood becomes “property of the state,” and could be shared with outside researchers. “I feel like that’s something that should have been discussed with us,...

Facebook is facing a class-action lawsuit following the revelation that the company logged users’ text and call logs using the Facebook smartphone app. Facebook is now reportedly facing a class-action lawsuit relating to the company’s collection of user text and audio logs via the Facebook smartphone app, Fast Company reports. A lawsuit filed in the northern district of California names John Condelles III as the main plaintiff and states that Facebook “presents several wrongs, including a consumer bait-and-switch, an invasion of privacy, wrongful monitoring of minors and potential attacks on privileged communications.” It was revealed recently that Facebook was collecting...

European Union, USA March 7 2018 The EU’s General Data Protective Regulation (“GDPR”) has been a popular topic of late. Fisher Phillips’ Employment Privacy Blog has covered the evolution of this regulation, starting with the roll back of the previous “safe harbor” regime, as well as providing updates to GDPR compliance standards, and training recommendations. As if to highlight the seriousness with which the EU is pursuing this directive, the GDPR has even made a recent appearance in Supreme Court arguments on Tuesday. United States v. Microsoft, No. 17-2, raised the issue of whether the United States may issue a...

Many people have grown accustomed to talking to their smart devices, asking them to read a text, play a song or set an alarm. But someone else might be secretly talking to them, too. Over the last two years, researchers in China and the United States have begun demonstrating that they can send hidden commands that are undetectable to the human ear to Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Assistant. Inside university labs, the researchers have been able to secretly activate the artificial intelligence systems on smartphones and smart speakers, making them dial phone numbers or open websites. In the...

Louisville, KY- "President BUSH said Wednesday that Congressional hearings to 'investigate" his domestic eavesdropping program will be good for DEMOCRACY......... as long as they don't give secrets away to the ENEMY." .............................. My thoughts: - How is giving secrets to the Democrats in Congress, on spying on known terrorist contacts within the United States .... helpful in the War on Terror ? ...............................................What is to stop Patrick 'leaky' from giving press conferences? ...........................................What is to stop Jay Rocherfeller 'from flying' to the Middle East to brief his ALLIES ?

Facebook Deputy Chief Privacy Officer Rob Sherman boasted that his firm “will force users to accept being tracked everywhere they go. That’s just the way it is. This decision was not made in the interest of the users of Facebook, but explicitly to ensure maximum profits for the company. Our business model is based on inducing our users to freely provide us detailed personal information, which we then sell to the highest bidders. It’s a virtual license to print money. Why should we stop?” Sherman dismissed the possibility that customers would be turned off by FaceBook’s pervasive invasion of privacy....

[Yahoo has] updated how we collect and use data. We’ve updated some of the ways we collect and analyze user data in order to deliver services, content, and relevant advertising to you and protect against abuse. This includes: Analyzing content and information (including emails, instant messages, posts, photos, attachments, and other communications) when you use our services. This allows us to deliver, personalize and develop relevant features, content, advertising and services Linking your activity on third-party sites and apps with information we have about you

--snip-- over the last five years a secretive surveillance company founded by a former Israeli intelligence officer has been quietly building a massive facial recognition database consisting of faces acquired from the giant social network, YouTube and countless other websites. Privacy activists are suitably alarmed. --snip--

While congresscritters expressed outrage at Facebook’s intrusive data grabs during Capitol Hill hearings with Mark Zuckerberg this week, not a peep was heard about the Silicon Valley–Beltway theft ring purloining the personal information and browsing habits of millions of American schoolchildren. It doesn’t take undercover investigative journalists to unmask the massive privacy invasion enabled by educational technology and federal mandates. The kiddie data heist is happening out in the open — with Washington politicians and bureaucrats as brazen co-conspirators. ... Under the guise of customizable assessments, public and private preschools in Colorado experimented with toddlers whose student activities and social/emotional...

The discovery was made by New York cybersecurity expert Kelly ShortridgeShe noticed the browser tool was scanning files in a folder on her Windows PCMs Shortridge shared her worries that it was gathering data on social media Google's head of security for Chrome responded that this is not the caseGoogle users are sharing their shock at discovering Chrome's built-in anti-virus tool is scanning private files on their computers.Chrome Cleanup Tool, a browser component added in 2014 to scan and remove malicious or resource heavy software, is behind the outcry.

Coercive thought reform practicing political groups, like the Communist Party USA as described in Bella Dodd's School of Darkness, can be thought of as cults. It's especially applicable considering the Stalinist Purge Trials in which disgraced party officials confessed to imaginary crimes, prior to execution.The cult-like political forces that are trying to force Catholic priests in Australia to give up the seal of confession, are perfectly capable of using secrets revealed in confession for political blackmail.Video by Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and emeritus adjunct professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who counseled and interviewed more than...

FaceBook CEO Mark Zuckerberg underwent two days of interrogation before members of the House and Senate looking into his firm's invasion of privacy and political misuse of personal information. The tech wiz apologized for "allowing this information to fall into the wrong hands" and vowed to "introduce procedures to prevent any recurrence of the tragic event that befell the nation on November 8th 2016." In an effort to persuade members of Congress that "we are on the case," Zuckerberg cited a couple of recent measures he said "will hopefully purge dangerous content from using FaceBook to promote antisocial attitudes and...

This concentration of power as a means to absolute power is the threat that warrants continued identification, exposure and accountability Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal. —Albert Einstein Some may say we don’t have a right to privacy as we consume and use social media applications and platforms. Some, like Apple, will say the right to privacy is an inherent right. Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, left Facebook over data collection. According to reports, Wozniak is one of up to 50 million Facebook users who have deleted their accounts in protest. Data sharing and...

What is it about spectacular American business success stories like Facebook that brings out envy and resentment? Facebook has 2 billion monthly users. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is 33 and has a net worth north of $60 billion, making him the fifth richest person on Earth, according to Forbes last month. His company is also accused of allowing "misuse" of its users' personal data to help elect President Donald Trump. Never mind that the 2012 Obama campaign bragged about using Facebook in a similar way to win re-election. So, when it comes to Facebook and Zuckerberg, what's not to hate? Industrial...

While congresscritters expressed outrage at Facebook's intrusive data grabs during Capitol Hill hearings with Mark Zuckerberg this week, not a peep was heard about the Silicon Valley-Beltway theft ring purloining the personal information and browsing habits of millions of American schoolchildren. It doesn't take undercover investigative journalists to unmask the massive privacy invasion enabled by educational technology and federal mandates. The kiddie data heist is happening out in the open -- with Washington politicians and bureaucrats as brazen co-conspirators. Facebook is just one of the tech giants partnering with the U.S. Department of Education and schools nationwide in pursuit of...

Sally and Kristen haven’t hung out in forever, so Sally suggests taking a selfie. After Sally uploads the photo to Facebook, the app suggests she tag Kristen based on its facial-recognition system, which Kristen has given permission to use. ````````````````````````` DATA PROVIDED FACEBOOK ..Uploaded photo ..Text submitted with photo ..Facial recognition ADDITIONAL DATA COLLECTED FACEBOOK ..Photo analysis ..Location of the photo (if included in metadata) ..Date ..Type of device (iPhone X) ..Device ID ..Device operating system ..Battery level ..Signal strength ..Bluetooth signal ..Connection speed ..Available storage ..App and file names and types ..Nearby Wi-Fi beacons and cell towers ..Nearby devices...

Under fire for the worst privacy debacle in his company’s history, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg batted away often-aggressive questioning Tuesday from lawmakers who accused him of failing to protect the personal information of millions of Americans from Russians intent on upsetting the U.S. election. During some five hours of Senate questioning, Zuckerberg apologized several times for Facebook failures, disclosed that his company was “working with” special counsel Robert Mueller in the federal probe of Russian election interference and said it was working hard to change its own operations after the harvesting of users’ private data by a data-mining company affiliated...

I've been thinking while I've had a few spare minutes on my mind, that it's really time Facebook faced the music for what it's really ALLOWED to happen with user data on its system. Let's make no mistake here: Facebook publishes API's that allow third-party developers to access its users data. Of that there is ZERO debate. IMO, Zuckerberg and company have DELIBERATELY opened up all the user data they have to the highest bidders. This started in 2012 with the Obama Campaign which mined the hell out of Facebook data with Zuckerberg's blessing. That practice continued unabated until Data...

Facebook’s second in command Sheryl Sandberg said Friday that users wanting to opt out of having their data used by advertisers will have to pay for that assurance. The comments came in the wake of revelations that the personal information of 87 million users had been inappropriately used by the data firm Cambridge Analytica in the 2016 election campaign, the New York Post reported. While different forms of opt-out are already available on Facebook, an opt-out at the highest level “would be a paid product,” Sandberg said during an interview on NBC's "Today" show, the Post reported. Furthermore, Sandberg suggested...

Facebook's chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, publicly admitted that "our company's invasion of our clients' privacy probably rates a score of 10 out of 10 for being as complete a betrayal as possible." Despite this colossal failure, Sandberg insisted that CEO Mark "Zuckerberg's public apology ought to be penance enough. Look, we're with the good guys. We allowed President Obama to use our massive data to get reelected in 2012. Obviously, in hindsight, the Cambridge Analytica deal was a mistake." "In our defense, the amount of data we sold to Cambridge Analytica was tiny compared to what we freely gave...