EFF has filed hundreds—at this point, possibly thousands—of public records requests with law enforcement agencies. We've analyzed literally billions of license plate scans.

In 2015, we released eight days of data from Oakland, California's ALPR system. That may not sound like much, but in 2019, we found that just 82 agencies collected more than 1 billion license plate scans.

In our 2017 “Data Driven” series, we used ALPR data-sharing and hit ratio reports to investigate the extent of ALPR data sharing between police departments, and to analyze the number of ALPR scans that are ultimately associated with a crime-related vehicle. We found that 99.5% of the license plates scanned were not under suspicion at the time the vehicles’ plates were collected, and shamed the agencies that were sharing data with over 800 other agencies.

In Data Driven 2, we filed more than 100 requests for information under the California Public Records Act, and learned that 99.9% of the data was not actively related to an investigation when it was collected.

We have identified racist uses of ALPR systems, ALPR surveillance of protestors, and ALPR tracking of a person who sought an abortion.

Public records from ALPR systems are one of the reasons California now has stronger ALPR transparency and accountability requirements and protections than other states.

ALPR data is deeply revealing about what people are doing and who they are doing it with. It is dangerous that the police have so much of our ALPR information, and would be worse for our privacy if police disclose our ALPR information. But using public records from ALPR systems demonstrates the strong accountability value of public access to many kinds of ALPR data, and restricting disclosure too broadly demonstrates a failure by elected officials to understand how digital surveillance works, and how it endangers us.

These records are not just informational—they are leverage. ALPR disclosures have helped to block new deployments, refuse contract renewals, and terminate existing agreements with surveillance vendors whose practices proved too dangerous to continue. 

(EFF is a member-supported organization that has been successfully fighting for privacy since 1990. You can learn more about us, and ways to support that fight, here.)

I came across a slightly disturbing "prank" video on Instagram where a guy used Sherlock to take someone's pic without their consent, uploaded it onto Sherlock, and inferred private information about someone's personal life. The person then pretended to be someone he met and deceived him into thinking they'd met before.

I don't need to explain why this is wrong because, as human beings and depending on ur profession, we see hundreds of faces a day that we're prone to forgetting; my point is there should be laws against rubbish like this

I can't post the link cuz of the subreddit rules, but a little bit of research and you'll find what I'm talking about; just type "Sherlock app prank"

Side note: I hate these "Meta Glasses" content creators; their content is based solely on virality and lacks any real substance. Be safe out there, guys.

The UK's biggest lender compared its employees' spending habits to the wider public to show if they weathered the cost-of-living crisis better.

As it sets out plans for next year's pay deal, the banking group looked at that data, along with the saving rates and salary increases of its lowest paid workers and assessed them against its customers.

A union says it is concerning but Lloyds said "aggregated, anonymised data" had been used "in order to ensure compliance with regulations and to reflect common practice of using data to underpin decision-making".

Search "u/[username] reddit" and the ai overview will show how it already knows everything about you, even if your profile is private.

It knows where I live! Never ever post in local subreddits

Gone are the days of people manually trawling your posts to doxx you. Now they have a tool to automate it.

Few of these tools provide the sorts of privacy and security promises we demand from all technology, let alone tech that captures personal health data. It’s time they step up and start providing transparency reports and stronger encryption options.

"The Federal Communications Commission is weighing rules that would require carriers and VoIP providers to collect a customer's name, physical address, government-issued ID number, and an alternate phone number before activating or renewing service. The practical effect, critics warn, would be the end of the anonymous prepaid phone. But the bigger concern they're raising is what happens to that data once every American's identity is tied to a phone line: a centralized, government-mandated record that touches domestic violence survivors, journalists, whistleblowers, and anyone who simply doesn't want their name permanently attached to their number."

"The NFLPA is investigating a complaint from New York Jets players after some of them learned of surveillance cameras in the team's locker room at their New Jersey practice facility, according to ESPN.

If the cameras are found to be in violation of the CBA, the union will reportedly consider action against the team.

The New York Daily News reports that players learned of the cameras, which were hidden in smoke detectors, in recent weeks and soon filed their complaint.

Once the NFL received the complaint, it reportedly concluded the Jets have broken no rules and no further action is needed. The league claimed that the cameras have been in the locker room since 2008, when the team relocated its practice facility and that players were aware of them. The fact that players are complaining to their union now would indicate otherwise.

Jets players not happy about cameras

The 0-8 Jets have yet another reason to be unhappy. (Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Images)

Per ESPN, the cameras function only for security purposes. Footage is reportedly retained on a 30-day rolling schedule and is only accessed by members of the team's security department on an as-needed basis (i.e. reports of theft in the locker room).

It appears at least some players were aware of the cameras at one point, as ESPN reported there have been instances of players requesting help from security when valuables have gone missing.

However, when the Daily News asked current and former Jets players going back to 2018, all of them reportedly said they were unaware of the locker room cameras, were not informed by team officials of their presence and did not consent to be videotaped.

From the Daily News:

Two out of four players contacted by ESPN reportedly said they knew of the cameras only because of investigations into missing valuables.

What the CBA says about locker room cameras

Here's what the Daily News had to report about the legality of the Jets' locker room cameras in the NFL's CBA:

The union reportedly intends to have the cameras removed, be it through the CBA or New Jersey privacy laws.

Even if the Jets are able to win on both fronts, you really have to wonder if "we need to videotape players who don't want to be videotaped" is a battle the team really wants to publicly fight, especially with the current discontent around head coach Adam Gase."

This was never dealt with and was completely forgotten about, and to this day we still have cameras in only men's locker rooms. We don't stand up for our privacy as loudly as we need to.

 https://sports.yahoo.com/jets-players-complain-nflpa-surveillance-cameras-locker-room-nfl-231435556.html

Y'all made a lot of noise when it implemented the api change, with strikes and blackouts (or whatever it was called) and "we're boycotting it!" and "we're moving to Lemmy", but hardly any of you did, did you? Not only that, but there are now even more people than there ever were.

You didn't leave then, so what about now that you're even more hooked? What's the contingency plan here o dear privacy advocates?

I’ve noticed a very dystopian side effect of the recent global crackdown on age/real name verification. Yes, I have a lot of feelings on influencer/content creator culture, but there are some I follow because they make genuinely interesting or thought provoking content.

Recently, I’ve started seeing a lot of these creators I once followed under creative usernames that maybe revealed their first name only, pop back up in my feed… under their legal, government names. It’s a bit like seeing that girl from high school who quietly got married pop up under a new name… for a second you don’t remember adding a Jane Smith, then you click on the profile and look through the photos and realize it’s just Jane Roe from 10th grade hiding behind a new name.

I’d post specific examples but don’t want to be called out for promoting (there is one guy who reviews random airports across the US that many of you may have seen and know who I’m talking about). Another one that’s here locally in my city suddenly changed from “Katie” to “Katherine” which I assume is her legal name. I’m seeing more and more of this.

But yeah, I’m not sure what kind of dystopian shit Meta is cooking up right now with real-name verification, but it’s clear that even in the US, the creators that value that stream of income are trying to get out ahead of this by putting their real, legal names out in the open, and it’s dystopian to watch regardless of how you feel about influencer culture. You should be able to hide behind a reasonable pseudonym or username.

Somewhat predictably, the least intrusive age verification method, the one that doesn't require linking your internet activity to your real-world identity, is now under fire because of 'serious questions' about its effectiveness.

This is an alternate account.

A few days ago, I randomly searched my main Reddit username on Google just to see what would come up. Google's AI summary popped up, straight up told what state i live in. I started asking follow up questions like what cars i own and stuff. Even though i have curate my profile on, it still scraped the data from the actual posts. Fuck AI.

It had pieced together a surprisingly detailed profile of me from years of Reddit comments. It knew my state, the cars I own, , and even the subreddits I moderate. None of that information came from a single post; it was inferred by connecting thousands of comments I'd made over roughly seven years. I realsied how freaking dumb and dangerous this was

i gradually scattered across Reddit without ever intending to create a public profile of myself.

So I decided to clean house.

I used bulk deletion tool (no promotions here, but there are plenty out there) to remove thousands of comments, especially from my state subreddit and car discussion communities where I'd shared the most personal details. I left up technical discussions. Things like repair advice and troubleshooting. because those don't really identify me and might still be useful to others.

I know this doesn't erase everything. Archived copies, search caches, and AI training datasets may still exist. But I figured reducing what's publicly available today is still better than leaving it all online indefinitely.

Google's AI is kinda dangerous. Do check yours and make sure that it is not giving out any sort of info you would not like.

So this isn't about this account but I have an account where is wrote some sensitive medical information about me on reddit. I had deleted the posts but it's archived on Arctic Shift. I don't know anything about them but they have a removal request, you have to email them and it says that "Data can only be removed from API responses and future dumps." What does that mean? Is it even worth it to try it?

I just got an email from Strava saying "Do you know John Doe?" In the email it shows the details of a dude I worked with many years ago. It shows his face and his name and where he lives.

I only use strava to view heat maps, I don't use it for anything else, no tracking of anything, its all disabled in the settings. I don't have facebook nor linkedin. The only connection between me and this guy is we emailed each other years back when we worked together.

I have some accounts that have come up as compromised, and I want help protecting my data and with data removal, etc.. I wanted to try aura but it says I need to have a zip code and state, which I do not :(

Basically the title. I'm just over all the scam calls and invasions of my privacy. 😓

Also interested in deleting any of my data used for advertising.

I do my best to keep my privacy settings as limited as possible, but somehow anything I type is found and advertised on. Help please 😓

I am so close to just leaving this site