Category Archives: Privacy

Covidsafe app: how Australia’s coronavirus contact tracing app works, what it does, downloads and problems

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The app will ask for your name (or pseudonym), age range, postcode and phone number. Scott Morrison says the Australian government’s covid safe tracking app won’t be mandatory to download and install, but its uptake numbers could play a part in easing Covid-19 restrictions

The Australian government has launched Covidsafe, an app that traces every person running the app who has been in contact with someone else using the app who has tested positive for coronavirus in the previous few weeks, in a bid to automate coronavirus contact tracing, and allow the easing of restrictions.

Here’s what we know about the app so far.

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Home affairs data breach may have exposed personal details of 700,000 migrants

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Exclusive: Privacy experts say the breach in the SkillsSelect platform, which affects data going back to 2014, was ‘very serious’

Privacy experts have blasted the home affairs department for a data breach revealing the personal details of 774,000 migrants and people aspiring to migrate to Australia, including partial names and the outcome of applications.

At a time the federal government is asking Australians to trust the security of data collected by its Covid-Safe contact tracing app, privacy experts are appalled by the breach, which they say is just the latest in a long line of cybersecurity blunders.

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Zoom releases security updates in response to ‘Zoom-bombings’

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Company has struggled to meet security needs as user base has risen sharply amid coronavirus lockdown

The video-conferencing platform Zoom has released a new update this week in an effort to address an onslaught of security concerns surrounding the service.

Zoom says the newest version of its app, Zoom 5.0, includes encryption and new privacy controls, updates that are part of a 90-day plan to improve security and privacy on the platform.

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Australia coronavirus live: health minister backs calls for global investigation into Covid-19 spread – latest updates

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Greg Hunt supports foreign affairs minister Marise Payne’s call for an independent review that must not be run by WHO as fresh privacy concerns raised over government’s contact-tracing app. Follow the latest news live

Hazzard has announced the $5,000 on-the-spot fine for people who spit or cough at healthcare workers has been extended now to include all workers.

Assistant police minister Karen Webb says that overnight, a 25-year-old man from Nowra was arrested for a number of offences including allegedly spitting at police officers.

Just in the last last week, I’ve had four matters raised with me by members across the state from people deliberately coughing or spitting on people ... It is vile and it is disgusting and unacceptable.

New South Wales health minister Brad Hazzard is providing an update on new cases in the state.

He says to 8pm last night there were 21 new cases of Covid-19, taking the state’s total number of confirmed cases to 2,957. There are 245 people being treated in hospital, including 21 in intensive care and 17 on ventilators.

“We’re doing much better than we could have expected at this point but I also want to remind the community this is a long game. It’s a team game. Probably at this point we aren’t very far into the game.

She looked at me and said minister probably if we’re lucky we’re 10 minutes into the first quarter. There is no room here for us to forget this is a long game and a game with a lot more to go.

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Don’t click on the traffic lights: upstart competitor challenges Google’s anti-bot tool

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New charges for reCaptcha spur web security firm Cloudflare to develop its own identity-checking software

The days of clicking on traffic lights to prove you are not a robot could be ending after Google’s decision to charge for the tool prompted one of the web’s biggest infrastructure firms to ditch it for a competitor.

“Captcha” – an awkward acronym for “completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart” – is used by sites to fight automated abuses of their services. For years, Google’s version of the test, branded reCaptcha, has dominated, after it acquired the company that developed it in 2009 and offered the technology for free worldwide.

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Apple and Google team up in bid to use smartphones to track coronavirus spread

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The app will use a Bluetooth technology to trace every phone a person comes in contact with, raising concerns over privacy

Apple and Google announced Friday an unprecedented collaboration to leverage smartphone technology to help trace and contain the spread of coronavirus.

The collaboration will open up their mobile operating systems to allow for the creation of advanced “contact-tracing” apps, which will run on iPhones and Android phones alike.

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Mobile phone industry explores worldwide tracking of users

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Talks about global data-sharing to counter coronavirus will raise privacy concerns

The mobile phone industry has explored the creation of a global data-sharing system that could track individuals around the world, as part of an effort to curb the spread of Covid-19.

The Guardian has learned that a senior official at GSMA, an international standard-setting body for the mobile phone industry, held discussions with at least one company that is capable of tracking individuals globally through their mobile devices, and discussed the possible creation of a global data-sharing system.

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Facebook users would tell social media platform their bank balance for $8.44 a month

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Study of people across six countries finds German users would charge most for sharing personal data

German Facebook users would want the social media platform to pay them about $8 per month for sharing their contact information, while US users would only seek $3.50, according to a study of how people in various countries value their private information.

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.

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UN rapporteur condemns UK hosting of Israeli spyware firm

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David Kaye speaks out over decision to allow NSO Group to exhibit at trade fair

An independent UN investigator has criticised the British government’s decision to host a surveillance company whose technology is allegedly used by repressive regimes to intercept the private messages of journalists and human rights activists.

David Kaye, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, who has called for a global moratorium on the sale of such technology, said democratic governments “should be outraged and should develop global standards for the exports of such tools” that respected the rule of law and human rights.

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Met police to begin using live facial recognition cameras

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Civil liberties groups condemn move as ‘a breathtaking assault on our rights’

The Metropolitan police will start using live facial recognition, Britain’s biggest force has announced.

The decision to deploy the controversial technology, which has been dogged by privacy concerns and questions over its lawfulness, was immediately condemned by civil liberties groups, who described the move as “a breathtaking assault on our rights”.

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Tim Berners-Lee unveils global plan to save the web

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Inventor of web calls on governments and firms to safeguard it from abuse and ensure it benefits humanity

Sir Tim Berners-Lee has launched a global action plan to save the web from political manipulation, fake news, privacy violations and other malign forces that threaten to plunge the world into a “digital dystopia”.

The Contract for the Web requires endorsing governments, companies and individuals to make concrete commitments to protect the web from abuse and ensure it benefits humanity.

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Royal experts question wisdom of Harry and Meghan documentary

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Couple’s interview about impact of press intrusion could ‘just feed media machine’

The decision by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to agree to a highly emotional TV interview about their treatment at the hands of the press could open them up to further damaging headlines, according to PR experts and royal watchers.

In the ITV documentary, Harry & Meghan: An African Journey, Harry appeared to give credence to long-standing rumours of a rift with William when he admitted the brothers had “good days and bad days” and that they were following different paths.

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Meghan sues Mail on Sunday as Harry launches attack on tabloid press

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Prince compares wife’s treatment to Diana’s as proceedings over private letter are announced

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex has taken the unusual decision to sue the publisher of the Mail on Sunday after the newspaper published a handwritten letter she had sent to her estranged father.

The decision came as Prince Harry launched an extraordinary and highly personal attack on the British tabloid press and its treatment of his wife, saying he could no longer be a “silent witness to her private suffering”.

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Scientists invent new technology to print invisible messages

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Messages can only be seen under UV light and can be erased using a hairdryer

Forget lemon juice and hot irons, there is a new way to write and read invisible messages – and it can be used again and again.

The approach, developed by researchers in China, involves using water to print messages on paper coated with manganese-containing chemicals. The message, invisible to the naked eye, can be read by shining UV light on the paper.

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‘Right to be forgotten’ on Google only applies in EU, court rules

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Europe’s top court says firm does not have to take sensitive information off global search

Google does not have to apply Europe’s landmark “right to be forgotten” law globally, the continent’s highest court has ruled.

The right to be forgotten was enshrined by the European court of justice in 2014, when it said Google must delete “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant” data from its results when a member of the public requests it.

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Facebook suspends thousands of apps over privacy issues

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Removals are part of inquiry into how developers use data, which the company started after the Cambridge Analytica scandal

Facebook has suspended tens of thousands of apps from the platform for privacy reasons, it announced in a blogpost on Friday.

The removals come as part of an ongoing investigation into how developers use data, which the company started after the Cambridge Analytica scandal in March 2018. The news also reveals that the platform is home to more problematic apps than previously thought.

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No 10 request for user data from government website sparks alarm

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Privacy campaigners question urgency of move and motives of PM and Dominic Cummings

Data privacy campaign groups and Labour have expressed alarm after it emerged Downing Street has ordered departments to centralise the collection and analysis of user information from the government’s main public information website ahead of Brexit.

While officials insist the move to share user data from the Gov.uk website is simply intended to improve the service and that no personal details are collected, campaigners raised concern about the urgency of the task, and the personal involvement of Boris Johnson and his chief adviser, Dominic Cummings.

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Apple made Siri deflect questions on feminism, leaked papers reveal

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Exclusive: voice assistant’s responses were rewritten so it never says word ‘feminism’

An internal project to rewrite how Apple’s Siri voice assistant handles “sensitive topics” such as feminism and the #MeToo movement advised developers to respond in one of three ways: “don’t engage”, “deflect” and finally “inform”.

The project saw Siri’s responses explicitly rewritten to ensure that the service would say it was in favour of “equality”, but never say the word feminism – even when asked direct questions about the topic.

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Facebook confirms 419m phone numbers exposed in latest privacy lapse

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The information was stored in an online server that was not password protected, according to a report from TechCrunch

Hundreds of millions of Facebook users’ phone numbers were exposed in an open online database, the company confirmed Wednesday, in the latest example of Facebook’s past privacy lapses coming back to haunt its users.

More than 419m Facebook IDs and phone numbers were stored in an online server that was not password protected, the technology website TechCrunch reported. The dataset included about 133m records for users in the US, 18m records for users in the UK and 50m records for users in Vietnam.

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