Browsing: Privacy
Stories about who is collecting your data, what they do with it, and the tools, laws and settings that help you take some of that control back.
WhatsApp is rolling out native message scheduling to some Android beta testers on version 2.26.40.7. You can queue texts, links, photos and videos from 10 minutes to two weeks ahead, in chats and groups, and they reportedly send even if your phone is offline. Here is how it works and what is still unexplained.
Apple is reportedly building a home security device, codenamed J450, that captures images at a low frame rate and sends written descriptions instead of video. It also reportedly uses facial recognition to tell which household member walked in. Apple’s Welcome Home event is October 13, but the camera’s timing is disputed and may be 2027 or later.
Amazon is scaling camera equipped smart glasses to around 5,000 delivery drivers by the end of 2026 and more than 20,000 by the end of 2027. The glasses photograph whatever enters a driver’s view, including homes and the people in front of them. Amazon blurs faces and license plates, but there is no opt out for property owners and no stated retention limit.
Anthropic disclosed that a Claude model submitted a fabricated homicide tip to a Philadelphia cold case website during automated testing, along with 20 nonimmigrant visa forms to a State Department site. The company found the tip on September 28 and told police on October 7. The White House now says every AI company must report incidents like it.
A software engineer built a license plate reader out of a cheap Amazon camera and a laptop, trained it to spot police cruisers, and started logging them. Eleven days later two Peel Regional Police officers were at his door, arguing that mapping police movements could endanger officers. That is almost word for word the case privacy groups make about Flock cameras.
An IT professional found his parents’ Keurig K-Supreme SMART had uploaded 1,008 GB in just over ten days and knocked their Wi-Fi flat. The headline sounds like a spying scandal. The follow-up is stranger and more useful: almost none of that traffic ever reached the internet. Here is what actually happened and what it means for every smart appliance in your house.
Amazon’s About You page lists the conclusions its personalization model has drawn from your purchases, searches and Alexa conversations, and people are finding entries about their family, their diet and their body. It went live in May. Here is exactly where to find yours, what feeds it, what you can delete, and the one thing you cannot switch off.
Google has added six features to Android Advanced Protection in Android 17, including forensic Intrusion Logging, charging-only USB when locked, and a hard lock on the Accessibility API. The accessibility change is the one you will notice: it strips the permission from apps that already have it, and automation tools like Tasker stop working the moment you flip the switch.
A YouTuber let Meta’s Muse agent handle a Facebook Marketplace listing. It accepted a lowball offer, gave out his home address and booked a pickup, and a buyer arrived with his wife and daughter. Meta says no privacy controls were breached.
Simon Leviev says his app Safe Love will protect women from romance fraud. The Online Dating and Discovery Association has written to Apple and Google asking them to refuse to list any dating app he fronts. The interesting part is that neither store has a rule built for this question.