Dutch rules requiring all websites to get express permission from visitors to use software known as cookies is to be watered down, economic affairs minister Henk Kamp has told parliament. MPs had urged the minister to take steps to stop the constant appearance of irritating popups on websites since the legislation came into effect last [...]
From the good folks at EPIC: EPIC filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission against Snapchat, the publisher of a mobile app that encourages user to share intimate photos and videos. The company represents that users can make photos and videos “disappear forever.” In fact, the photos can be retrieved by others after they should have [...]
Caleb Warnock reports: Parents opposed to the Common Core are protesting as the state is spending millions of dollars to collect student test data. They foresee Utah schools being forced to use the database to collect personal information, according to published federal guidelines, about students and families to share with researchers. Not a chance, state [...]
Jaikumar Vijayan reports: The battle to find a balance between privacy concerns and the beneficial use of drones for commercial and law enforcement purposes is in sharp focus in a bill that’s winding its way through the Texas legislature. The Texas Privacy Act (HB 912), sponsored by Rep. Lance Gooden (R-District 4), would make it [...]
The odds are you are not just a face in the crowd any longer. Even if your picture isn’t plastered all over social networking and photo-sharing sites, facial recognition technology in public places is making it harder if not impossible to remain anonymous. Lesley Stahl reports on the new ways this technology is being used [...]
Sarah Kessler reports: When Jason Sosa started work on a webcam technology that detects, in real time, the age, gender, attention time, and glances of the people looking at it, he thought he was solving an advertising problem. It’s turned out to be much more. His startup’s first product was a digital billboard that changes the [...]
Associated Press reports: In one photo, a woman is on all fours, presumably picking something up, her posterior pressed against a glass window. Another photo shows a couple in bathrobes, their feet touching beneath a table. And there is one of a man, in jeans and a T-shirt, lying on his side as he takes [...]