"After the entry into force of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act in August 2024, an open question is its interplay with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The AI Act aims to promote human-centric, trustworthy and sustainable AI, while respecting individuals' fundamental rights and freedoms, including their right to the protection of personal data. One of the AI Act's main objectives is to mitigate discrimination and bias in the development, deployment and use of 'high-risk AI systems'. To achieve this, the act allows 'special categories of personal data' to be processed, based on a set of conditions (e.g. privacy-preserving measures) designed to identify and to avoid discrimination that might occur when using such new technology. The GDPR, however, seems more restrictive in that respect. The legal uncertainty this creates might need to be addressed through legislative reform or further guidance."

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/EPRS_ATA(2025)769509

#EU #AI #AIAct #GDPR #DataProtection #AlgorithmicDiscrimination #AlgorithmicBias #Privacy

"A federal judge has ordered Trump administration officials involved in Elon Musk’s “opaque” Department of Government Efficiency to testify under oath in one of the sprawling lawsuits seeking to block DOGE’s access to sensitive government databases.

U.S. District Judge John Bates agreed Thursday that “very limited” efforts to question officials connected to DOGE would help clarify what exactly the group is doing and whether it poses the risks to sensitive data that government employees fear. Bates’ order will allow unions and liberal groups suing to question four officials: one from DOGE’s White House headquarters and one each from the Labor Department, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

While the bureaucracy-slashing DOGE effort has sparked more than a dozen lawsuits, the order from Bates is the first that would force people involved in the project to answer questions from lawyers outside the government.

Those depositions will be capped at eight hours in total, ruled Bates, a Washington-based appointee of President George W. Bush."

<https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/27/doge-depositions-union-lawsuits-00206542>

#USA #Trump #Musk #DOGE #CyberSecurity #Privacy #DataProtection

"A hacker claims to have stolen thousands of internal documents with user records and employee data after breaching the systems of Orange Group, a leading French telecommunications operator and digital service provider.

The threat actor published on a hacker forum details about the stolen data after trying to extort the company unsuccessfully.

Orange confirmed the breach to BleepingComputer saying that it occurred on a non-critical application. The company intiated an investigation and is working to minimize the impact of the incident.

According to the threat actor, who uses the alias Rey and is a member of the HellCat ransomware group, the stolen data is mostly from the Romanian branch of the company and includes 380,000 unique email addresses, source code, invoices, contracts, customer and employee information."

<https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/orange-group-confirms-breach-after-hacker-leaks-company-documents/>

#CyberSecurity #Romania #Orange #Jira #DataBreaches #Hacking

"Nowadays, more and more banks set their interest rates automatically, and without any human intervention. But even the smallest inaccuracies can cost consumers thousands of additional euros. While EU law allows the use of such an automatic system in certain circumstances, companies must follow strict rules to protect people’s fundamental right to privacy. Banks, for example, would need to provide their customers with “meaningful information about the logic involved” in calculating their personal interest rate. But many banks don’t seem to care. Contrary to EU law, Swedbank (one of the largest banks in Sweden) rejected a Swedish citizen’s access request by claiming that the calculation was a “trade secret”. noyb has now filed a complaint with the Swedish Data Protection Authority."

<https://noyb.eu/en/swedbank-refuses-transparency-automatic-interest-calculation>

#EU #Sweden #Swedbank #Privacy #DataProtection #ConsumersRights

Encryption backdoors are like leaving the door open for a totalitarian society... I don't see why people are unable to understand this...

"If they're going to cave into Zuck's demand to facilitate spying on Instagram users, do we really think they'll resist Kier Starmer's demands to remove Signal – and any other app that stands up to the Snooper's Charter – from the App Store?

It goes without saying that the "bad guys" the UK government claims it wants to target will be able to communicate in secret no matter what Apple does here. They can just use an Android phone and sideload a secure messaging app, or register an iPhone in Ireland or any other country and bring it to the UK. The only people who will be harmed by the combination of the British government's reckless disregard for security, and Apple's designs that trade the security of its users for the security of its shareholders are millions of law-abiding Britons, whose most sensitive data will be up for grabs by anyone who hacks their accounts."

<https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/25/sneak-and-peek/>

#CyberSecurity #UK #Apple #Encryption #Backdoors #Privacy #Totalitarianism #iCloud

"The furor after Apple removed full iCloud security for U.K. users may feel a long way from American users this weekend. But it’s not — far from it. What has just shocked the U.K. is exactly what the FBI told me it also wants in the U.S. “Lawful access” to any encrypted user data. The bureau’s quiet warning was confirmed just a few weeks ago.

The U.K. news cannot be seen in isolation and follows years of battling between big tech and governments over warranted, legal access to encrypted messages and content to fuel investigations into serious crimes such as terrorism and child abuse.

As I reported in 2020, “it is looking ever more likely that proponents of end-to-end security, the likes of Facebook and Apple, will lose their campaign to maintain user security as a priority.” It has taken five years, but here we now are.

The last few weeks may have seemed to signal a unique fork in the road between the U.S. and its primary Five Eyes ally, the U.K. But it isn’t. In December, the FBI and CISA warned Americans to stop sending texts and use encrypted platforms instead. And now the U.K. has forced open iCloud to by threatening to mandate a backdoor. But the devil’s in the detail — and we’re fast approaching a dangerous pivot."

<https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2025/02/24/fbis-new-iphone-android-security-warning-is-now-critical/>

#USA #FBI #CyberSecurity #Encryption #Privacy #UK #CISA #Apple #Backdoor

"Revisiting the Comintern from the far side of its 1943 shuttering, one might see a vehicle always doomed to founder, sailing against the tide in a reactionary interwar conjuncture where incipient revolutionary-democratic mass politics became caught between the gears of imperialism, fascism, and Stalinism. For young communists in those electric years, however, the two, three, many Red Octobers that the Third International was charged with fostering — from Jakarta to Managua and from Emilia-Romagna to the Cape of Good Hope — appeared as a concrete, occasionally even imminent political prospect.

Their faith in the practicability of radical global transformation was fortified by daily participation within a real movement of thousands across every continent. For Brigitte Studer, “The Comintern employees who travelled the world on political missions made such internationalism a reality through their own activity, living their internationalism as action.” It is with these Travellers of the World Revolution, and their experience of life in the service of “one of the greatest collective experiments of the twentieth century,” that Studer’s new history of the Comintern is concerned.

Reading good Comintern history conjures the feeling of standing dead in the eye of the twentieth-century hurricane, immersed, nearly engulfed by the epochal storm winds of the age of extremes. Revolution and counterrevolution; communism and anti-communism; fascism and anti-fascism; colonialism and anti-colonialism; mass politics and state bureaucracy; intellectual-cultural innovation and censorship; interstate war and intrastate terror — these were the Olympian forces under whose caprices the foot soldiers of the Comintern lived (and died).”"

<https://jacobin.com/2025/02/comintern-history-communism-history-stalinism/>

#Communism #Comintern #CommunistInternational #History #Stalinism

"After the United Kingdom demanded that Apple create a backdoor that would allow government officials globally to spy on encrypted data, Apple decided to simply turn off encryption services in the UK rather than risk exposing its customers to snooping.

Apple had previously allowed end-to-end encryption of data on UK devices through its Advanced Data Protection (ADP) tool, but that ended Friday, a spokesperson said in a lengthy statement.

"Apple can no longer offer Advanced Data Protection (ADP) in the United Kingdom to new users and current UK users will eventually need to disable this security feature," Apple said."

<https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/02/apple-pulls-data-protection-tool-instead-of-caving-to-uk-demand-for-a-backdoor/>

#UK #CyberSecurity #Apple #Encryption #Backdoors #DataProtection #Surveillance

"t can be challenging to sift through the flood of headlines and updates. We’re here to help make sense of that flood—starting with what we see happening with data during the first 30 days of the administration, including weakened oversight of U.S. surveillance, the elimination of consumer data protection tools, and improper access and misuse of data.

As the Trump administration concludes its first 30 days in office, three worrying trends emerge at the intersection of technology and democratic governance. New America’s Open Technology Institute has long championed democratically accountable tech policymaking, and over the past month, we have tracked federal actions that run counter to this objective:

• The weakening of oversight of U.S. government surveillance
• The elimination of institutions that protect American consumers and their data
• Systematic efforts to access some of America’s most vital data systems without regard for individual privacy or data security"

<https://www.newamerica.org/oti/blog/trumps-tech-governance-making-sense-of-the-administrations-first-30-days/>

#USA #Trump #Surveillance #ConsumerRights #Privacy #DataProtection #CyberSecurity

"Italy’s national union for journalists has submitted a criminal complaint to prosecutors in Rome after Giorgia Meloni’s government shut down questions in parliament over suspicions it had illegally used spyware technology to hack the phones of critics instead of criminals.

The legal action on Wednesday was triggered by the absence of clarity from the government since revelations emerged in late January that a migrant activist and Francesco Cancellato, an investigative journalist, were among at least seven people in Italy whose mobile phones had been targeted by an entity using Graphite, a military-grade spyware produced by the Israel-based Paragon, which is intended for use on criminals."

<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/19/journalists-launch-legal-action-against-italian-government-over-spyware-claims>

#Italy #CyberSecurity #Spyware #Paragon #Meloni

"Last week, Michelle King, the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration, sought to reassure Democrats on Capitol Hill about the presence of two of Elon Musk’s allies at her agency.

The Social Security Administration keeps medical information, bank account numbers and other sensitive personal data about the roughly 70 million Americans it provides with more than $1 trillion in benefits annually. In the Feb. 11 letter to Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, Ms. King said that the two representatives, from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, had not yet seen personal information — and said any disclosures would follow established procedures. “I share your commitment to protecting sensitive personal and financial information from improper disclosure and misuse,” she wrote in the letter, which was viewed by The New York Times. “We follow all relevant laws and regulations when granting access to S.S.A. systems.”

Days later, Mr. Musk's team sought access to the agency’s data. Ms. King resisted the request, and by Monday night she and her chief of staff, Tiffany Flick, were out of their jobs, according to three people familiar with their departures. The Trump administration elevated Leland Dudek, a relatively low-level staff member who had previously collaborated with DOGE, to temporarily lead the agency."

<https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/19/us/politics/elon-musk-doge-personal-data.html>

#USA #Trump #Musk #DOGE #SocialSecurity #Privacy #DataProtection

"For 37 years, Congress has completely failed to pass another consumer privacy law. Which is how we got here – to this moment where you can target ads to suicidal teens, gambling addicted soldiers in Minuteman silos, grannies with Alzheimer's, and every Congressional staffer on the Hill.

Some people think the problem with mass surveillance is a kind of machine-driven, automated mind-control ray. They believe the self-aggrandizing claims of tech bros to have finally perfected the elusive mind-control ray, using big data and machine learning.

But you don't need to accept these outlandish claims – which come from Big Tech's sales literature, wherein they boast to potential advertisers that surveillance ads are devastatingly effective – to understand how and why this is harmful. If you're struggling with opioid addiction and I target an ad to you for a fake cure or rehab center, I haven't brainwashed you – I've just tricked you. We don't have to believe in mind-control to believe that targeted lies can cause unlimited harms.

And those harms are indeed grave."

<https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/20/privacy-first-second-third/#malvertising>

#USA #AdTech #DataBrokers #DataBrokerage #Privacy #BigTech #MassSurveillance #DataProtection

?!?!

"Among the cadre of DOGE engineers now rooting through the guts of the administrative state, few have attracted more curiosity than Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, a 19-year-old coder who interned for three months for Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain implant company. Coristine has a brief but colorful history that includes being fired from Path Networks, a cybersecurity company, for giving company documents to a competitor. He apparently palled around with a criminal hacking group called The Com and, according to a Telegram account associated with him, had solicited hacking services online. In 2021, he founded a company called Tesla.Sexy LLC that, according to Wired, “controls dozens of web domains, including at least two Russian-registered domains. One of those domains, which is still active, offers a service called Helfie, which is an AI bot for Discord servers targeting the Russian market.”

A lot about DOGE remains unknown – like who’s officially in charge – but Coristine has email addresses at USAID and the Department of Homeland Security and was recently seen inside the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the State Department. Across the federal government, he seems to have the run of the place.

There’s one aspect of Coristine’s background that has escaped public notice: his grandfather, Valery Martynov, was a KGB spy who played an intriguing role in a sprawling 1980s espionage drama."

<https://www.jacobsilverman.com/p/prominent-doge-staffer-is-grandson>

#USA #Musk #DOGE #Russia #CyberSecurity #DataProtection

"Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old engineer with Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) known as “Big Balls,” is now on staff at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, WIRED has confirmed. He is joined by another member of the DOGE team, 38-year-old software engineer Kyle Schutt, who is now also on the CISA staff, according to a government source.

CISA referred WIRED to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), of which it’s a component agency, when reached for comment. DHS did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Coristine—briefly an intern for Musk’s brain-computer interface company Neuralink, as WIRED has reported—has been working his way through numerous federal agencies and departments as a DOGE operative since January. He has been tracked at the General Services Administration (GSA), the Office of Personnel Management, the State Department, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. At State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Technology, he potentially had access to systems containing sensitive information about diplomats and many sources around the world who provide the US government with intelligence and expertise."

<https://www.wired.com/story/doge-cisa-coristine-cybersecurity/>

#USA #CyberSecurity #DOGE #CISA #DHS #Privacy #DataProtection

"The Trump administration has quietly fired multiple members of the “privacy team” and other officials from the office that oversees the hiring of federal workers, a move that limits outside access to government records related to the security clearances granted to Elon Musk and his associates, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

CNN was first notified of the firings at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in response to a freedom of information act request for records related to the security clearances of Musk and anyone from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) who has been granted access to sensitive or classified government networks.

“Good luck with that, they just fired the whole privacy team,” an OPM email address responded to CNN’s FOIA request."

<https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/18/politics/opm-privacy-team-fired/index.html>

#USA #Trump #Musk #DOGE #OPM #Privacy #DataProtection

"What happens when humans stop relying on their village, or even their family, for advice on having a kid and instead go online, where there’s a constant onslaught of information? How do we make sense of the contradictions of the internet—the tension between what’s inherently artificial and the “natural” methods its denizens are so eager to promote? In her new book, Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age (Doubleday, 2025), Hess explores these questions while delving into her firsthand experiences with apps, products, algorithms, online forums, advertisers, and more—each promising an easier, healthier, better path to parenthood. After welcoming her son, who is now healthy, in 2020 and another in 2022, Hess is the perfect person to ask: Is that really what they’re delivering?"

<https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/18/1111419/amanda-hess-second-life-online-internet-targeted-ads-period-tracking/>

#Privacy #AdTech #TargetedAds #DataProtection

"Most of the internet’s blessings—the opportunities for communities to connect despite physical borders and oppressive controls, the avenues to hold the powerful accountable without immediate censorship, the sharing of our hopes and frustrations with loved ones and strangers alike—tend to come at a price. Governments, corporations, and bad actors too often use our content for surveillance, exploitation, discrimination, and harm.

It’s easy to dismiss these issues because you don’t think they concern you. It might also feel like the whole system is too pervasive to actively opt-out of. But we can take small steps to better protect our own privacy, as well as to build an online space that feels as free and safe as speaking with those closest to us in the offline world.

This is why a community-oriented approach helps. In speaking with your friends and family, organizing groups, and others to discuss your specific needs and interests, you can build out digital security practices that work for you. This makes it more likely that your privacy practices will become second nature to you and your contacts."

<https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/02/privacy-loves-company>

#Privacy #DigitalRights #Surveillance

"Privacy campaigners have called Google's new rules on tracking people online "a blatant disregard for user privacy."

Changes which come in on Sunday permit so-called "fingerprinting", which allows online advertisers to collect more data about users including their IP addresses and information about their devices.

Google says this data is already widely used by other companies, and it continues to encourage responsible data use.

However the company had previously come out strongly against this kind of data collection, saying in a 2019 blog that fingerprinting "subverts user choice and is wrong."

But in a post announcing the new rule changes, Google said the way people used the internet - such as devices like smart TVs and consoles - meant it was harder to target ads to users using conventional data collection, which users control with cookie consent."

<https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm21g0052dno>

#Google #AdTech #Privacy #Fingerprinting #DataProtection

"SDK generators are revolutionizing the way developers approach API integrations. These powerful tools automate the creation of software development kits (SDKs), eliminating the repetitive and time-consuming task of writing boilerplate code. By doing so, they enable developers to focus on building features and solving real-world problems rather than dealing with the complexities of manual SDK creation.

In this post, we’ll take a deep dive into SDK generators — what they are, how they work, and the key features that make them indispensable in modern software development. We’ll also discuss their numerous benefits, from accelerating project timelines to reducing errors, and how they contribute to a more seamless developer experience. Whether you’re a solo developer or part of a large team, SDK generators can help you save time, enhance efficiency, and deliver better products faster.

Let’s explore why SDK generators are game-changers and how they’re transforming the way we build and integrate APIs."

<https://nordicapis.com/review-of-8-sdk-generators-for-apis-in-2025/>

#APIs #SDKs #SDKGenerators #Programming #SoftwareDevelopment

"I’ve been experimenting with ways to fix this (because let’s face it, AI isn’t going anywhere). Here’s what’s actually working:

• First, use AI with a learning mindset. When it gives you an answer, interrogate it. Ask it why. Sure, it takes longer, but that’s literally the point.
• Next, find your tribe. Reddit, Discord, Mastodon—wherever the smart people hang out. That’s where you’ll find the real discussions happening. The ones that make you go “huh, I never thought about it that way.”
• Do code reviews differently. Instead of just checking if the code works, start a conversation with your team. What other approaches did they consider? Why did they pick this one? Make understanding the process as important as the end result.
• Build things from scratch sometimes. Yes, AI can generate that authentication system for you. But try building one yourself first. You’ll write worse code, but you’ll understand every line of it. That knowledge compounds."

<https://nmn.gl/blog/ai-and-learning>

#AI #GenerativeAI #SoftwareDevelopment #Programming #StackOverflow