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New Documents Reveal ‘Huge’ Scale of U.S. Government’s Cell Phone Location Data Tracking
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) used mobile location data to track people’s movements on a much larger scale than previously known, according to new documents unearthed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
It’s no secret that U.S. government agencies have been obtaining and using location data collected by Americans’ smartphones. In early 2020, a Wall Street Journal report revealed that both Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) bought access to millions of smartphone users’ location data to track undocumented immigrants and suspected tax dodgers.
However, new documents obtained by the ACLU through an ongoing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit now reveal the extent of this warrantless data collection. The 6,000-plus records reviewed by the civil rights organization contained approximately 336,000 location points across North America obtained from people’s phones. They also reveal that in just three days in 2018, CBP obtained records containing around 113,654 location points in the southwestern United States — more than 26 location points per minute.
Joe Rogan Rips Justin Trudeau, Canada, NYC, COVID Precautions, Despite BA.5 Surge
Joe Rogan is at it again, talking about COVID-19 once more on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast on Spotify. This time it was during a discussion with his guest, comedian Tom Segura, on Thursday.
Rogan took aim Northwards, calling Canada “communist” and Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a “dictator” and mocking Canada’s COVID-19 vaccination requirements.
Rogan also took a bite out of the Big Apple, criticizing New York City folks for still wearing face masks in indoor public locations.
Watch: As Mask Mandate Looms, LA Hospital Officials Mock COVID ‘Media Hype’
In a press conference dripping with a mix of exasperation and dry-witted sarcasm, two officials at one of the largest hospital systems in Southern California threw a bucket of cold water on media and government efforts to whip the public into a state of fear over the latest COVID-19 uptick.
Their remarks came on the same day that Los Angeles County health director Barbara Ferrer declared the county had moved into a “high” level of COVID transmission. Two consecutive weeks in that status would trigger the reimposition of an indoor mask mandate on the nearly 10 million people who still choose to live there.
The press conference featured Brad Spellberg, the chief medical officer of Los Angeles County + University of Southern California Medical Center (LAC + USC), along with epidemiologist Paul Holtom.
Spellberg kicked off the duo’s ridicule of COVID fearmongering with an exasperated description of the COVID situation: “It’s just the same. It’s not changed. It’s been the same. It’s like…two months of the same.” He backed up his characterization with charts depicting county cases and the hospital’s own COVID admission data.
Australia Reinstates COVID Quarantine Pay Amid Fresh Omicron Wave
Australia will reinstate support payments for casual workers who have to quarantine due to COVID-19, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Saturday, as a fresh wave of Omicron-driven infections sweeps the country.
Australia is battling a major virus outbreak driven by the highly transmissible new Omicron subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5, with authorities warning it could lead to more people ending up in hospitals and further straining the health system.
Albanese said the leave payments, which ended on June 30 and entitled workers to get up to A$750 ($510) for each seven-day quarantine period, will be restored and extended until Sept. 30.
Shanghai Enforces New COVID Testing, Some Areas in China Extend Lockdowns
Several large Chinese cities including Shanghai are rolling out new mass testing or extending lockdowns on millions of residents to counter new clusters of COVID-19 infections, with some measures being criticized on the internet.
The commercial hub of Shanghai, yet to fully recover from the harsh two-month lockdown in spring and still reporting daily sporadic cases, plans to hold mass testing in many of its 16 districts and in some smaller areas where new infections had been reported recently, after similar testing last week.
Bossware: Your Employer May Be Tracking You During Remote Work
It’s called “bossware,” and it’s a sneaky type of surveillance technology that allows employers to keep tabs on workers — often without them knowing.
“The average employee will accept the job and say, ‘OK, I like the benefits, I like the salary, I’m going to sign on the dotted line.’ And of course, they’re also signing away all of their privacy rights,” says Alex Alben, a professor of internet law at the University of California, Los Angeles.
He and other experts note that the use of bossware increased during the pandemic as employers handed out laptops to workers and told them to set up shop at home.
What they may not have disclosed is the presence of bossware, which allows the company to track keystrokes, mouse movements, browsing habits and websites visited.
Android Apps Can Now Potentially Lie About the Data They Collect
Android apps often collect all sorts of data about you and your device, like name and location, as well as sometimes having access to your photos or messages, among other things. So, it’s vital that you understand what degree of access an app is going to have before downloading it, something that’s now been made that much harder to understand.
That’s because Google recently rolled out a new feature called ‘Data safety’, which requires app developers to disclose the data that their apps collect, whether the data is being shared with third parties and the app’s security practices. That sounds like a promising step, and if this was just an addition it would be, but Google is also quietly removing the app permissions list from store listings.
This change wasn’t announced by the company but has been spotted by Mishaal Rahman (senior technical editor at Esper).
How Companies Subtly Trick Users Online With ‘Dark Patterns’
An “unsubscribe” option that’s a little too hard to find. A tiny box you click, thinking it simply takes you to the next page, but it also grants access to your data. And any number of unexpected charges that appear during checkout that wasn’t made clearer earlier in the process.
Countless popular websites and apps, from retailers and travel services to social media companies, make use of so-called “dark patterns,” or gently coercive design tactics that critics say are used to manipulate peoples’ digital behaviors.
The term “dark patterns” was coined by Harry Brignull, a U.K.-based user experience specialist and researcher of human-computer interactions.
Twitter’s Global Agenda, With or Without Musk
Twitter, weakened and distracted by months of conflict, faces a raft of global problems that won’t wait while a Delaware court decides the fate of Elon Musk‘s acquisition deal.
Whoever ends up owning it, Twitter remains the world’s nervous system for news, and its policies on elections, extremism, misinformation, harassment and censorship affect billions around the world and in the U.S.
Voice Tech Is Part of the Future of Doing Business
Many are becoming aware of the fact that artificial intelligence will be big in the future of work and business. If you are paying attention, you already see a range of AI-powered tools supplementing human work and making businesses more efficient and effective.
One of the ways in which AI will have the biggest impact is with voice technology. Advances in branches of AI, such as natural language processing, have taken voice technology a long way. Voice tools are now much better at understanding human language. They can take commands almost seamlessly, and they can now provide meaningful responses to commands and queries.
What does this mean for business? Voice tech is going to change the way companies operate. And we are already starting to see a number of voice tools transforming the future of business.
