PayPal Wants to Share Your Data — Unless You Do This
Another week, another online service tried to silently change its data collection and sharing practices by default.
The good news is that you still have time to opt out before any of your information gets automatically given away without your consent.
As per PayPal’s policy updates page (issued on Sept. 23 for U.S. users), the service is set to exchange your data with third-party merchants “To help improve your shopping experience and make it more personalized for you.”
Starting in early Summer 2025, the new policy will not just come at the detriment of your privacy — even if you’re using the best VPN apps — but PayPal will start gathering data as early as Nov. 27.
Has Social Media Fuelled a Teen Suicide Crisis?
Lori and Avery Schott wondered about the right age for their three children to have smartphones. For their youngest, Annalee, they settled on thirteen.
They’d held her back in school for a year because she was small for her age and struggled academically. She’d been adopted from a Russian orphanage when she was two, and they thought that she might possibly have mild fetal alcohol syndrome.
When Anna was starting high school, the family moved from Minnesota to a ranch in eastern Colorado, and she seemed to thrive. She won prizes on the rodeo circuit, making friends easily. In her journal, she wrote that freshman year was “the best ever.”
But in her sophomore year, Lori said, Anna became “distant and snarly and a little isolated from us.” She was constantly on her phone, which became a point of conflict.
“I would make her put it upstairs at night,” Lori said. “She’d get angry at me.” Lori eventually peeked at Anna’s journal and was shocked by what she read. “It was like, ‘I’m not pretty. Nobody likes me. I don’t fit in,’ ” she recalled.
Though Lori knew Anna would be furious at her for snooping, she confronted her.
“We’re going to get you to talk to a counselor,” she said. Lori searched in ever-widening circles to find a therapist with availability until she landed on someone in Boulder, more than two hours away. Anna resisted the idea, but once she started she was eager to keep going.
Nonetheless, the conflicts between Anna and her parents continued. “A lot of it had to do with our fights over that stupid phone,” Lori said.
Anna’s phone access became contingent on chores or homework, and Lori sometimes even took the phone to work with her. “I mean, she couldn’t walk the horse to the barn without it,” Lori said. Lori understood that the phone had become a place where her daughter sought validation and community.
Arkansas Sues YouTube, Accuses Platform of Harming Kids’ Mental Health
Arkansas has filed a lawsuit against YouTube and parent company Alphabet, alleging the platform has contributed to a mental health crisis facing the state’s youth.
The lawsuit, filed by Attorney General Tim Griffin in Arkansas state court, accuses YouTube of violating state laws on deceptive trade practices and public nuisance.
The state argues that the platform’s addictive nature has forced Arkansas to spend millions of dollars on mental health services for its youth.
The lawsuit also asserts that YouTube exploits children’s dopamine responses by feeding them harmful content.
“YouTube amplifies harmful material, doses users with dopamine hits, and drives youth engagement and advertising revenue,” the lawsuit says. “As a result, youth mental health problems have advanced in lockstep with the growth of social media, and in particular, YouTube.”
While the lawsuit does not specify the amount of damages sought, Arkansas is asking the court to require YouTube to fund prevention, education and treatment programs aimed at curbing excessive social media use among children.
Warning Labels to Appear Whenever You Use Social Media Under New Bill
You may soon be greeted by a pop-up warning you of the potential mental health risks associated with your social media app of choice if the new Stop the Scroll Act gets passed into law.
Senators John Fetterman and Katie Britt have introduced a bipartisan bill, the Stop the Scroll Act, aimed at mitigating the potential mental health risks associated with social media use, particularly among children and teenagers.
The legislation seeks to implement mandatory warning labels on social media platforms, alerting users to the potential mental health risks associated with their use.
This move comes amid increasing scrutiny of social media’s influence on youth mental well-being. The proposed legislation directly responds to a call to action by Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy, who, in June, urged Congress to mandate such warnings, likening them to those found on tobacco products.
Remember That DNA You Gave 23andMe?
23andMe is not doing well.
Its stock is on the verge of being delisted. It shut down its in-house drug-development unit last month, only the latest in several rounds of layoffs.
Last week, the entire board of directors quit, save for Anne Wojcicki, a co-founder and the company’s CEO. Amid this downward spiral, Wojcicki has said she’ll consider selling 23andMe — which means the DNA of 23andMe’s 15 million customers would be up for sale, too.
23andMe’s trove of genetic data might be its most valuable asset.
For about two decades now, since human-genome analysis became quick and common, the A’s, C’s, G’s, and T’s of DNA have allowed long-lost relatives to connect, revealed family secrets, and helped police catch serial killers.
Some people’s genomes contain clues to what’s making them sick, or even, occasionally, how their disease should be treated.
For most of us, though, consumer tests don’t have much to offer beyond a snapshot of our ancestors’ roots and confirmation of the traits we already know about. (Yes, 23andMe, my eyes are blue.)
23andMe is floundering in part because it hasn’t managed to prove the value of collecting all that sensitive, personal information.
And potential buyers may have very different ideas about how to use the company’s DNA data to raise the company’s bottom line. This should concern anyone who has used the service.
California Continues to Pave Road for mDL Adoption Across U.S. States
An interview with California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) Chief Digital Transformation Officer Ajay Gupta covers the state’s efforts to be a leader in mobile driver’s licenses, or mDLs, which are gaining traction across U.S. jurisdictions.
Statescoop hosts the conversation, noting the necessity of a digital driver’s license initiative in a state that services 34 million licenses and identity cards for 31 million unique identities, and issues 9 million cards a year — the largest DMV in the U.S.
“We want to create a digital credential that bridges the gap between the physical and digital world,” says Gupta, speaking with Christine Halverson, public sector CTO of Okta (which sponsored the panel).
“Physical cards are easy to fake and digital verification is costly.
Mobile licenses provide a more secure, convenient way to verify identity online and in person, utilizing the high-tech features of modern smartphones.”
Biometric Data and Personal Information Exposure Patched by Genetic Test Lab
A genetic testing and “DNA Face Matching” company in the U.S. has left a trove of facial images and personally identifiable metadata exposed in a WordPress folder without even password protection, vpnMentor says.
Indiana-based ChoiceDNA left a folder titled “Facial Recognition Uploads” and containing an estimated 8,000 documents vulnerable, according to a post from Cybersecurity Researcher Jeremiah Fowler.
Facial images and descriptions are considered biometric data, even if not processed for identification purposes, the Federal Trade Commission declared in a policy statement last year.
ChoiceDNA says its DNA Face Matching service uses biometrics to assess the likelihood that people are related.
Even the identity of an individual who sought the service, therefore, could be sensitive information.
The metadata accompanying the images included names, phone numbers, email addresses, ethnicity and notes on why the person was seeking DNA analysis.
Musk Faces $1.9 Million Fine to End X Ban in Brazil
Brazil’s Supreme Court said that the social platform X, owned by Elon Musk, owes a fine of 10 million reais, which is about $1.9 million, to end its ban in the country, building off a separate $3.3 million fine previously ordered by the court, Reuters reported on Friday.
X has been banned in Brazil since late August after a judge ruled that the social platform did not comply with orders related to restricting hate speech and naming a local legal representative.
The payment of the $1.9 million fine would allow X to “immediately return to its activities in national territory,” according to the country’s court.
