A police helicopter and a police drone fly over a street march in Baltimore, Maryland, following the April 2015 death in custody of young black man Freddie Gray.
Reuters/Adrees Latif
The use of drones by authorities has increased around the globe. In the US, drones have been used not only for police surveillance and in operations, but also to patrol its southern borders.
Do only sociopaths hitch?
Hitchhiker via www.shutterstock.com
As our ever-increasing use of services like Uber, Lyft and AirBnB show, it’s safe to trust other Americans. Time for hitchhking to make a comeback.
Many people might be in trouble care of the Ashley Madison hack.
lucyburrluck/Flickr
If the Ashley Madison hack was an inside job, then it shows that even strong protection against outside attacks isn’t necessarily enough to prevent a leak of private data.
There’s still lots of untapped potential with mobile advertising.
Coins phone via www.shutterstock.com
The data tell the story: mobile ads work.
This drone was taking photos of Beyonce in Coney Island, New York.
Carlo Allegri/REUTERS
We don’t need more laws regulating drones. Here’s why.
It might look free, but you pay for it in other ways.
Khaos VFX
Windows 10 is being offered as a free upgrade to most Windows users, but you pay for it in the information you hand over to Microsoft.
Facebook has taken its facial recognition application to a new level.
Facebook
Facebook Moments adds a new level of complexity to the issue of user consent.
The end of privacy?
Shutterstock
Israel is suspected of spying on Iran’s nuclear talks using a virus to hack the devices that are all around us.
Not dancing in the aisles.
Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA
David Anderson’s report on surveillance isn’t a charter for online privacy but it could create problems for a government set on capturing all our data.
“I’m looking forward to the day all this needle-hunting is computerised, to be honest.”
Jean-François Millet
The UK and other governments seem set on the idea that finding needles can be made easier by radically increasing the size of the haystack.
Protecting your privacy when your data collected for one use might have a secondary use for other researchers.
Flickr/
Researchers are tapping into some of the massive amounts data collected these days, which could include information about you. But how do they protect your privacy?
Notions of the ‘right to know’ forced Hillary Clinton to defend her use of a private email account as secretary of state - a far cry from the days when citizens didn’t even know how their representatives voted.
EPA/Andrew Gombert
The idea of the right to know as the ‘lifeblood of democracy’ is a surprisingly modern development. And in an age when transparency is prized, privacy and secrecy can still be justified in many cases.
Children growing up in a world of social media are developing a very different conception of privacy to that of their parents.
Ed Ivanushkin/Flickr
Many people are shocked by what children are willing to share about themselves online. Is it that they don’t understand privacy, or just have a different conception of it compared to adults?
Robin Williams wanted to control use of his persona after his death.
EPA
Human rights legislation is making it easier for UK stars to dictate how they are presented in public.
The Dallas Buyers Club ruling is a further attack on online privacy.
Voltage Pictures
The Dallas Buyers Club court ruling has serious implications for online privacy.
Mountains of data are being collected on you, and much of it is beyond your grasp.
kris krüg/Flickr
Metadata is only the beginning. The Big Data trend means there’s a lot more information about us out there that can be tracked or monitored.
Many of your online activities leave a digital trace that can reveal your identity.
mikael altemark/Flickr
Avoiding the metadata retention laws and sending messages entirely privately is harder than it might seem.
The government can’t read your email, but it will be able to find out where you sent it to and from.
Paul Downey/Flickr
There are still unanswered questions about the data retention bill, but it’s now too late to get answers before it is passed into law.
Revenge porn is a serious breach of privacy, but social media sites and the law are starting to crack down.
Bill Ellis/Flickr
Social media companies and the law are both beginning to seriously combat revenge porn.
The language about metadata is often contradictory.
Robert/Flickr
We should be wary of those who describe metadata as being both benign and powerful at the same time.