Digital privacy is critical in our communities. Why don’t we have it?
“Um” is not a great call to action, but sometimes it’s all you’ve got.
Can you—as a user—understand an app or service’s security posture? If so, how?
What steps should we take to evaluate the privacy impact of a mobile app?
Data Privacy Day is January 28th, can we raise awareness about the issues around data privacy effectively? Will you take action?
When your local electric utility offered a new smart thermostat a heavy discount, a lot of homeowners jumped at the chance. Unfortunately, a clause in …
Apples annual developer conference announced the latest version of all of Apples operating sytems and privacy was a key pillar across all of them.
Apple and Facebook have been battling very publicly around privacy issues. What’s really going on?
Google continues to advocate for a ‘privacy-first’ web. The problem? Their definition of privacy and how it seems to be a Google-powered …
Google has had to disclose the amount of tracking its apps do in iOS. Shocking no one: it turns out it’s a lot.
Clubhouse is the hot new social network. It’s a promising audio-only network that now boasts over 2 millions active weekly users. During this …
Security and privacy are linked yet for some reason, you see privacy experts ignoring the impact of security and security experts who are unconcerned …
Passwords are the worst. Trying to pick a “secure” one makes the whole thing worse. Every site and service has it’s own variation on …
Apple recently launched macOS Big Sur and a security researcher’s post vent viral highlighting a steady stream of communications that …
Ad-tech, digital marketing, and the surveillance economy are worth billions and billions of dollars. It all hinges on the ability to target ads and …
Epic Games is current waging war on Apple and Google over the right to distribute apps to mobile users. There’s been a ton of excellent coverage …
On July 15th, 2020, Twitter was hit with the most visible hack of a social network of all time. 130 of the top accounts tweeted out a bitcoin scam. A …
The President has promised to ban TikTok in the United States for national security reasons. Is that the case? Are there real security & privacy …
Video conferencing platform Zoom has been in the news almost constantly over the past few weeks. At first it was hailed as a tool to help reduce this …
Contact tracing during an outbreak is a massive undertaking. Google and Apple are collaborating in order to automate parts of this task. Will it work? …
CES 2020 brought out the big (and small) players in tech and one thing they all had in common was how much they used the word “privacy”. …
COPPA was passed in the US in 1998 but a recent ruling against YouTube for violating the decades old law means big changes for creators.
Canadian data privacy laws state that an organization is responsible for the life cycle of the data. Most orgs struggle with protecting it while …
Google really doesn’t like humans and they LOVE data. At the intersection of those two areas is a new A.I assistant that calls business to …
CBC’s Go Public pointed out the rising rates of e-transfer fraud and consumers are shocking. The expectation was that e-transfers were safe and …
CBC News posted an article about how Canadian federal MPs are using digital tracking technologies on their personal websites. So what is retargeting? …
Facebook was recently called out for listening to users audio messages on Facebook Messenger. They aren’t alone. Apple, Amazon, Google, and …
FaceApp (first released in 2017) is back in the news for the #AgeChallenge and a host of privacy concerns. There’s a lot of knee-jerk reactions …
On Kara Swisher’s show, Recode Decode, she recently hosted Gabe Weinberg from DuckDuckGo. Their conversation revolved around some core concepts …
Bad Robot Transcript Good morning on this episode of the show. We’re going to take a look at the recent moves by nest and how they impact your …
The Digital Economy Act of 2017 in the UK is trying to put up enforceable age gates to pornography. That might be a good idea but it’s extremely …
A recent CBC News article highlighted both the powers of border agents to search digital devices and the general lack of awareness of your rights at …
Facebook held its annual F8 developer conference this week and—in addition to the usual product updates—they repeatedly talked about creating and …
Facial recognition is becoming more and more common. In some cases, it’s used to make existing procedures more efficient or to connect existing …
Since May of 2016 Facebook has been prompting some new users for their email passwords. Yes, their email passwords. WTF?
Thomas Brewster, writing for Forbes, highlighted a recent case by the DEA. The case itself isn’t out of the ordinary. What is interesting is the …
A recent tweet called out a user’s perception about Grammarly, a SaaS-based grammar and writing tool. They accused the service of being …
We rely on some digital services for critical functions around security and privacy. Trusting those services is paramount to their success and ours. …
Websites, apps, and even your desktop applications may be tracking a how lot more of your behaviour than you think. The reason in most cases is simply …
You’re building out a digital identity for you kids almost from the day they are born. But it’s not just you, the clubs they belong to, …
You agree to new contracts all the time but you probably don’t think of them as contracts, they are simply the “Terms of Service”. A …
Facebook continues to do anything they can to build data profiles on users. This week it was revealed that they shifted their Onavo efforts to a new …
The 10 Year Challenge is sweeping social media right now. It’s a harmless way of looking back at yourself—and everyone else—a decade …
Three articles this week each touching on smartphone data highlight a much bigger issue. Each of these articles remind us how much data our phones …
Data privacy is a critical area of concern around the world. Look no further than four distinct events today: Australia passing a new law, an arrest …
You can’t really remove something from the internet. Not is the owner/operator really wants it out there. That’s a huge advantage and …
Facebook removes 800+ accounts this week, some with massive followings, for political content. The twist? They were US-based, not foreign. What does …
Google recently conducted a complete security & privacy review of various APIs associated with Google+. The result? The service is shutting down …
50 million Facebook accounts were hacked. Facebook responded quickly to the issue but could’ve done better communicating throughout. …
A recent study proved that Facebook uses more information about you than you realize. Behind the scenes, Facebook compiles “shadow …
In the recent dust up with the founders of WhatsApp, you might have heard the term “end-to-end encryption”. What is it? What does it means …
Personally identifiable information (PII) and Personal Health Information (PHI) are critical concepts. They help identify information that needs …
Should you track your children’s every move? Your partners? Family locator apps promise safety and convenience but are they really just an …
Encryption: what is it? why does it work?
VPNs can help secure your internet traffic when you’re travelling. They can help you route around geographic restrictions. But is using a VPN …
GMail in the classroom just like on your phone. The promise of G Suite for Education is enticing. A low-cost way for schools to provide collaboration …
Facial recognition is a technology that exemplifies the underlying neutrality of most technology. When used with positive intentions it makes out …
Over the few years, mobile has become the dominant platform for gaming. As a result, smaller, simple games have come to prominence. In order to make …
With iOS 12, Apple will reduce the time an iOS device responds to the USB port when locked down to an hour. Having a hard time understanding why that …
G Suite for Education is making waves in the Canadian education market. And why not? It looks like a win-win-win. Too good to be true?
Net Neutrality is a simple dictate that states all network packets must be treated equally. This–of course–tanks a few business models for …
Security and privacy center on trust. You can’t have that without a high level of transparency. In this day and age, everything comes to light …
Apparently the FBI misrepresented the number of devices they can’t access due to encryption by up to a factor of 6x. This is most likely due to …
How do you handle data collection from your users? Is it hidden and suspect like the current rash of mobile provider exposures? With no opt-out like …
Deep thoughts in this episode around ethics in technology and their use. Sparked by the latest issues around mobile phone tracking, this episode …
There have been a lot of advancements in AI research and use lately, but are we moving in the right direction? Are we having the right conversations …
Facebook wrapped up it’s F8 conference this week with a series of new product announcements. In this episode, we’ll take a look and see …
Facebook is hosting it’s annual F8 conference and it appears that this will be a reserved year. Understandable given the scandals of …
Gmail just launched a nice, new redesigned UI. It’s slick and has some great new features. One feature, “Confidential Mode”, is …
Encryption on mobile devices is a challenge for law enforcement. 3rd party companies often use hacks in their products to address this need. Is it …
The FBI and other federal law enforcement in the US (and elsewhere) continue to push back against “going dark”. Thankfully Apple is …
Facebook was called to the carpet and showed well…because they weren’t asked the right questions
It’s often stated that you have to trade usability for security. I call 💩
Had enough of the Facebook / Cambridge Analytica scandal yet? Yeah, me too. Thankfully, it’s rolling up to address the bigger issue of digital …
We’re tracked everywhere online. Should we be? Is there an upside to this practice?
After the long weekend, this episode is a bit of a round up. Nothing big jumping out but a few minor issues to address.
You upload a ton of data to Facebook and in turn, Facebook generates a ton of data about you. I built a tool to take a look at Facebook’s view …
As the Facebook / Cambridge Analytica scandal continues to snowball, we take a look at the larger issues. How does privacy scale? Can it scale under …
Terms of Service agreements hide all manner of tricks and cede all of the power to the issuing corporation. Should they?
Ugh. Facebook Has Allowed A 3rd Party To Harvest Millions of Credentials
Security awareness is next to useless. Educate users instead
Passwords are a horrible solution to the challenge of authentication. But they’re the “best” we have for now…right?
Does blockchain finally bring the transparency and accountability needed for an internet scale identity provider?
