A Week in Privacy #23

It looks like the grip of legislation is tightening around big data companies and here’s the new WIP to tell you all about it:

• Even military secrets are not safe on Facebook
• Facebook knowingly violated privacy laws, says UK
• Austria is looking into Amazon’s practices
• What is there to learn from Bezos’ below-the-belt photos?
• Firefox 67 might already display breach alerts
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Even military secrets are not safe on Facebook

NATO went on a bit of a privacy reconnaissance mission among its troops, reports Wired. They created fake profiles and chat groups on Facebook to see how much and what kind of critical information they could obtain on soldiers and missions. As it turns out, a lot of information can be obtained just through public data and even sensitive data, such as battalion positions, are not hard to come by through manipulation. The cost: USD 60 and a team of two.

Facebook knowingly violated privacy laws, says UK

British lawmakers accused Facebook of having “intentionally and knowingly violated both data privacy and anti-competition laws” in the country, and they called for investigations into the social media giant’s business practices, reports the Washington Post. UK leaders alleged that for years Facebook was willing to “override its users’ privacy settings” just to maximize revenue from sensitive data.

Austria is looking into Amazon’s practices

Amazon will apparently have a new antitrust front to deal with. After the EU and German competition authorities announced that they were looking into its practices the Austrian authorities are launching a probe as well, reports The Local.at. This was done after consulting their European colleagues, so the move is a part of a wider effort. The suspicion was that Amazon discriminates against other retailers and tries to favor its own products.

What is there to learn from Bezos’ below-the-belt photos?

The lesson that shouldn’t be taken from this is that cryptography is not something elitist and reserved for the rich, writes TechCrunch. What it has actually taught us is that in a digital age of convenience and short-term gratifications we need tools that will enable data minimization and enhance privacy. “Real change will come when our leaders understand that data privacy and security can increase profitability and reliability,” Wired concludes.

Firefox 67 might already display breach alerts

Although the development of Firefox’s breach warnings started in 2017, the Mozilla foundation now plans to extend the functionality, writes ghacks.net. Breach alerts will now be displayed to users of the browser. Firefox Monitor uses the Have I Been Pwned service but implemented the feature in such a way that the full email address is never shared with third-parties.

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