Monthly Archives: April 2021

Facebook users whose data was compromised by a massive data leak are being urged to take legal action against the tech giant. About 530 million people had some personal information leaked, including, in some cases, phone numbers. A digital privacy group is preparing to take a case to the Irish courts on behalf of EU […]

The use of facial recognition for surveillance, or algorithms that manipulate human behaviour, will be banned under proposed EU regulations on artificial intelligence. The wide-ranging proposals, which were leaked ahead of their official publication, also promised tough new rules for what they deem high-risk AI. That includes algorithms used by the police and in recruitment. […]

An update to England and Wales’s contact tracing app has been blocked for breaking the terms of an agreement made with Apple and Google. The plan had been to ask users to upload logs of venue check-ins – carried out via poster barcode scans – if they tested positive for the virus. This could be […]

Facebook is adding features to users’ main news feed, including letting them limit comment on their public posts to friends or even specific tagged people. The feature is similar to one rolled out by Twitter last year. Facebook will also make it easier to revert to “chronological” mode, with the latest posts displayed first. The […]

Live-audio app Clubhouse is creating plenty of chatter – about itself. Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey, Kanye West, Demi Lovato and Mark Zuckerberg are among the celebrities to have popped up on the service. And you can find chats about everything from Bitcoin and Buddhism to relationships and R&B music on it. Even so, the idea […]

“Firmware attacks are not common on a day-to-day basis, but that’s because people don’t realise they’re being infected by such an attack,” says Mr Boyd. “It’s like when ransomware first came onto the scene – people didn’t know of anyone who was infected by it, and if big organisations were, they wouldn’t tell anyone about […]

People can now enter their phone numbers into a website to see if they appeared in a recent Facebook data breach. Details of more than 530 million people were leaked in a database online, largely consisting of mobile numbers. People can use the Have I Been Pwned online tool to check if their numbers or […]

Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, have voted in a historic poll to decide whether they want to be represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. The results are not expected until next week – but if they say yes, it will become Amazon’s first US union. Amazon argues its wages and benefits are […]

A data leak involving personal details of hundreds of millions of Facebook users is being reviewed by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC). The database is believed to contain a mix of Facebook profile names, phone numbers, locations and other facts about more than 530 million people. Facebook says the data is “old”, from a previously-reported […]

Google is changing its work-from-home policy as it looks to get more people back into its US offices. The tech firm will only allow employees to work from home for more than 14 days a year if they apply for it. Google will continue its current work-from-home arrangements until 1 September but will allow people […]