New DHS regulations take effect requiring mandatory biometric data collection from all non-citizens entering and leaving the United States at airports, land ports, seaports, and other authorized points of departure. The rule expands facial recognition technology and authorizes CBP to photograph—and …
Department of Homeland SecurityCustoms and Border Protection (CBP)Kristi Noemimmigrationsurveillancebiometricsprivacyborder-control
Amazon’s Ring announced partnerships with both Flock Safety and Axon, marking a dramatic reversal of its January 2024 commitment to limit police access to user footage. The partnerships enable law enforcement agencies to request Ring doorbell camera footage through third-party platforms …
RingAmazonFlock SafetyAxonImmigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)ringflock-safetyaxonsurveillancepolice-partnerships+3 more
U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg granted preliminary approval on August 9, 2024, to a class action settlement requiring Oracle Corporation to pay $115 million and implement changes to its data brokerage practices. The settlement resolves the lawsuit filed in August 2022 alleging that Oracle …
OracleJudge Richard SeeborgIrish Council for Civil Libertiessurveillanceprivacydata-brokersoraclesettlements+1 more
Three privacy rights advocates filed a class action lawsuit against Oracle Corporation on August 19, 2022, in the Northern District of California, alleging that the company operates a “worldwide surveillance machine” that has compiled detailed digital dossiers on approximately 5 billion …
OracleIrish Council for Civil LibertiesJohnny RyanMike Katz-LacabeJennifer Golbecksurveillanceprivacydata-brokersoraclelawsuits+1 more
The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions Tornado Cash, adding the decentralized cryptocurrency mixer to the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List with multiple cryptocurrency addresses as identifiers. This landmark action marks the first time OFAC has …
OFACTornado CashChainalysisLazarus GroupU.S. Treasurysurveillancecryptocurrencysanctionsprivacyofac+1 more
Tornado Cash, the decentralized cryptocurrency mixer designed to enhance transaction privacy, integrates Chainalysis’s oracle contract to block OFAC-sanctioned addresses from accessing the dapp. This controversial move represents a significant compromise of the privacy tool’s core …
At Amazon’s Fall 2020 hardware event, Ring announced the Always Home Cam, a fully autonomous indoor security drone designed to fly preset paths through homes when triggered by Ring alarms or user commands. Ring President Leila Rouhi explained the product was created because “when …
RingAmazonLeila Rouhiringdronesurveillancealways-home-camamazon+2 more
Oracle’s BlueKai Data Management Platform exposed billions of records containing sensitive web tracking data through an unsecured cloud server discovered on June 19, 2020, in one of the largest data breaches of the year. The database, left accessible to the public internet without password …
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Ring announced it had established partnerships with more than 400 police departments across the United States, marking the first time the company publicly disclosed the scale of its law enforcement surveillance network. The announcement revealed that since Amazon’s 2018 acquisition, Ring had …
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The Intercept published an investigation on January 10, 2019 revealing that beginning in 2016, Ring provided its Ukraine-based research and development team with virtually unfettered access to a folder on Amazon’s S3 cloud storage service containing every video created by every Ring camera …
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In June 2018, at the height of the Trump administration’s family separation crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, Amazon Web Services officials met with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) representatives in Redwood City, California to pitch Rekognition facial recognition technology for …
AmazonAWSImmigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)Department of Homeland SecurityJeff Bezossurveillancefacial-recognitionamazonrekognitionice+4 more
Ring launched its standalone Neighbors app on iOS and Android devices, marking its first major product release since Amazon’s acquisition two months earlier. The free app allows users to share photos and videos of alleged suspicious activity, creating a crowdsourced surveillance network …
RingAmazonringneighbors-appsurveillancecommunity-monitoringamazon+2 more
Facebook intensively lobbies the Irish government and Data Protection Commission in advance of GDPR implementation, successfully negotiating weaker enforcement and regulatory interpretation that allows continued surveillance practices. The lobbying campaign creates Ireland as a data protection …
FacebookIrish Data Protection CommissionEnda Kenny (Irish Taoiseach)Max SchremsEuropean Commissionfacebookgdprlobbyingregulatory-captureprivacy+3 more
Amazon announced its acquisition of Ring, a maker of smart doorbell cameras and home security systems, in a deal Reuters reported cost over $1 billion. The acquisition marked one of Amazon’s largest purchases and represented a major expansion into home surveillance infrastructure. Ring, …
AmazonJeff BezosJamie SiminoffRingamazonringsurveillanceacquisitiondoorbell-camera+2 more
Amazon Web Services announced the launch of Amazon Rekognition at its re:Invent developer conference in Las Vegas on November 30, 2016. The cloud-based facial recognition service marked Amazon’s entry into surveillance technology, offering image and video analysis capabilities including face …
AmazonAWSAndy Jassysurveillancefacial-recognitionamazonrekognitionlaw-enforcement+2 more
The ACLU of Northern California released a report revealing that Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram had provided special data access to Geofeedia, a surveillance technology company that marketed its location-based monitoring tools to law enforcement agencies for tracking Black Lives Matter protesters …
ACLUGeofeediaTwitterFacebookInstagramsurveillancesocial-mediablack-lives-matterprotestscivil-rights+3 more
Twitter exercised its contractual veto power to block U.S. intelligence agencies from accessing Dataminr’s social media surveillance platform, marking a rare instance of a tech company refusing to facilitate government intelligence gathering. The decision came as Dataminr was conducting an …
The FBI engages Israeli mobile forensics company Cellebrite to crack the iPhone 5C used by San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook, after Apple refuses to create software to bypass the device’s security features. Following the December 2015 terrorist attack that killed 14 people, the FBI …
The United States Supreme Court unanimously rules in Riley v. California that police generally may not, without a warrant, search digital information on a cell phone seized from an individual who has been arrested. Chief Justice John Roberts writes the landmark opinion, declaring that “cell …
Oracle Corporation acquired BlueKai, one of the world’s largest data brokerage and web tracking companies, on February 24, 2014, for approximately $400 million, significantly expanding Oracle’s commercial surveillance capabilities. The acquisition gave Oracle control of one of the …
The New Orleans Police Department launches a secretive predictive policing program in partnership with Palantir Technologies, a data-mining firm founded with seed money from the CIA’s venture capital arm In-Q-Tel. The program operates without public knowledge or oversight, escaping scrutiny …
NOPDPalantir TechnologiesMitch LandrieuPeter Thielsurveillancetechnologypoliceaicivil-rights+1 more
Congress passes the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for 2004 (H.R. 2658), containing language that permanently terminates funding for the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program and orders the immediate closure of DARPA’s Information Awareness Office. The Senate had voted …
U.S. CongressSenateHouse of RepresentativesGeorge W. BushDARPA+4 moresurveillanceprivacylegislationtiamass-surveillance+4 more
The New York Times publishes an investigative piece by John Markoff exposing the full scope of the Pentagon’s Total Information Awareness (TIA) program, a $240 million initiative that aims to create unprecedented mass surveillance capabilities by mining personal data from financial …
New York TimesJohn MarkoffDARPAJohn PoindexterInformation Awareness Office+2 moresurveillanceprivacymediainvestigative-journalismtia+3 more
At the DARPATech 2002 Conference in Anaheim, California, Rear Admiral John Poindexter publicly unveils the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program, describing it as a comprehensive surveillance system to detect terrorists by monitoring ’transaction spaces’ including financial records, …
John PoindexterDARPAInformation Awareness OfficeGeorge W. Bush Administrationsurveillanceprivacydarpamass-surveillancedata-mining+2 more