privacy - page 8

The trouble with modern technology is that anyone can try to reach you, at any time. Your boss can leave a passive aggressive email at the top of your inbox overnight, so you see it when you want to check personal mail. Anyone can send you an SMS or iMessage. And anyone with your phone number can spam you, any time.

Currently in iOS, you can block iMessage senders. But in iOS 13, you gain two new ways to keep stalkers, weird friends and over-sharing co-workers out of your digital life. Now you can block unknown phone callers and email senders.

Facebook has clarified how its apps collect and uses location data, ahead of the release of iOS 13.

While this data gathering is nothing new, iOS 13 will make it more obvious to users by calling out apps which behave in this way. It therefore looks like Facebook is trying to get out ahead of any potential negative publicity.

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission wants answers from Apple about why it let contractors listen to private Siri recordings. The data protection watchdog is looking into whether Apple’s GDPR privacy obligations.

Should Apple be found guilty, it could be fined up to 20 million euros ($22 million) or 4% of its annual global turnover, whichever is higher.

Did you know that Home Depot shares your “name, address and transactional information … with third party companies”? Or that Marriott Hotels discloses “Personal Data and Other Data with select Strategic Business Partners”?

What about this snippet from The New York Times’ privacy policy: “If you are a U.S. print subscriber, we may exchange or rent your name and postal mailing address.”

The bad news is, pretty much anytime you share your data with a U.S. company, it will sell that data to somebody else. The good news is that you can opt out. And the even better news is that there’s one place to get all the information you need to do it.

Apple has laid off the contractors whose job it was to listen to Siri recordings to improve the quality of Apple’s voice assistant.

Contractors in Ireland had their fixed term contracts “abruptly terminated” this week. This followed Apple suspending the practice last month. During each shift, employees supposedly listened to 1,000 Siri recordings.

Tim Cook has tweeted his condolences following the death of EU data protection regulator Giovanni Buttarelli. Buttarelli passed away on August 20 at the age of 62.

In a recent tweet, Cook described himself as “heartbroken by the loss of my friend.” He credited Buttarelli with advancing “the cause of privacy in Europe and around the world.”

Phone calls are so 20th century. Apart from a knock at the door, when else can another person decide to bug you, and then bug you right away, at their own convenience, without getting your permission first?

In the 21st century, we have a name for these people: entitled. Fortunately, it’s easy to bump their presumptuous invasions, and let them know who’s the boss¹.

Here’s how to decline iPhone calls (or mute them if you’re feeling particularly passive-aggressive).

A change in iOS 13 that limits what applications can do when running in the background will force a rewrite of Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and other apps that offer voice calls.

While these developers will be inconvenienced, the goal is to increase the battery lives and performance of all iOS devices. The change will also make iPhones and iPads more secure.

Apple wants you to know that, at least for now, it has stopped listening to Siri queries made by users. It’s the right move to make. But it’s the unnecessary result of a backlash Apple brought upon itself.

The Siri eavesdropping controversy perfectly illustrates why Apple needs to be more transparent with users — even if that means sacrificing some ease of use.

Apple has stopped its process of listening to a certain portion of Siri recordings for “grading” purposes.

This is the result of a backlash against the privacy-oriented company, after news broke that Apple shares recordings made by Siri with third-party contractors.

Apple shares recordings made by Siri with third-party contractors, according to a recent report. The goal is to improve Siri’s responses, but the fact is, you probably didn’t know that this was happening — and almost certainly want it to stop.

Today, I will show you how to prevent these diagnostic recordings from going to Apple. The good news? You can do it using only Apple’s tools. The bad news is that you’ll have to get your hands dirty in the process.

Billboards promoting iPhone’s strict approach to privacy have now made their way to Europe.

Apple fans started noticing the ads in Germany today after they popped up in the U.S. and Canada earlier this year. Each features a clever, location-based tagline that sends one clear message.

Lockdown Apps is a new firewall app for iOS. Like Guardian Firewall, which we covered last month, Lockdown uses iOS’ VPN framework to intercept all incoming and outgoing network traffic, and allows you to block connections to any address.

Unlike Guardian Firewall, Lockdown operates entirely on your device. It is also open source.

DuckDuckGo is a private search engine. Unlike Google, it doesn’t track your internet use, save your searches, or track your location. DuckDuckGo’s reason for existing is to protect your privacy on the internet, but it’s also a great search engine. And when it doesn’t find the results you want, it’s easy to run that search in Google.

Today we’ll see how to switch all your searches to DuckDuckGo, and how to add a one-tap Google backup search.

The good news is that you don’t have to do anything weird or difficult to switch to DuckDuckGo. Both iOS and macOS offer it as a default option in their settings. On the Mac, this setting is in Safari. On the iPhone and iPad, you’ll find it under Safari in the Settings app.

US lawmakers say Apple CEO Tim Cook has actively urged them to pass legislation that better protects the privacy of US consumers. However, congresspeople also say the iPhone maker isn’t doing enough to actually get laws passed.

Apple’s iWork platform has been banned from German schools alongside Microsoft Office 365 and Google Docs.

Privacy regulators say that using the cloud-based services “exposes personal information about students and teachers.” They also suggest that the data might be accessed by U.S. authorities.

Apple’s co-founder Steve Wozniak thinks that people who value privacy should quit Facebook.

Woz, who quit Facebook last year after the Cambridge Analytics scandal, said that users could never be sure when they were being listened into.

Users running the latest iOS 13, iPadOS 13 or macOS Catalina betas can now sign into iCloud using either Face ID or Touch ID.

If you’re using these beta versions, visiting iCloud in Safari will present a pop-up asking if you want to log in using biometrics.

Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei says that, when it comes to user privacy, Apple is the company he models his approach on.

Huawei has been under fire for possibly posing a spying-related security risk, resulting in a temporary U.S. ban. However, Zhengfei says that it would not provide data to the Chinese government at any cost.

Privacy is one of Apple’s biggest selling points — and it’s continuing the push with a series of billboards in Canada.

Images of the billboards were posted on Twitter by CBC Toronto‘s Matt Elliot and one time-tech journalist Josh McConnell. One billboard in Toronto reads, “We’re in the business of staying out of yours.” Another, also in Toronto, facing King Street West, reads “Privacy is King.”

When you send a photo to somebody in iOS 12 or earlier, you also share that photo’s location. If you upload a picture to a classified ad or auction site, you potentially show everyone exactly where you live. And if you send a photo to a friend or family member, they may share that image publicly (on Facebook, for instance) — and share your home address along with the picture.

In iOS 13, you can disable location sharing for any photo you share. Some annoying limits hurt this new feature, and you have to remember to do it every time you share an image or video, but it’s still a lot better than what we have in iOS 12.

Apple has banged heads with the Trump administration before, but its biggest clash could be yet to come.

According to a new report, senior White House officials met this week to discuss banning end-to-end encryption. This would affect a number of tech companies — including Apple, which has long touted its focus on user privacy.

You can now ask the Google app on iOS to automatically wipe your location and activity history.

The new feature, which was showcased during Google I/O in late May, takes the hassle out of covering your tracks. You only have to set it up once and it will take care of itself going forward. Here’s how to get started.

USB is dirty. Just like you’d never stick your body parts into a mysterious public hole, neither should you plug your iPhone into a public charging station. iOS is pretty good at rejecting unknown connections from USB, but why take the risk?

There are a few ways to make public iPhone charging safe. One is to plug into a power outlet using your own plug and cable. But what about on a plane or train, or other public spot where only USB outlets are available? Or a friend’s computer, one that might be riddled with malware? Then you need a custom USB cable, one that only passes power, and not data. The good news is that, if you have an old Lightning USB cable laying around, you can easily fashion your own, just by yanking out two pins from inside the USB plug. Alternatively, a charging keychain can be a great portable solution to ensure safe and convenient charging wherever you go.

Here’s how.

UPDATE: See the statement received from Google at the bottom of this story.

You might want to think twice about buying used Nest security cameras.

A new report reveals that secondhand models can allow previous owners to spy on new users — even if they correctly follow Nest’s instructions on resetting the device. There’s currently no fix for the security flaw.