Pat Walshe - Privacy Matters 🇮🇪🇬🇧🇪🇺

CBP Tapped Into the Online Advertising Ecosystem To Track Peoples’ Movements An internal DHS document obtained by 404 Media shows for the first time CBP used location data sourced from the online advertising industry to track phone locations. ICE has bought access to similar t...

New from 404 Media: CBP tapped into the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples' movements, according to an internal DHS document. Shows for the first time DHS tracked phones via process for putting ads in ordinary apps—video games, fitness apps, many more www.404media.co/cbp-tapped-i...

Just a random reminder that over 50 members of Congress collectively own millions of dollars in defense contractor stocks.

They stand to personally profit from wars that enrich these contractors.

Make no mistake, this is legalized corruption.

Watch how they vote this week.

Alignment with EU law is easier said than done - UK in a changing Europe Joël Reland outlines the key trends in UK-EU regulatory alignment and divergence over the last five years, as exlpored in our new report 'UK-EU alignment and divergence: the road ahead'.

"Ironically, Brexit means the UK has to spend more time thinking about EU regulation now than it did as a member state."

✍️ @jreland.bsky.social summarises the key findings of our latest report looking at the state of UK-EU regulatory divergence and alignment

🔗 ukandeu.ac.uk/alignment-wi...

🚨🚨 This is a symbolically good recognition by Labour of the damage #brexit has done to the UK economy and society. Nonetheless, these statements need to be backed up by more ambitious plans on how to restore the relationship with the EU. /1

Shame the uk has the deal the clown that is Trump

"crimes against peace" - the illegal use of force.

what we see from the trump admin is a total failure to justify on these grounds. their inarticulate sputtering about the question isn't just a failure of rhetoric; it's a demonstration that the basic requirements are not only far from being met - they know that to be the case.

Hungary’s ruling party has accused the opposition of conspiring with the EU and Ukraine to deprive Budapest of access to cheap Russian oil — a cushion against price spikes.

The move is aimed at clawing back ground ahead of the April elections.

🔗 #[politi.co/46BARUv

U.S. ICE claimed that nearly 200 people, “the worst of the worst illegal criminal aliens” were arrested in Nashville. Records reveal that Tennessee Highway Patrol & ICE racially profiled drivers, & that majority had no criminal record

www.lighthousereports.com/investigatio...

Germany back again with another judgement against Meta regarding non-material damages under the article 82 of the GDPR

Chair of the CMA's cloud competition inquiry quits The chair of the CMA's cloud inquiry quits.

Important story:

"The chair of the competition watchdog’s cloud inquiry has quit, saying he is frustrated at the slow pace of action against Microsoft and Amazon, while also citing concerns about its wider independence."

The Govt recently confirmed Amazon's former UK chief as head of the CMA.

How Big Tech Is Powering Trump’s Immigration Crackdown A WIRED analysis shows that ICE and CBP have collectively spent at least $515 million on products from Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Palantir in the last few years alone.

A WIRED analysis shows that ICE and CBP have collectively spent at least $515 million on products from Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Palantir in the last few years alone. www.wired.com/story/how-bi...

Commissioner Carly Kind unveiled the shift in a blog post late yesterday, saying the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) would “take a robust approach to assessing the validity of individual privacy complaints, and deciding which privacy complaints warrant an investigation.”

Privacy watchdog to refocus on "systemic harms and market practices" At the expense of investigating some individual complaints.

Australia’s privacy watchdog is set to be more selective in the individual privacy complaints it investigates, shifting its focus instead to broader issues and deterrence activities www.itnews.com.au/news/privacy...

Russian central bank sues in EU General Court to annul Council decision freezing Russian assets indefinitely, arguing that the EU emergency economic powers (qualified majority vote) don't apply to this issue. (Had the foreign policy sanctions power been used, Orban would have vetoed)

The transatlantic battle over free speech EU efforts to regulate the digital sphere are under attack from the Trump administration and, increasingly, Silicon Valley

Fantastic piece in FT on why the DSA is not "censorship"

"The censorship debate is a smokescreen that conceals the reality that a tiny circle of billionaires allied with the Trump administration now pulls the strings of public opinion"
giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

@drogersuk.bsky.social ?👇

Yes. They should halt age verification measures.

She Came Out of the Bathroom Naked, Employee Says Bank details, sex and naked people who seem unaware they are being recorded. Behind Meta’s new smart glasses lies a hidden workforce, uneasy about peering into the most intimate parts of other people’...

In @svenskadagbladet1.bsky.social and @goteborgsposten.bsky.social investigation, the people behind Meta’s smart glasses testify to the hidden stream of privacy-sensitive data that is fed straight into the tech giant’s systems.
www.svd.se/a/K8nrV4/met...

Resist ‘dangerous and socially unacceptable’ age checks for social media, scientists warn Computer scientists are campaigning against the global march toward age checks online.

A large number of privacy and infosec researchers have published a detailed letter calling for a moratorium on laws requiring age assurance technologies until there is a scientific consensus on the risk/benefit tradeoff of using them

www.politico.eu/article/age-...

Trump’s Orwellian Board of Peace Consists Entirely of Human Rights Abusers An Intercept analysis finds that every single Board of Peace member state has been rebuked for human rights violations.

An Intercept analysis finds that every single Board of Peace member state has been rebuked for human rights violations.

How far American diplomacy has fallen under the Trump admin.

Reform's Darren Grimes admits blog post image was AI Darren Grimes says the picture was used for

A council's deputy leader, a Reform councillor, has admitted to using an AI-generated photo in a post about local authorities "shipping" families to the region.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

You cannot talk like this about any other minority in America.

And if it was any other president’s adviser who said something like this about any other minority, it’d be the instant end of their presidency.

So AI can easily replace historians, right? Right??

Germany bets on industrial AI to rival US and China Germany is already harnessing AI for smarter production — with virtual factories, robot fleets and its newly launched Industrial AI Cloud. Can this edge overcome stagnation and let the country truly t...

Germany launched a major artificial intelligence project through Industrial AI Cloud, backed by Deutsche Telekom, taking just 6 months to plan, build and launch with the purpose of cutting its reliance on US providers of high-performance computing and data processing
www.dw.com/en/germany-i...

UK social media ban for under 16s consultation begins Discussions over what measures to implement to protect children's wellbeing will last for three months.

BBC News - UK social media ban for under 16s consultation begins - BBC News
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

A few comments 🧵

Keir Starmer criticised over stance on US-Israel strikes on Iran UK prime minister has adopted a much more ambivalent approach than other western allies

Lord Peter Ricketts, former head of the Foreign Office:

“If you’re going to attack a country you have to show it is in self-defence and that there is some kind of imminent threat. You can’t make that case here…An indifference to international law is dangerous.”

www.ft.com/content/b988...

Sounds like the Republic of Trump

As always, my point about international law is that either you take it seriously or you do not.

It is hardly international law when you invoke it only against some nations but not others.

The clue is in the word “international”.