Privacy
40 posts
ICE
How a US Citizen Was Scanned With ICE's Facial Recognition Tech
Jesus Gutiérrez told immigration agents he was a U.S. citizen. Only after they scanned his face, did the agents let him go.
CBP
Man Charged for Wiping Phone Before CBP Could Search It
The exact circumstances around the search are not known. But activist Samuel Tunick is charged with deleting data from a Google Pixel before CBP’s Tactical Terrorism Response Team could search it.
ICE
DHS’s Immigrant-Hunting App Removed from Google Play Store
The app, called Mobile Identify, was launched in November, and lets local cops use facial recognition to hunt immigrants on behalf of ICE. It is unclear if the removal is temporary or not.
arc
IRS Accessed Massive Database of Americans Flights Without a Warrant
A bipartisan letter reveals the IRS searched a database of hundreds of millions of travel records without first conducting a legal review. Airlines like Delta, United, American, and Southwest are selling these records to the government through a co-owned data broker.
ICE
This App Lets ICE Track Vehicles and Owners Across the Country
Material viewed by 404 Media shows data giant Thomson Reuters enriches license plate data with marriage, voter, and ownership records. The tool can predict where a car may be in the future.
Privacy
How to Opt-Out of Airlines Selling Your Travel Data to the Government
The Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), owned by major U.S. airlines, collects billions of ticketing records and sells them to the government to be searched without a warrant. I managed to opt-out of that data selling.
ICE
ICE and CBP Agents Are Scanning Peoples’ Faces on the Street To Verify Citizenship
Videos on social media show officers from ICE and CBP using facial recognition technology on people in the field. One expert described the practice as “pure dystopian creep.”
News
License Plate Reader Company Flock Is Building a Massive People Lookup Tool, Leak Shows
Flock, which has license plate readers (LPRs) all around the country, wants police to be able to “jump from LPR to person,” according to leaked audio obtained by 404 Media.
News
Why Is a Government Contractor Trying to Buy iPhone Hacking Tech From Us?
A contractor for the Air Force and other government agencies wanted to get a good deal on some Graykeys from us (we're journalists FYI).
News
Cloudflare Issue Can Leak Chat App Users' Broad Location
A security researcher made a tool that let them quickly check which of Cloudflare's data centers had cached an image, which allowed them to figure out what city a Discord, Signal, or Twitter/X user might be in.
News
The Powerful AI Tool That Cops (or Stalkers) Can Use to Geolocate Photos in Seconds
For months members of the public have been using GeoSpy, a tool trained on millions of images that can find the location a photo was taken based on soil, architecture, and more. It's GeoGuesser at scale.