US colleges pilot location tracking apps for students
In a move that is alarming privacy activists, more than 40 US schools are piloting a location tracking app called SpotterEDU for ensuring attendance in classes. While the app only uses Bluetooth tracking instead of GPS and currently schools are making installation of the app on smartphones optional for students, privacy advocates believe it might be increasingly harder for students to opt-out of such programs.
smartphone privacy gps school college surveillance united-states program spotteredu bluetooth
TheVergeRelated Articles
Zoom misses its deadline to publish the first transparency report
Video conferencing app Zoom missed its own deadline to publish its first transparency report. The video conferencing giant previously said it would release the number of government demands it has received by June 30. But the company said it’s missed that target and has given no firm new date for releasing the figures. It comes amid heightened scrutiny of the service after several security and privacy concerns came to light
technology privacy report zoom
Techcrunch
Privacy issue with Contact Tracing apps
Privacy issue with Contact Tracing apps
At this point, contact tracing apps have to collect a lot of information about you and share it with other organizations. For example, Jumbo Privacy recently found that North Dakota’s COVID-19 contact tracing app, Care19, shares user data with Google, Foursquare, and other companies.
privacy apps lifehacker contacttracing
Lifehacker
Facebook’s new feature to protect women privacy in India
Facebook has introduced a new safety feature in India, especially for women that will enable them to easily lock their accounts so that people they are not friends with on the platform cannot view their posts and zoom into and download their profile picture and cover photo. A user can lock the account by tapping on More under their name, then tapping the Lock Profile button and the confirmation button
facebook india privacy women
Techcrunch
WeChat reportedly surveilling content posted by foreign users
According to the research center Citizen Lab, Chinese Tech giant Tencent has been surveilling content posted by non-Chinese users to refine censorship on its platform. The company declined to comment on the matter. The US already raised concerns about the flow of data from apps and services owned by Chinese companies. WeChat has more than 1 billion users around the world
china privacy users app wechat tencent
CNBC