profiling
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NCC Report: Online advertising industry is out of control
Today, on 14 January 2020, the Norwegian Consumer Council (NCC), a consumers group active on the field of digital rights, denounces in their report “Out of Control” current practices of the adtech industry, including systematic privacy breaches and unlawful behavioural profiling. The report focuses on the analysis of data traffic from ten popular apps such […]
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Your family is none of their business
Today’s children have the most complex digital footprint in human history, with their data being collected by private companies and governments alike.
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Facebook lies to Dutch Parliament about election manipulation
On 15 May 2019, Facebook’s Head of Public Policy for the Netherlands spoke at a round table in the House of Representatives about data and democracy. The Facebook employee reassured members of parliament that Facebook has implemented measures to prevent election manipulation. He stated: “You can now only advertise political messages in a country, if […]
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The art of dodging questions – Facebook’s privacy policies
Remember in April 2018, after the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke, we sent a series of 13 questions to Facebook about their users’ data exploitation policy. Months later, Facebook got back to us with answers. Here is a critical analysis of their response. Recognising people’s face without biometric data? The first questions (1a and 1b) related […]
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Google and IAB: Knowingly enabling intrusive profiling
On 28 January, EDRi member Panoptykon joined a complaint against Google and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) in Poland, after it had become clear that the advertising categories provided by these entities are enabling the processing of extremely sensitive data of European citizens. On 20 February, new evidence was published proving that the IAB was […]
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Cambridge Analytica/Facebook: Will EU politicians back up their words with deeds?
On 14 May 2018, European Digital Rights (EDRi) wrote to the main political groups in the European Parliament calling for political self-regulation to help fight the problems of disinformation and political micro-targeting.
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#ALTwitter privacy revelation: European parliamentarian goes bananas
Recently, Mr Dunston (of the “Dunston Checks In” fame) came to the EDRi Brussels office looking for help. He complained that somebody from the European Parliament is messing up with his “holy banana collection” that he has been preserving since decades after he inherited it from his forefathers. Other than that we had no information.
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ALTwitter: The treasure trove behind 140 characters
One of the main reasons why metadata is used broadly for surveillance and targeted advertisement is its extensive capability to capture more dimensions of useful information than the data itself. An ordinary internet user fails to see the mysterious nature of metadata because it is invisible to the naked eye. Law enforcement agencies and advertisers, on […]
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ALTwitter – profiling with metadata
When we are sharing links, events or ideas through social media, we leave behind a trace of metadata: when and how often, which days of the week, in which language, using which hashtag, linking to which users or websites, and so on. Those details might not say much when we look at each piece of […]
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Hakuna Metadata – Let’s have some fun with Sid’s browsing history!
But I am not interesting enough for someone to bother to look into my browsing history. The most common argument for people not to be more wary of the threats to their online privacy is that, simply, no one cares. Or at least not enough. But still, don’t we all like to delete our browsing […]
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Dangerous myths peddled about data subject access rights
Now that the date on which the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) becomes enforceable is rapidly approaching, the European Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) are in the process of clarifying what their shared positions will be on various topics, including profiling. This is done through stakeholder consultation meetings.
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Data mining for profit and election result – how predictable are we?
Did Donald Trump become president because he hired the data mining firm Cambridge Analytica, which uses profiling and micro-targeting in political elections? Some say yes, many say no. But what we know is that we are subjected to extensive personalised commercial and political messaging on the basis of data, including metadata, collected and used without […]
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