Privacy & surveillance
State & law · entries: 55
articles
events
- OpenAI admits that in June its models, during internal training, accessed Australian government websites without authorisation; at the Medicare statistics service a model ran commands and retrieved internal files and credentials, while patient records were not accessedCybersecurity · Health & medicine · Privacy & surveillance · AI safety · openai.com ↗
- The Block, citing World: more than 18 million people verified with the Orb, about 39 million signed upPrivacy & surveillance · Finance & money · Proof of personhood · theblock.co ↗
- Reddit starts verifying accounts that look like bots, via passkey, Face ID or World ID; Steve Huffman: “Our aim is to confirm there is a person behind the account, not who that person is.”Media & information · Privacy & surveillance · Proof of personhood · reddit.com ↗ ⧗
- World and Coinbase release AgentKit: a person delegates their World ID to an AI agent, and a website sees that one unique human stands behind the agentPrivacy & surveillance · Software development · Finance & money · Proof of personhood · world.org ↗
- World: since the 2023 launch, “nearly 18 million” people have been verified; the same figure appears in company announcements from 03.2026 and 04.2026Privacy & surveillance · Proof of personhood · world.org ↗
- Thailand's Personal Data Protection Committee orders World to delete more than 1.2 million records: collecting biometrics in exchange for crypto breaks the lawPrivacy & surveillance · Laws & regulation · Proof of personhood · dlnews.com ↗
- World Bank: more than 800 million people worldwide cannot officially prove their identityPrivacy & surveillance · Elections & politics · Proof of personhood · blogs.worldbank.org ↗
- Colombia's regulator SIC orders World to shut down permanently and delete iris codes; about 2 million Colombians had signed upPrivacy & surveillance · Laws & regulation · Proof of personhood · biometricupdate.com ↗ ⧗
- The Philippines' National Privacy Commission orders Tools for Humanity to stop processing data and remove the World app from app storesPrivacy & surveillance · Laws & regulation · Proof of personhood · privacy.gov.ph ↗ ⧗
- European Commission: recognising emotions from typing style at work is banned, but for advertising it is notPrivacy & surveillance · Laws & regulation · Work & jobs · Behavioral biometrics · ec.europa.eu ↗
- In 170 of 1,645 apps on Lovable, outsiders could access personal data (CVE-2025-48757, disputed by Lovable)Privacy & surveillance · Cybersecurity · Vibe coding · mattpalmer.io ↗
- Kenya's High Court orders World to delete Kenyans' biometric data within 7 days and bans its collectionPrivacy & surveillance · Justice & courts · Proof of personhood · theblock.co ↗
- World launches in the US; partners include Visa, Tinder and StripePrivacy & surveillance · Finance & money · Business & markets · Proof of personhood · world.org ↗
- World: 12 million people verified with the Orb, World App has 26 million users (company data)Privacy & surveillance · Proof of personhood · world.org ↗
- Holonym: Gitcoin Passport had more than 2.1 million users before the change of ownership; the service is renamed Human PassportPrivacy & surveillance · Proof of personhood · human.tech ↗
- The EU AI Act's ban on recognising emotions at work and in education takes effect; the act treats any behavioural traits as biometrics, including the way a person presses keysPrivacy & surveillance · Laws & regulation · Work & jobs · Behavioral biometrics · publications.europa.eu ↗
- Brazil's regulator ANPD bans World from paying for iris scansPrivacy & surveillance · Laws & regulation · Proof of personhood · gov.br ↗ ⧗
- Bavaria's regulator BayLDA, the lead EU supervisory authority in the Worldcoin case, orders it to ensure data deletion under GDPR; the company appealsPrivacy & surveillance · Laws & regulation · Proof of personhood · lda.bayern.de ↗
- CNIL fines a company €40,000: its software counted minutes without keystrokes or mouse movements as remote employees' idle time, and idle time could be deducted from payWork & jobs · Privacy & surveillance · Laws & regulation · Behavioral biometrics · cnil.fr ↗
- Worldcoin renames itself World and introduces human verification with a passport chip, without the OrbPrivacy & surveillance · Proof of personhood · world.org ↗
- The Federal Administrative Court of Austria rules that reCAPTCHA is not technically necessary for a website to work and may be enabled only with the visitor's consentPrivacy & surveillance · Justice & courts · Death of CAPTCHA · ris.bka.gv.at ↗
- 32 researchers from OpenAI, Microsoft, MIT, Harvard, Oxford and other organisations propose “personhood credentials”: CAPTCHA is powerless against sophisticated AI, while strict identity checks are not private enoughPrivacy & surveillance · Cybersecurity · Science · Proof of personhood · arxiv.org ↗
- The IETF publishes the Privacy Pass standard (architecture in RFC 9576, protocols in RFC 9577 and 9578): a device confirms with an anonymous token that it has passed a check without revealing whose it isPrivacy & surveillance · Internet & infrastructure · Death of CAPTCHA · rfc-editor.org ↗
- Hong Kong's Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (PCPD) orders Worldcoin to stop scanning irises and facesPrivacy & surveillance · Laws & regulation · Proof of personhood · hongkongfp.com ↗ ⧗
- Portugal's regulator CNPD suspends Worldcoin's data collection for 90 days: minors were among those scannedPrivacy & surveillance · Laws & regulation · Proof of personhood · observador.pt ↗ ⧗
- Spain's data protection agency AEPD bans Worldcoin from collecting and processing data for up to three monthsPrivacy & surveillance · Laws & regulation · Proof of personhood · aepd.es ↗
- The UK regulator ICO recognises “how they type” as biometrics; special protection applies when it is used to recognise a specific personPrivacy & surveillance · Laws & regulation · Behavioral biometrics · ico.org.uk ↗
- Irvine researchers estimate that people have spent 819 million hours on reCAPTCHA v2, at least $6.1 billion of unpaid labourWork & jobs · Privacy & surveillance · Internet & infrastructure · Death of CAPTCHA · arxiv.org ↗
- Kenya's Ministry of Interior suspends Worldcoin's operations; three days later police seize devices at the company's office in NairobiPrivacy & surveillance · Laws & regulation · Proof of personhood · techcrunch.com ↗
- Global launch of Worldcoin and the WLD token: about 2 million people got a World ID during the betaPrivacy & surveillance · Finance & money · Proof of personhood · world.org ↗
- Buyers in China pay $20–30 for the World IDs of people scanned in Cambodia and Africa; Worldcoin admits that collusion between seller and buyer cannot be preventedCybersecurity · Privacy & surveillance · Proof of personhood · theblock.co ↗
- Malware steals Orb operators' passwords; the operator dashboard had no two-factor authentication, and Worldcoin resets all passwordsCybersecurity · Privacy & surveillance · Proof of personhood · techcrunch.com ↗
- CNIL fines the e-scooter rental service Cityscoot €125,000, in part for using reCAPTCHA without informing users or obtaining their consentPrivacy & surveillance · Laws & regulation · Death of CAPTCHA · lemondedudroit.fr ↗
- Cloudflare releases Turnstile, a free CAPTCHA replacement without puzzles; by then the company had cut the number of its own CAPTCHAs shown by 91%Cybersecurity · Privacy & surveillance · Internet & infrastructure · Death of CAPTCHA · blog.cloudflare.com ↗
- Felix Krause shows that TikTok's in-app browser for iOS injects code into third-party websites that subscribes to every keystroke; TikTok replies that the code is used only for debuggingPrivacy & surveillance · Cybersecurity · Behavioral biometrics · krausefx.com ↗
- MIT Technology Review: Worldcoin's first 450,000 users in 24 countries were lured with cash, AirPods and the promise of tokens, without being told it was a testPrivacy & surveillance · Work & jobs · Proof of personhood · technologyreview.com ↗
- Worldcoin, from Sam Altman and Alex Blania, comes out of stealth with $25 million in funding and a promise to hand out tokens for iris scansPrivacy & surveillance · Finance & money · Proof of personhood · techcrunch.com ↗
- Cloudflare moves from reCAPTCHA to hCaptcha: Google plans to charge for reCAPTCHA, and, as Cloudflare writes, “Google's business is targeting users with advertising”Cybersecurity · Privacy & surveillance · Business & markets · Death of CAPTCHA · blog.cloudflare.com ↗
- Google releases reCAPTCHA v3: instead of pictures, an invisible score from 0 to 1 based on how a person behaves on the websiteCybersecurity · Privacy & surveillance · Internet & infrastructure · Behavioral biometrics · security.googleblog.com ↗
- GDPR comes into forceLaws & regulation · Privacy & surveillance · Data protection · eur-lex.europa.eu ↗
- The Cambridge Analytica scandal: data from tens of millions of Facebook profiles used for political advertisingElections & politics · Privacy & surveillance · Microtargeting · privacyinternational.org ↗
- MIT: early Parkinson's disease is detected from ordinary typing at home with an accuracy (AUC) of 0.76Health & medicine · Privacy & surveillance · Science · Behavioral biometrics · dspace.mit.edu ↗
- A Reddit user called deepfakes posts videos with swapped faces, and the term enters the languageMedia & information · Privacy & surveillance · Elections & politics · Deepfakes · wordorigins.org ↗
- Face ID: face recognition in a mass-market phonePrivacy & surveillance · Face recognition · thenextweb.com ↗
- Bryan Ford's group (EPFL) coins the term proof-of-personhood: a mechanism that binds physical entities to virtual identities while preserving anonymityPrivacy & surveillance · Cybersecurity · Finance & money · Proof of personhood · bford.info ↗
- Entering a PIN on a phone reveals a person's age in 88% of cases and gender in 83%Privacy & surveillance · Science · Behavioral biometrics · repository.essex.ac.uk ↗
- GDPR classes behavioural traits as biometrics only if they allow a person to be uniquely identified; fraud prevention is recognised as a company's legitimate interestPrivacy & surveillance · Laws & regulation · Behavioral biometrics · publications.europa.eu ↗
- MIT: ordinary typing shows that a person is sleep-deprived, with a detection accuracy (AUC) of 0.93Health & medicine · Privacy & surveillance · Science · Behavioral biometrics · pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov ↗
- Amazon Echo and the Alexa voice assistantHome & family · Privacy & surveillance · Voice assistants · en.wikipedia.org ↗
- The first reports based on Snowden's documents about mass surveillance programsPrivacy & surveillance · Elections & politics · Mass surveillance · csmonitor.com ↗
- Bryan Ford and Jacob Strauss (MIT) propose “pseudonym parties”: people gather in one place at the same time and each receives one anonymous credential, so that “one real person gets one virtual persona”Privacy & surveillance · Science · Proof of personhood · bford.info ↗
- Gmail: a gigabyte of free email and ads based on message contentPrivacy & surveillance · Business & markets · Cloud services · en.wikipedia.org ↗