#Privacy

See tagged statuses in the local Rambling Readers community

*DO NOT TRAVEL TO THE US!*

“‘I learned with concern that a French researcher,’ on a mission for the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), ‘who was going to a conference near Houston was banned from entering American territory before being expelled,’ said the Minister of Higher Education and Research, Philippe Baptiste, in a statement sent to Agence France-Presse (AFP). ‘This measure was allegedly taken by the American authorities because this researcher's phone contained exchanges with colleagues and friendly relationships in which he expressed a personal opinion on the Trump administration's research policy,’ he added.”

https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2025/03/19/etats-unis-un-chercheur-francais-refoule-pour-avoir-exprime-une-opinion-personnelle-sur-la-politique-menee-par-l-administration-trump_6583618_3210.html

There is a growing sentiment that the US shouldn't be relied upon for the technologies that many people and businesses use every day.

While we prefer to focus on technical guarantees like strong end-to-end encryption over matters like jurisdiction, these issues still matter, and the United States certainly does not have a monopoly on the best technologies.

We've compiled a list of some of our favorite and highly recommended European privacy tools, to highlight how easy it can be to take your data back from American Big Tech companies: https://www.privacyguides.org/articles/2025/03/19/private-european-alternatives/

"US politicians and privacy campaigners are calling for the private hearing between Apple and the UK government regarding its alleged encryption-busting order to be aired in public."

https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/14/apple_uk_encryption_hearing/

"Colloquially, the IPA is referred to as the Snooper's Charter since its aims are to legally empower intelligence agencies with greater surveillance powers."

Amazon is going to be disabling the privacy feature that processes voice commands locally on Echo devices at the end of this month. Instead, all voice commands will be sent to Amazon's cloud for processing.

I have already followed my own steps to remediate this:

1. Unplug Echo Device
2. Throw Echo Device in Trash
3. Done

Dear Echo Customer, We are reaching out to let you know that the Alexa feature 'Do Not Send Voice Recordings' that you enabled on your supported Echo device(s) will no longer be available beginning March 28th, 2025. This feature allowed compatible Echo devices to process the audio of Alexa requests locally on device. As we continue to expand Alexa’s capabilities with generative AI features that rely on the processing power of Amazon’s secure cloud, we have decided to no longer support this feature. If you do not take action, your Alexa Settings will automatically be updated to ‘Don’t save recordings.’ This means that, starting on March 28th, your voice recordings will be sent to and processed in the cloud, and they will be deleted after Alexa processes your requests. Any previously saved voice recordings will also be deleted. If your voice recordings setting is updated to ‘Don’t save recordings,’ voice ID will not work and you will not be able to create a voice ID for individual users to access more personalized features. If you do not want to set your voice recordings setting to ‘Don’t save recordings,’ please follow these steps before March 28th: 1. Open the Alexa App on your Mobile Phone 2. Go to Settings > Device Settings and select the device where this feature is enabled 3. Select 'Do Not Send Voice Recordings' from the menu 4. Disable the setting

"Google refuses to deny it received encryption order from UK government"

The UK’s encryption-breaking order for a backdoor into iCloud isn’t a one-off.

The secret hearing happening RIGHT NOW is bigger than just Apple. If the government wins, our right to privacy and security falls.

Other services will be hit.

https://therecord.media/google-refuses-to-deny-it-received-uk-tcn

Sign our petition ➡️ https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/keep-our-apple-data-encrypted

“There is significant public interest in knowing when and on what basis the UK government believes that it can compel a private company to undermine the privacy and security of its customers.”

ORG, Big Brother Watch and Index on Censorship call for the Tribunal into the UK government's secret order for Apple to break encryption to be held in public.

The case happens TOMORROW.

Read more ⬇️

https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/13/apples-appeal-against-uks-secret-icloud-backdoor-order-must-be-held-in-public-rights-groups-urge/

🚨 BREAKING 🚨

ORG, Big Brother Watch and Index on Censorship call for the secret Tribunal into the UK Home Office's encryption-breaching order against Apple to be held in PUBLIC 🧑‍⚖️

There's a significant public interest in knowing why the UK government believes it can compel a private company to undermine the privacy and security of its users.

Read our joint letter ⬇️

https://www.openrightsgroup.org/press-releases/make-the-investigatory-powers-tribunal-on-apple-encryption-a-public-hearing/

Didn't know I still have Signal from fdroid installed but I don't have a phone number or hell, anybody to talk to in private 🤣

Just one of the downsides of not having friends I guess. Regardless, I shall carry on like I've been doing for 5+ years now! It's hard but c'est la vie.

I do believe I'll outgrow it alone. Doesn't matter how many years it'll take but I believe the pain will go away soon.

https://signal.org/

New Privacy Guides article 🔒☂️
by me:

If you care about data privacy,

You must also care for the privacy of others.

We often talk about what we can do to improve our own privacy, but we don't talk enough about what we should be doing to improve the privacy of others.

Together, we have to built a culture that normalizes respecting everyone's privacy.

Here are a few ideas to start: https://www.privacyguides.org/articles/2025/03/10/the-privacy-of-others/

Stylized photo of two children standing in a grass field under a cloudy purple sky. The taller child holds a yellow umbrella to protect both themselves and the smaller child.