Last week I read a very interesting Twitter thread by Jack Edwards in which he made a subject data request to Spotify. Amongst all the data about your listening habits there’s a file called inferences.json, which contains a trove of inferences about you as a consumer. Inspired by the thread Read more…
After the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the entire world changed the way in which airport security was conducted. Some of the features made sense: sturdier metal detectors and more baggage scanners. But we also started seeing an increase in often useless and baseless measures designed to look good Read more…
Some time ago I was going through my social media feeds when something caught my eye. A person I barely knew posted a selfie with himself and partner, both facing the camera and making a surprised face, with an older lady in the background fanning her face and clearly suffering Read more…
The death of privacy is a chronicle of a death foretold. One of my favourite cartoons is the 1970 Newsweek cover that depicts the end of privacy, to me it clearly portrays our fears about loss of control and technologies designed to keep track of our every move. Time Magazine Read more…
I have been thinking about augmented reality a lot in the last few days for reasons explained in the last blog post. While most of the discussion in the next few weeks will be about cute pocket monsters, an interesting legal question has arisen, who owns virtual spaces around real Read more…
Andres Guadamuz, University of Sussex For the last couple of years, journalist Dune Lawrence has been subject to constant harassment. She wrote several articles about an investment firm, and the owner initiated an online defamation campaign against her and other targets. He posted images of her to his website and Read more…
The European Commission has finally published the text of the programme called Privacy Shield, the name of the agreement reached with the United States to safeguard the export of personal data from European citizens across the Atlantic. This is in response to the CJEU case of Maximiliam Schrems v Data Read more…
One of the most long-lasting effects of Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013 was that they presented strong evidence that national security agencies in the US and the UK were involved in serious indiscriminate mass surveillance programmes. Furthermore, one of the most revealing aspects was the fact that some of these Read more…
The Court of Justice of the European Union has produced a landmark decision in Maximillian Schrems v Data Protection Commissioner (C‑362/14). The ruling may have huge economic and political repercussions for the tech industry in the next months. This is a case that requires some context if you are unfamiliar Read more…
My social media timeline has been inundated in the last week with headlines warning that Whatsapp is about to be banned in the UK by the government. The UK’s mainstream media knows a good scandal when it sees one, and therefore it has picked up the story issuing hysterical headlines Read more…