February 2025 Privacy News Roundup
Oh boy...
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Welcome newcomers and returnees to another edition of my monthly privacy news roundup. The biggest news headline for the month? Governments are demanding encryption backdoors, which are serious threats to end-to-end encryption. U.K., Sweden, and France have pursued certain measures that, if they ultimately get what they want, it will have negative ramifications for E2EE worldwide. I highly recommend you read those two headlines to learn more.
Without further ado, let’s see what else February has brought us.
⭐ Notable Substack Reads
1.) U.K., Apple, and End-to-End Encryption - Link / Additional Link / Another Link / Link
2.) Apple yanks encrypted storage in U.K. instead of allowing backdoor access - Link
3.) Google vs. fingerprinting - Link / Additional Link
4.) Sweden vs. End-to-End encryption - Link / Additional Link
5.) What is an encryption backdoor? - Link
6.) The biggest breach of US government data is under way - Link
7.) Senator Tries Bringing Anti-Porn Age Verification Law to New York - Link
8.) Tuta: Why AI is taking over social media (and how to opt-out) - Link
9.) Tails OS: Replacing balenaEtcher with Rufus as installer for Windows - Link
10.) Data Defenders: How State Attorneys General Protect Privacy in the US - Link
11.) EU abandons ePrivacy, AI liability reforms as bloc shifts focus to AI competitiveness - Link
12.) TSA’s airport facial-recog tech faces audit probe - Link
13.) Google Chrome disables uBlock Origin for some in Manifest v3 rollout - Link
14.) Mozilla and Manifest V2 & V3 - Link / Additional Link
15.) Techlore forum: Firefox Is Reviving Progressive Web Apps - Link
16.) Anti-Surveillance Mapmaker Refuses Flock Safety's Cease and Desist Demand - Link
17.) Lawsuit accuses Amazon of secretly tracking consumers through cellphones - Link
18.) Google will use machine learning to estimate a user’s age - Link
19.) Red Hat Plans to Add AI to Fedora and GNOME - Link
20.) Why UK Online Safety Act may not be safe for bloggers - Link
21.) Spyware maker Paragon confirms US government is a customer - Link
22.) X is blocking Signal domain links in DMs, labeling them as potentially harmful or spam - Link
23.) ISP Will Unmask 100 Alleged BitTorrent Pirates in RIAA Lawsuit - Link
24.) VPN Providers Consider Exiting France Over ‘Dangerous’ Blocking Demands - Link
25.) Privacy tech firms warn France’s encryption and VPN laws threaten privacy - Link
26.) UK Home Office’s new vulnerability reporting mechanism leaves researchers open to prosecution - Link
27.) Big Brother Watch condemns UK’s first use of city-wide facial recognition in Cardiff - Link
28.) Hundreds of Dutch medical records bought for pocket change at flea market - Link
29.) Larry Ellison Proposes Centralized National Data Repository for AI Analysis - Link
30.) Interview with Roger Dingledine, Co-Creator of the Tor Project - Link
31.) Introducing Bitwarden Cupid Vault to securely share (and unshare) passwords with loved ones - Link
32.) Countries and companies are fighting at the expense of our data privacy - Link
33.) Mullvad has partnered with Obscura VPN - Link
34.) Mozilla updates Firefox Terms and Privacy Notice, sparking user concerns over data privacy - Link
Share any privacy-related news you discovered this month in the comments.
Until Next Time,
Monique 🔏
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