June 2025 Privacy News Roundup
Welcome everyone to another edition of my monthly news roundup. While there are many news headlines to explore, June mostly saw a lot of news discussing the growing threat of surveillance. Make sure you go through them all.
✨Notable Substack Reads
✨June 2025 Posts from The Privacy Cloud
1.) The Importance of Data Privacy For The Queer Community - Link
2.) Strategies for Resisting Tech-Enabled Violence Facing Transgender People - Link
3.) Why Denmark is dumping Microsoft Office and Windows for LibreOffice and Linux - Link / Additional Link / Another Link
4.) GitHub is Leaking Trump’s Plans to 'Accelerate' AI Across Government - Link
5.) The Egg Yolk Principle: Human Sexuality Will Always Outsmart Prudish Algorithms and Hateful Politicians - Link
6.) Porn age-gating is the future of the internet, thanks to the Supreme Court - Link / Additional Link / Another Link / Similar Link / Extra Link
7.) The Supreme Court just upended internet law, and I have questions - Link
8.) Surprise: Minnesota Killer Used Data Brokers To Target And Murder Politicians - Link
9.) The WIRED Guide to Protecting Yourself From Government Surveillance - Link
10.) San Diegans Push Back on Flock ALPR Surveillance - Link
11.) Criminalizing Masks at Protests is Wrong - Link
12.) California Cops Investigate ‘Immigration Protest’ With AI-Camera System - Link
13.) CBP Confirms It Is Flying Predator Drones Above Los Angeles To Support ICE - Link
14.) ICE Is Using a New Facial Recognition App to Identify People, Leaked Emails Show - Link
15.) ‘FuckLAPD.com’ Lets Anyone Use Facial Recognition to Instantly Identify Cops - Link
16.) ICE seeks proprietary data and tech to monitor up to a million people - Link
17.) Emails Reveal the Casual Surveillance Alliance Between ICE and Local Police - Link
18.) California police are illegally sharing license plate data with ICE and Border Patrol - Link
19.) Flock Removes States From National Lookup Tool After ICE and Abortion Searches Revealed - Link / Similar Link
20.) Privacy providers clash over controversial proposals to change Swiss encryption law - Link / Additional Link
21.) "A war against online anonymity" – why Switzerland wants to change its surveillance law and what's at stake - Link
22.) 16% of Swiss federal politicians have data on dark web - Link
23.) EU to launch age-check app as pressure builds on Big Tech - Link
24.) Privacy Guides forum: Minimizing Windows 11 Data Collection - Link
25.) Meta and Yandex are de-anonymizing Android users’ web browsing identifiers - Link
26.) Researcher Found Flaw to Discover Phone Numbers Linked to Any Google Account - Link
27.) Apple Gave Governments Data on Thousands of Push Notifications - Link
28.) Apple to Australians: You’re Too Stupid to Choose Your Own Apps - Link
29.) Reddit users can now hide posts, comments, and NSFW history - Link
30.) Reddit in talks to embrace Sam Altman’s iris-scanning Orb to verify users - Link
31.) WhatsApp moves to join Apple’s encryption fight with UK government - Link
32.) WhatsApp is officially getting ads - Link / Additional Link / Another Link
33.) WhatsApp rolls out AI-generated summaries for private messages - Link
34.) We caught 4 more states sharing personal health data with Big Tech - Link
35.) Apple explores potential acquisition of AI search engine Perplexity - Link
36.) An Experimental New Dating Site Matches Singles Based on Their Browser Histories - Link
37.) Tanzania announces shutdown of X over pornography - Link
38.) Senate drops plan to ban state AI laws - Link
39.) Denmark clamps down on deepfakes by letting people copyright their own features - Link
40.) Senators Demand Meta Answer For AI Chatbots Posing as Licensed Therapists - Link
41.) Facebook is asking to use Meta AI on photos in your camera roll you haven’t yet shared - Link
42.) ChatGPT will analyze Gmail emails, manage schedule on Google Calendar - Link
43.) Online critics face growing scrutiny as Malaysia rolls out controversial data collection project - Link
44.) Future-Proofing Audience Targeting in Southeast Asia: Privacy, Precision & the Post-Cookie Playbook - Link
45.) Trump Is Rapidly Expanding the Surveillance State as Protests Grow - Link
46.) Trump administration gives personal data of immigrant Medicaid enrollees to deportation officials - Link
47.) Texas judge strikes down federal health privacy rule for legal abortion care - Link
48.) Russian Intelligence Says It Collects WeChat Data. What Does That Mean? - Link
49.) Russia’s VK unveils WeChat clone built on Putin’s orders: the app has mic and camera access, gathers user data, and shares it with the state - Link
50.) Russia’s throttling of Cloudflare makes sites inaccessible - Link
51.) Downing Street ‘exploring plan for digital ID cards’ - Link / Additional Link
52.) China’s Slow March Toward Cyber IDs - Link
53.) Nintendo warns Switch 2 GameChat users: “Your chat is recorded” - Link
54.) Nintendo Is Already Punishing Switch 2 Users Over Piracy ‘Suspicions’ - Link
55.) Security habits around the world: A closer look at password statistics - Link
56.) Peep show: 40K IoT cameras worldwide stream secrets to anyone with a browser - Link
57.) Privacy Guides forum: Austrian government agrees on plan to allow monitoring of secure messaging - Link
58.) Privacy Guides forum: AOSP isn’t dead, but Google just landed a huge blow to custom ROM developers - Link
59.) F-Droid endorses the United Nations Open Source Principles - Link
60.) Recent commits suggest Signal is preparing a paid subscription for backups. - Link
61.) UK data adequacy under scrutiny: civil society warns EU not to reward deregulation disguised as ‘simplification’ - Link
62.) Dangerous Data Bill Affects Us All, Not Just Creative Industries - Link
63.) The IRS Tax Filing Software TurboTax Is Trying to Kill Just Got Open Sourced - Link
64.) The Dangers of Consolidating All Government Information - Link
65.) Airline-Owned Data Broker Selling Your Flight Info to DHS Finally Registers as a Data Broker - Link
66.) Washington Post's email system hacked, journalists' accounts compromised - Link
67.) Is my email on the dark web — and if so, what can I do? - Link
68.) This College Student Wanted Privacy - His College Couldn't Give Him Any - Link
69.) Teen Social Media Ban Moves Closer in Australia After Tech Trial - Link
70.) Trump’s War On Knowledge Requires Re-inventing Academic Publishing - Link
71.) New US visa rules will force foreign students to unlock social media profiles - Link
72.) What’s in Canada’s Immigration Bill—and Why It’s Facing Backlash - Link
73.) Spy agency says it 'improperly' shared Canadians' data with international partners - Link
74.) Hell No: The ODNI Wants to Make it Easier for the Government to Buy Your Data Without Warrant - Link
75.) The Federal Government Demands Data from SNAP—But Says Nothing About Protecting It - Link
76.) Border Insecurity (Update) - Link
77.) House bill targets loopholes that let car insurance companies charge more in Black neighborhoods - Link
78.) Woman mistaken for thief after shop face scan alert - Link
79.) Oppose STOP CSAM: Protecting Kids Shouldn’t Mean Breaking the Tools That Keep Us Safe - Link
80.) Stay Safe, but Stay Connected - Link
81.) In North Korea, your phone secretly takes screenshots every 5 minutes for government surveillance - Link
82.) Makers of air fryers and smart speakers told to respect users’ right to privacy - Link
83.) Switzerland says government data stolen in ransomware attack - Link
84.) Proton joins suit against Apple for predatory practices that harm developers and consumers - Link
Until Next Time,
Monique 🔐
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