privacy

Leaked video in macOS beta reveals Apple’s camera-equipped AirPods

Apple appears to have inadvertently confirmed its long-rumored camera-equipped AirPods through a demo video hidden in the macOS Tahoe 26.7 release candidate, which landed Monday night. The clip, discovered by MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris, shows a man wearing a new…

New Meta patent details facial recognition for smart glasses

A newly published patent application shows Meta has continued developing facial recognition technology for its smart glasses, reigniting a debate over privacy and surveillance in wearable devices that has intensified throughout 2026.

Altman says ChatGPT could watch screens within 6 months

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told a crowd of Silicon Valley interns that future versions of ChatGPT will be able to view users' screens, record every meeting and call, and develop what he described as a "perfect contextual understanding" of users'…

German criminal complaint escalates global backlash against Meta smart glasses

Meta is facing a mounting global backlash over its AI-powered Ray-Ban smart glasses, with courts in England and Wales banning the devices from judicial buildings, a criminal complaint filed in Germany on Wednesday, and venues across the United Kingdom restricting…

Apple files new legal challenge against UK encrypted data backdoor demand

Apple has launched a fresh legal challenge against the British government's latest attempt to compel the company to provide access to encrypted customer data, escalating a dispute that has become a flashpoint in the global debate over privacy and state…

Samsung bans smart TV apps that secretly share users’ internet connections

Samsung announced on Monday that it is banning smart TV apps that secretly share users' internet connections with third parties, after Norwegian cybersecurity firm Mnemonic published research revealing that popular apps on the platform contained residential proxy code capable of…

Always-on AI wearables spark privacy warnings as tech giants race to market

A new wave of AI-powered wearable devices that can see, hear, and record is rapidly entering workplaces and public spaces, prompting warnings from privacy experts that the technology is outpacing the frameworks meant to govern it.

Apple debates shipping smart glasses without cameras

Apple is placing privacy at the center of its smart glasses strategy as the company navigates a thicket of consumer concerns and European regulatory scrutiny ahead of a planned unveiling at WWDC 2027, according to a report from Bloomberg's Mark…

EU finds TikTok breached child safety rules for third time

The European Commission on Friday issued preliminary findings accusing TikTok of violating the EU's Digital Services Act by failing to adequately protect children's privacy, the latest in a series of enforcement actions against the ByteDance-owned platform over its treatment of…

Meta executives give conflicting accounts of NameTag face recognition system

In June, Meta dismissed reports about its facial recognition system as sensational and declared the feature "does not exist." Five weeks later, its chief technology officer openly described the same system by name, explained how it works, and called it…

Meta’s Muse Image uses public Instagram photos for AI without consent

Meta on Tuesday rolled out Muse Image, its first in-house AI image generation model built by Meta Superintelligence Labs, immediately igniting a privacy firestorm after users discovered the tool can pull photos from public Instagram accounts to generate AI images…

Meta tests AI glasses that record without warning light

Meta has begun testing prototypes of smart glasses equipped with "super sensing" capabilities that can continuously record audio and capture images to build a persistent awareness of a wearer's surroundings, according to a Financial Times report published Tuesday. The development…

WhatsApp opens username reservations for 3B users

WhatsApp announced on Monday that its more than 3 billion users can begin reserving unique usernames, a long-awaited privacy feature that will allow people to connect on the platform without sharing their phone numbers for the first time.

Meta’s Oversight Board orders removal of deepfake video, demands policy changes

Meta's Oversight Board on Tuesday overturned the company's decision to leave up a reportedly AI-generated sexualized video on Instagram, ordering its removal and calling on Meta to strengthen protections for non-public figures targeted by deepfake intimate imagery.

Meta tested facial recognition with Pentagon supplier for smart glasses

Meta quietly worked with Rank One Computing, a Denver-based facial recognition firm that supplies the Pentagon, to prototype face-recognition technology for its smart glasses, according to reporting by Wired. The company's board includes a former CIA deputy director and a…

Meta scrubs facial recognition code from smart glasses app after WIRED expose

Meta has quietly removed facial recognition code from its AI companion app for Ray-Ban smart glasses after an investigation by WIRED exposed the feature's existence, raising fresh questions about the company's surveillance ambitions and its willingness to deploy biometric tools…

Reuters claims Banksy is Robin Gunningham, now using the name David Jones

Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation published a sweeping investigation on Thursday claiming to have definitively identified the anonymous street artist Banksy as Robin Gunningham, a Bristol native who later changed his name to David Jones. The 3,500-word report, authored by journalists…