Tag Archives: government

Rekognition, Amazon’s facial recognition tool, has already been sold to law enforcement and pitched to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, according to Vox. It seems like an excellent way to support law enforcement in their efforts to catch criminals. However, researchers in artificial intelligence say the technology is deeply flawed. There’s …

The UK Government has been waging a bit of a war on internet privacy over the last couple of years, even going as far as to propose that encrypted internet services be outlawed. However, when it comes to getting your information removed off of Google, the government seems to have …

British porn producer Harriet Sugarcookie is no stranger to overreaching and economically damaging laws. Two years ago she moved her flourishing business overseas to avoid the talons of moral grandstanding on the part of UK legislation and has been very successful since. Now though, while she sees the Digital Economy …

The British government and its watchdogs are doing a poor job of protecting citizens and companies from online attacks, according to the public accounts committee. It also criticised a confusing system for reporting breaches, which painted an inconsistent picture of the current state of Britain's digital security. Despite cyber attacks …

Legally embattled Kim Dotcom has pledged to sue the U.S. and New Zealand governments for billions if his appeal to avoid extradition to America is successful. He claims that at the time of his arrest in 2012, his series of Mega sites and services were worth in excess of $2.4 …

For someone who has been quite vocal about wanting the U.S. to have the ability to break encryption, democratic presidential hopeful, Hillary Clinton, made quite an effort to hide her work-related emails on a private server. That server has now been opened up though, and as the State department wades …

Despite David Cameron and Theresa May calling for a better insight into the websites we visit with the potentially fast tracked Investigatory Powers Bill, a committee of politicians has warned that it lacks clarity, not defining key points. It warned that if the tech-firms that must be complicit in the …

Officials from the Thailand's  National Council for Peace and Order military government, are set to meet with executives from Facebook and Korean search provider, Line, in order to discuss censoring their sites. The content it wants removed without fail is anything that could be considered harmful to the monarchy, or …

The British government has, for several years, been trying to convince us all that pornography is terrible and that children's access to it could be one of the worst things imaginable. Its response has been to push for ISP filtering and there's been talk of forcing age gates on sites. …

The British public has almost unanimously rejected a call from the government to extend the maximum prison sentence for media pirates from two years to ten, following a consultation on the matter. The results suggest that the public just doesn't see piracy in the same way the government does. To …

Independent public data rights authority, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), has attacked plans by the government to push through the Investigatory Powers Bill, often called the Snooper's Charter. It claims that there is little justification for some of the measures it wishes to push through and claims that it weakens …

The Investigatory Powers Bill is being rushed to a parliamentary debate/vote in January following the recent attacks in Paris, because the government believes internet history logs can prevent terrorism. However the Labour party may stall the bill's progression, as it's demanding the government reveal information on the Shrewsbury 24 as …

The United States government has thrown its weight around during the extradition trial of legally embattled file locker founder Kim Dotcom, with a request sent to the judge presiding over the trial to throw out all evidence provided by Dotcom's defence. Announcing however that he wants a “fair extradition,” the …

Up and coming game developers in the UK now have another avenue to explore in the quest for production budgets, as the UK Games Fund, a self-described “community interest company,” non-profit designed to aid the British game making economy, has just received a £4 million grant from the government. That …

Shortly after his appointment as the United Nations' first head of privacy, Joseph Cannataci has called the current state of digital surveillance in the UK a “joke,” describing it as worse than anything George Orwell may have conjured up in his novel 1984. To address this and the oversight over …

Section 215 of the United States Patriot Act is set to expire on the 1st of June, potentially killing off a lot of the NSA and other US based intelligence forces' abilities to spy on individuals without going through official channels. That's something that a  lot of US law-makers don't …

Getting hacked is one of the worst scenarios for a modern day corporation. It damages reputation, relationships with your customers and can be a massive loss financially and in terms of secretive intellectual property. We've seen it happen with the likes of Sony multiple times in recent years and yet …

The Open Rights Group is a big proponent of, above all else, open rights. That means it champions the rights of individuals online, including freedoms of expression, freedoms of speech, information and privacy. With all of the Edward Snowden revelations and similar in the past couple of years, it's had …

After a recent law was passed in Canada that forced ISPs to send copyright infringement notices to their customers, copyright lobby groups have been jumping on the bandwagon and also firing off notices of their own. However, some have been using it as an opportunity to try and extort money …

The UK's four largest networks, EE, O2, Vodafone and Three have all agreed to work together to improve the country's patchy coverage areas by 2017. These particular coverage spots can often receive a signal from one or two networks, while those tied to other companies will find themselves without signal. …

The British government has taken time out from its ban on female ejaculation and face-sitting in porn, to targeting legitimate sexual crime on the Deep Web, with PM David Cameron announcing new legislation to target those that solicit images from children and a new initiative to go after those that …

One of the most potentially dangerous pieces of hidden legislation ever pushed by politicians, is the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). If it were ever written into EU and US law, it would allow corporations to sue the government for the loss of future profits due to legislative or other changes. While technically …

You know what the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and its contemporaries like the MPAA are fed up with? Their human rights being infringed upon. No, not because organisations like theirs are clamping down on freedom of expression by restricting access to information, but because those dastardly pirate sites are …

The UK Government is looking to crack down on severe Internet trolling, raising the current maximum prison sentence from six months to two years if the amendment to Criminal Justice and Courts Bill as well as the Malicious Communications Act go through. This news follows on from the harassment of TV Presenter, Chloe …

Over the past year, the world has become much more aware of the way government's sniff out data on potential criminals: in short, everything is recorded. Edward Snowden's revelations about this have helped create a growing tide of disquiet with regards to overly intrusive surveillance and especially when it comes …

While much of the Western world has spent the last year reeling at the fact that intelligence agencies abroad and at home have been tracking their every move online and recording every interaction they have, the people of China have been well aware of their government's overwatch of the internet …

New guidelines from the government's Crown Prosecution Service in the UK, could see sentencing for revenge pornography, the practice of posting nude images of someone online with malicious intent, extended so that the person responsible is sent to jail for as much at 14 years – though this would be for …

The UK government has sent out warnings to Microsoft, Google and Yahoo stating that if these companies don't address the issue of online piracy and stop linking to illegal content voluntarily, then legislative action will be taken. Over the last year or so, the UK government has shown its full …

Do you know what the government hopes the most about its recently rushed through DRIP legislation? That you'll forget about it. For those that don't know, DRIP, or the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers law, is a bill that was pushed through last week that forces ISPs and in-fact any …

GCHQ, the British intelligence agency that is responsible for Tempora, the UK's version of the NSA's PRISM spying scheme which hoovers up data on citizens and foreign nationals alike without permission, is going to have to defend itself in court, as a handful of internet service providers from around the …