iOS users are using Apple’s new tracking opt-out feature, ad industry stats show
Twelve days after Apple released iOS 14.5, most iPhone users today are taking advantage of a new anti-tracking feature included in the updated operating system and are refusing to allow iOS apps to track their activities.
Most K-12 apps send kids’ personal info to advertisers and other third parties, study finds
The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed schools around the country to adopt and rely heavily on new technology. But a study published today from the nonprofit Me2ba Alliance suggests that these tools might be syphoning childrens’ data and sending them to advertisers like Google and Facebook without informing users or parents. The group audited a random sample of 73 apps from 38 schools in 14 states across the country, and found that 60% of these apps were sending student data to a variety of third parties…
AirDrop bugs expose Apple users’ email addresses, phone numbers
A team of academics from a German university said it discovered two vulnerabilities that can be abused to extract phone numbers and email addresses from Apple’s AirDrop file transfer feature.
Academics: Russia deployed new technology to throttle Twitter’s traffic
The Russian government appears to be using new technology to censor internet traffic inside its borders, a group of academics studying internet censorship across the globe said in a report published today.
Google to restrict Android apps from viewing other apps installed on the same device
Google has announced plans today to restrict the ability of Android apps from seeing what other applications are installed on the same device, citing privacy and security reasons.
Booking.com fined €475,000 for reporting data breach too late
The Dutch Data Protection Authority has fined hotel booking website Booking.com €475,000 ($560,000) for reporting a security incident 22 days after it happened, in breach of EU GDPR regulations that dictate that all breaches must be disclosed within 72 hours.
Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS
Academic research published last week looked at the telemetry traffic sent by modern iOS and Android devices back to Apple and Google servers and found that Google collects around 20 times more telemetry data from Android devices than Apple from iOS.
Organizations rush to restrict new Slack Connect feature fearing security threats
Work collaboration platform Slack formally announced today a new feature named Slack Connect DMs that allows users to send direct messages to any Slack user in any other organization.