FCC Considers Giving Telcos Even More 911 Location Data (To Sell)

Cynical former Verizon employee and FCC chairman Ajit Pai is proposing more detailed location data to be sent with 911 calls, and--brace yourself for a shocker--the proposal includes zero mentions of user privacy. The so-called "Z-axis" data that would be added to 911 calls would transmit vertical location to emergency services, potentially helping them know, for example, what floor of a building a caller is on.

Given the fact that U.S. cellular providers have recently been under (an insufficient amount of) scrutiny for selling ...

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Your Cellular Provider Is Selling Your Location (Again!)

Remember last year when that story came out about how all of the major US cell networks are reporting user location data to shady third parties? Remember how all of the telcos posted contrite messages about how they would never, ever share user location data with random third-party companies ever again? Well, surprise: they were lying.

Joseph Cox, for Motherboard:

Nervously, I gave a bounty hunter a phone number. He had offered to geolocate a phone for me, using a shady, overlooked service intended not ...

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Personal Data Privacy Legislation Introduced in U.S. Senate

The office of Hawaii senator Brian Schatz announced the introduction of a broad national data privacy bill in the U.S. Senate, following California's lead:

Today, U.S. Senator Brian Schatz [...] led a group of 15 senators in introducing new legislation to protect people's personal data online. The Data Care Act would require websites, apps, and other online providers to take responsible steps to safeguard personal information and stop the misuse of users' data.

I'll reserve judgment on the actual implementation of ...

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Twitter Carefully Deliberates the Merits of the Obvious

Jack Dorsey reveals Twitter's huge new plans:

For the first time since the end of 2016, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey shed some light on the company’s thoughts about building an edit button for tweets. Speaking at an event in India’s capital of New Delhi, he said that the company has to carefully consider use cases for the edit button before making it a reality – and it could potentially be tooled to help fix typos.

Dorsey might also consider formulating a sane business ...

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Apple CEO Calls for Sweeping U.S. Privacy Legislation

From Tim Cook's remarks at the International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners this morning:

[...] We see vividly--painfully--how technology can harm rather than help. Platforms and algorithms that promised to improve our lives can actually magnify our worst human tendencies. Rogue actors and even governments have taken advantage of user trust to deepen divisions, incite violence, and even undermine our shared sense of what is true and what is false.

This crisis is real. It is not imagined, or exaggerated, or "crazy." And ...

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