This Week in Privacy

Microsoft is suspending developer accounts for key privacy tools like VeraCrypt and Wireguard, Employers are using your personal data to figure out the lowest salary you’ll accept, and more! Welcome to This Week In Privacy #48!

Anthropic’s Claude Code just leaked it’s own source code, ONLYOFFICE suspends Nextcloud partnership, LinkedIn scans your browser extensions, and more. Join us for This Week In Privacy #47!

The US’s Federal Communications Commission has banned all foreign made routers stating their are not secure for use. Walmart digital price labels are coming to every store shelf in the US, Systemd has integrated age verification systems, and more. Join us for This Week In Privacy #46!

The ‘dark sword’ exploit affects over 220 million iPhones running outdated iOS versions, the FBI is buying location data to track US citizens, a Tennessee grandmother was jailed after an AI facial recognition error linked her to fraud, and much more, join us for This Week In Privacy #45!

European parliament MEPs vote to end untargeted mass scanning of private chats, is this the end of Chat Control? A new consortium wants to remove custom ROM hurdles with digital payment systems, and more! Join us for This Week In Privacy #44.

GrapheneOS has announced who their official hardware partner is, a new US Californian law is says all operating systems must have age verification, and much more. Join us for This Week In Privacy #43!

Apple is verifying user’s ages to download R18+ apps and games on the app store globally to comply with age verification laws, people across the US are destroying and dismantling FLOCK cameras, Firefox has a new “block AI” switch to disable AI features, and much more. Join us for This Week In Privacy #42!

Meta plans to add facial recognition technology to their smart glasses, popular password managers fall short of their “zero knowledge” claims, Apple is testing end-to-end encryption with RCS in iOS 26.4 beta, and much more. Join us for This Week In Privacy #41!

Discord is facing backlash after requiring all users to provide ID to access age restricted servers and channels, this comes after Discord breached 70,000 of its users government ID documents, Apple is moving to remove anonymous chat apps from the App Store, and much more! Join us for This Week In Privacy #40.

The FBI Couldn’t Get into a reporter’s iPhone because it had lockdown mode enabled, RAM shortages have hit Raspberry Pi prices, more countries are rolling out Australia style under 16 social media bans, and much more! Join us for This Week In Privacy #39.

WhatsApp encryption is coming under scrutiny, French lawmakers are pushing an under-15s social media ban, TikTok’s privacy policy has gotten worse after it has been bought by American investors, and much more! Join us for This Week In Privacy #38.

Bitwarden is raising prices, Microsoft handed over encryption keys to the FBI, U.S. ICE agents are misidentifying people with facial recognition, and much more! Join us for This Week in Privacy #37!

Moxie Marlinspike has created a private AI alternative called Confer, Windscribe has helped form a privacy alliance, Threema got acquired by Comitis Capital, E2EE comes to RCS messaging on iOS 26.3, and much more! Join us for This Week in Privacy #36!

Google is changing how they release Android Open Source Project code, California is introducing a way for people to mass opt-out of data brokers, cryptocurrency theft attacks are still being traced to the 2022 Lastpass breach and much more! Join us for This Week in Privacy #35!

Happy New Year! Join us for This Week in Privacy #34!

Happy holidays! Join us for This Week in Privacy #33!

The US is moving towards implementing unprecedented surveillance bills, Texas sues TV makers for taking screenshots of what people watch, UK lawmakers are targeting VPNs in the Online Safety Act debate, and much more! Join us for This Week in Privacy #32!

A man is being charged for wiping his phone before being arrested, India is considering enabling GPS tracking on all mobile devices, a remote code execution vulnerability is exploiting over 30 organisations and 70k IP addresses, RAM shortages are causing massive increases in RAM costs, and much more, join us for This Week In Privacy #31!

Session Messenger is getting a major privacy & security upgrade, age verification laws are shifting responsibility onto App Stores, Apple rejects India’s government request to preload devices with a “cyber safety app”, and much more, join us for This Week In Privacy #30!

GrapheneOS now has expanded desktop mode features in beta, X (Twitter) has been doxing user’s locations, Android’s Quick Share is now compatible with Apple’s AirDrop and much more, join us for This Week In Privacy #29!

Welcoming Nate Bartram to Privacy Guides! Also: WhatsApp is rolling out interoperable messaging in the EU, Windows 11 is rolling out an AI agent that scans your files and folders, and much more. Join us for This Week In Privacy #28! Nate has been publishing resources at The New Oil for many years now, and is the former host of the Surveillance Report podcast. We’re really excited about our plans going forward into 2026, and we shared a bunch of them in this podcast!

Firefox is rolling out additional anti-fingerprinting detection, Chat Control is back and is being pushed through the EU Government, and much more. Join us for This Week In Privacy #27!

EU officials’ location data is up for sale, the United States declines to join the UN Cybercrime treaty, Chrome can now autofill your passport and drivers license, Tinder is scanning user’s camera rolls with AI to get to know them better, and much more. Join us for This Week In Privacy #26!

Our top stories this week: NOYB files criminal complaint against Clearview.ai Denmark withdraws mandatory chat control proposal due to lack of support. Apple to implement ads into Apple Maps in 2026, but warns that App Tracking Transparency could be disabled in the European Union Police use Flock cameras to wrongfully accuse Denver woman of theft Signal President Meredith Whittaker claims that AWS servers are “unavoidable” https://www.privacyguides.org/livestreams/2025/10/31/noyb-files-criminal-complaint-against-clearview-police-ai-leads-to-false-accusation-apple-plans-ads-for-maps-and-more/

Our top stories this week: OpenAI launches Atlas Browser for macOS AWS shutdown shutters Signal and smart beds alike Wisconsin lawmakers introduces VPN ban Apple removes Tea and TeaOnHer on the App Store https://www.privacyguides.org/livestreams/2025/10/25/openai-launches-creepy-ai-browser-aws-shutters-signal-and-smart-mattresses-u-s-states-introduce-vpn-ban-bills-and-more/

Our top stories this week: GrapheneOS confirms that will support a non-Pixel flagship phone in 2026 with the Snapdragon SOC Eclypsium, an embedded security firm, reports that Framework laptops are vulnerable to a Secure Boot bug affecting around 200,000 devices Mozilla implements Google Lens and Perplexity AI into Firefox Researchers disclose a proof-of-concept attack called “Pixsnapping”, which allows hackers to steal 2FA codes without additional permissions. https://www.privacyguides.org/livestreams/2025/10/18/official-grapheneos-phone-framework-secure-boot-flaw-perplexity-ai-in-firefox/

Our top stories this week: Microsoft blocks the ability to bypass online accounts on Windows 11 Germany confirms its opposition to Chat Control; the European Union withdraws the proposal due to insufficient support. Hackers breach Discord support tickets, leaking 70,000 age verification documents A group of American investors have acquired the NSO Group, giving a lifeline to the spyware firm after a series of crippling lawsuit decisions. https://www.privacyguides.org/livestreams/2025/10/11/the-end-of-windows-local-accounts-eu-drops-chat-control-more/

Our top stories this week: F-Droid warns that Google’s mandatory developer registration would destroy the project. Google confirms that there will be free and paid tiers for developer registration. However, FOSS developers may need to pay after a certain number of downloads. Apple receives another technical capabilities notice by the UK to implement a backdoor into iCloud’s Advanced Data Protection Program. This time, it will only target British users. AMD and Intel CPU were discovered to be vulnerable against physical attacks. The companies refuse to implement a fix as they are “out-of-scope”. https://www.privacyguides.org/livestreams/2025/10/04/could-this-be-the-end-of-f-droid/

https://www.privacyguides.org/livestreams/2025/09/27/who-really-owns-your-tiktok-data-now/ Our top stories this week: A new report reveals that a TikTok deal has been signed. Oracle will hold a controlling stake and manage security of U.S. customer data despite concerns over their CEO’s supportive statements on mass surveillance. Firefox 143 for Android will introduce DNS-Over-HTTPS, finally matching their desktop counterparts. Microsoft cuts off Azure access to an elite Israeli military intelligence unit after an investigation reveals that it was being used for civilian mass surveillance. The UK government announced plans for mandatory digital ID for all UK residents. In response, over 500,000 petition signatures were raised opposing its implementation.

Governments are all trying to tie your accounts to your ID. Critics of Charlie Kirk are being doxxed, showing the problems with real name identification online and how it threatens free expression. Microsoft is forcing Microsoft Copilot onto every Windows PC, ChatGPT might soon require your ID, and much more. Join us for This Week In Privacy #19!

The Tor Project has officially released a new app called Tor VPN, Signal has released chat backup now in beta, Bluesky is caving to new age verification laws, and much more. Join us for This Week In Privacy #18!

Proton is rolling out Proton Meet to visionary subscribers, with a public release coming soon. Google avoids getting broken up in their anti-trust case but must share search data with competitors, Switzerland is creating their own “ethical” AI model and much more. Join us for This Week In Privacy #17!

Google is planning to require developers to verify their identity before their apps can be side-loaded. The FTC is warning tech giants not to bow to encryption backdoor pressure. A huge amount of malicious apps have been discovered on Google Play and much more. Join us for This Week In Privacy #16!

Is your password manager auto-fill extension leaking your secrets? Chat Control is back, and the EU council is set to vote on the proposal in two months. Encrypted messaging between Android and iOS devices is almost a reality, and much more. Join us for This Week In Privacy #15!

YouTube is using AI to identify if you are underage to request age verification, GitHub just got less independent from Microsoft, Wikipedia might end up requiring age verification, and much more, join us for This Week In Privacy #14!

CalyxOS has announced they will be pausing their releases, Google is cracking open android after they were found to have an illegal monopoly, Firefox extensions are being used for phishing attacks and much more, join us for This Week In Privacy #13!

Tea, a dating and women’s safety app had a huge breach of it’s users ID documents, highlighting how risky adding ID verification can be when it comes to user privacy. The UK is cracking down on VPNs after their usage has skyrocketed due to age verification, the Australian government is threatening Signal, and much more, join us for This Week In Privacy #12!

Proton released a new privacy product called Lumo, the UK is backing down on it’s ban on Apple’s ADP, Mastodon just got a neat feature to increase it’s sustainability and much more, join us for This Week In Privacy #11!

ChromeOS & Android are merging, Chrome extensions are being used as infostealers, Linux reaches 5% marketshare and much more. Welcome back to This Week In Privacy #10!

Search engines may start requiring ID verification in Australia. The sustainable smartphone, the Fairphone 6, has finally landed in the US. Law enforcement in a certain country is targeting GrapheneOS users, and much more. Welcome back to This Week In Privacy #9!

Livestreamed on February 11, 2024

Livestreamed on February 7, 2024

Livestreamed on January 27, 2024

Livestreamed on January 20, 2024