#privacy breaches

[miichaelbelll]

What is a privacy violation?

Privacy breaches are when personal information is not properly secured. This can lead to financial loss or identity theft, as well as harm to organizations, resulting in a loss of reputation and erosion of customer trust.

What privacy risks do I face?

Individuals are exposed to many privacy threats in the digital age. The following privacy breach risks are common:

Data breach: Unauthorized access to or theft of personal data from companies or organisations.

Phishing scams: These emails or messages appear to come from a trusted source and trick people into giving out their login credentials or personal information.

Privacy on social media: Sharing personal information via social media platforms that can be accessed or used to malicious ends.

Location tracking: This is the tracking of an individual's position through their devices. It can reveal sensitive information or be used for criminal purposes.

Unsecured Wi Fi networks: Personal information can be intercepted by connecting to unsecure Wi-Fi networks.

Malicious software: Downloading attachments or installing software from unknown sources can result in malware installation that can harm computers or steal personal information.

These privacy risks are important and you should be aware of them.

What Happens When Data is Leaked?

Data breaches can occur in many ways.

Hacking: Hackers have many methods of gaining unauthorized access to sensitive data. They can exploit vulnerabilities in software or use malware to crack passwords.

Insider threats: Data breaches may occur when contractors or employees with sensitive information have access to it and misuse it, either inadvertently or intentionally.

Devices stolen or lost: Laptops, smartphones and other devices that contain sensitive information can be stolen or lost.

Human error: Data breaches may occur when people make mistakes such as sending sensitive data to the wrong person, or leaving sensitive data in an unsecure location.

Databases that aren't properly secured: Unsecured databases can lead to data breaches.

Social engineering: Attackers can use social engineering techniques, such as pretexting or phishing scams, to trick people into divulging sensitive information.

Organizations should have security measures in place to prevent data breaches. They also need a plan for dealing with breaches that do occur. Individuals can take steps to secure their personal information by using strong passwords and being careful of phishing attempts.

9 ways to protect yourself from a privacy breach

Here are 9 steps to protect yourself if you suspect your personal data has been compromised by a privacy breach.

Change passwords: You should change passwords on any accounts that were affected by the breach. For each account, use strong passwords that are unique.

Monitoring your accounts: Monitor your bank, credit card and other financial accounts regularly for any suspicious transactions.

To place a fraud alarm on your credit report, contact one of the major credit bureaus (Experian Equifax or TransUnion). It will be more difficult for someone else to open new accounts under your name.

A credit freeze is a blocking of credit reports that makes it harder for anyone to open new accounts under your name.

Phishing attempts should be avoided

Two-factor authentication is recommended: If possible, use two-factor authentication to protect your online accounts.

You can monitor your Social Security Number: Seek out if you have used your Social Security Number to apply for credit cards or other services.

Contact companies: If a company or organization is responsible for the privacy breach, contact them to find out if they offer any support or services to affected persons.

Be educated: Keep up-to-date about privacy issues and ways to protect yourself. Register for privacy-related newsletters and read online privacy guides.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

The federal privacy watchdog says Canada Post is breaking the law by gleaning information from the outsides of envelopes and packages to help build marketing lists that it rents to businesses.

The office of privacy commissioner Philippe Dufresne says information collected for the marketing program includes data about where individuals live and what type of online shopping they do, based on who sends them packages.

The commissioner found Canada Post had not obtained authorization from individuals to indirectly collect such personal information.

Full article

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[violent138]

Clark Kent faces about a hundred ethical dilemmas a day, but the one he'll never get used to is accidentally finding out that someone-- sometimes random strangers, sometimes his close friends-- has a serious health condition with x-ray vision, smell, or his hearing and having to figure if he should tell them, and how.

[soymikki]

Comic about Serizawa's Autistic Stare Swag and Reigen's ability to notice things but not know what they mean until he panics about it <3

Serizawa's thoughts summarized: hm, Reigen-san seems a bit stressed. Is he nervous about something? he usually only gets this sweaty when he's stuck thinking about one thing over and over...

[allthegeopolitics]

Canada's privacy commissioner is teaming up with his U.K. counterpart to investigate a data breach discovered last year at 23andMe. Philippe Dufresne's office says the joint investigation with U.K. Information Commissioner John Edwards will aim to determine the scope of the October 2023 breach at the direct-to-consumer genetic testing company. They will also look into whether 23andMe had proper safeguards to protect the highly sensitive information it handled and whether the company adequately notified regulators and affected individuals about the breach.

Continue Reading.

[gerardpilled]

Gerard Way uncle reveal

[duchessofostergotlands]

A baby could have seen something like this was coming

[teddybasmanov]

You know how it is.

[pkochetkov]

i may have found something accidentally…

MORE BABY HUGHES BROTHERS!!!

ur welcome btw. it’s literally 4:30 am rn be grateful

edit: there’s more. i should literally be sleeping

[ell-begins]

being mad at an actor for something they have done is so so valid, you can be upset, you can be annoyed, but literally wishing death on someone? That makes you a horrible person, full stop. Publicly hating on people is pathetic in the first place, but constantly harassing someone, telling them you wish they would die, essentially telling someone to fucking kill themselves?? That makes you a terrible person, that makes you no better than the person you are hating on

you can bitch in private, everyone gossips, everyone talks and bitches and complains, and that’s fine, that’s normal. What is not normal is obsessing over an actor and persistently putting them down. actors are real people too, they are affected by what you say about them, they have feelings and get upset, just like you do.

I genuinely do not care how much you hate an actor, you are the problem if you do this - actors don’t deserve to be abused just because some people can’t have some decorum and respect

[silver-dragonborn]

Alicent being more concerned about her reputation and trying to convince her grieving and traumatized daughter that she didn't know what she saw last night will never fail to drive me up the fucking wall.

[theemeraldforesthideout]

"What're ya buyin' stranger?"

(The guy had been rock climbing, but from a distance he gave the feeling of either a travelling RPG salesman or... a walking refrigerator)

[porgthespacepenguin]

Your Discord server may be compromised

Hi folks,

As some of you may already be aware, a great many Discord servers have recently been revealed to have been compromised by a group of degenerates intent on stealing and selling private data.

These assholes join Discord servers, disguise bots as inactive users and just scrape all the content they can find. Both open servers and servers with invites findable on the web are targeted, but it's possible that smaller, private Discord servers may be affected.

I encourage all of you to check if you are a member of a server which might have been compromised. Why? Because the data these bastards collect is meant to build a database of users. A lot of people share data online that could easily see them profiled, doxxed or at worst, targeted. So you do NOT want your data ending up in their hands. And if it already is, you ought to know.

So how can you find out if a server has been compromised? Fairly simple:

On Discord, go to "User Settings" > Advanced and turn on "Developer mode".

2. Next, right click on the icon of the Discord server you want to check.

3. Click on Copy server ID. This is the unique numerical identifier of the server.

4. Go to https://spy.pet/servers and paste the server ID. This will tell you the current status of their spying:

the server is not in the database (best case scenario)

the server is in the database, but not yet infiltrated

the server in the database, and already compromised

5. Please contact the mods for the relevant server and let them know what you found. This is especially important for medium to small servers, who might want to implement new restrictions in the future: - Disable permanent, non-expiring invites; - Restrict discussion channels to users verified as humans by a mod; - etc.

However, be aware that on large, public server this is essentially useless. Just assume that everything you write on such a server has been and/or will be scrapped in the future, and act accordingly.

Stay safe out there, people.

[minecraftbookshelf]

Watching Mogswamp’s SOS episode one and like, the excitement over two tall flowers is so real.

I’ve been playing primarily superflat since I got access to Java and the literal first thing I did when I joined a server was steal a sunflower.

[inluvwcaitvi]

i wonder how many people know/realize that jinx sneaking up on cait in the shower (ep. 9) could 100% literally be considered (at least borderline) sexual assault/harassment (even if jinx’s intentions and goals and wtv else obv aren’t sexual at all), nvm the fact that we don’t know if jinx even let cait dress herself BY herself

[vavuska]

Seems that EA is now allegedly accused of a mayor privacy violation, having used tracking tools on The Sims FreePlay app to secretly gather and transmit players’ personal information to Facebook for advertising purposes. This data potentially includes unique Facebook IDs, which can be used to match players’ in-game activities to their individual Facebook profiles. Attorneys suspect that these potential data-sharing practices may violate a federal privacy law and are now gathering players to take action.

So, there are at least two class action against EA, because it seems to collect data from players using the Meta Pixel software to harness data from players and sell it to the Meta company, who owns Instagram, Facebook and other social networks.

It would be interesting to learn if this allegations are true and how this would be seen in the eyes of GDPR, European Regulation 679/2016, which allows the processing of personal data only with consent given by the data subjects and also in the context of (online) games.

Consent in the context of the GDPR must be understood as an unambiguous indication of an informed and freely given choice by the data subject, relating to specific processing activities. The burden of proof that these criteria are fulfilled falls upon the controller (i.e., the game developer).

Google Play list the privacy condition of EA for its games, including The Sims Freeplay. Basically EA claims to use players data only to give them "better game experience", which seems vague but not less legit. The only less transparent thing I noticed is that the instructions to opt out of targeted marketing of in-game ads are in English and not in Italian: downloading the game, players allows EA to share their account information with third-party partners to customize advertising experience, which is basically all app developers do, but it's weird that the instruction to opt out doesn't have been translated at all!

This is not the first time EA is accused of, well, unethical commercial practice, since EA has been sentenced to pay fines by Austrian (2023) and Belgian (2018) civil court, because their FIFA loot boxes violated local gambling laws.

Moreover, it's important to notice that in January 2023, the European Parliament adopted a report calling for harmonized EU rules to achieve better player protection in the online video game sector.

The Parliament called for greater transparency from developers about in-game purchases: player should be aware of the type of content before starting to play and during the game. Also, players should be informed on the probabilities in loot box mechanisms, including information in plain language about what algorithms are devised to achieve.

The Parliament further stressed that the proposed legislation should assess whether an obligation to disable in-game payments and loot boxes mechanisms by default or a ban on paid loot boxes should be proposed to protect minors, avoid the fragmentation of the single market and ensure that consumers benefit from the same level of protection, no matter of their place of residence.

The Parliament highlighted problematic practices, including exploiting cognitive biases and vulnerabilities of consumers through deceptive design and marketing, using layers of virtual currencies to mask/distort real-world monetary costs, and targeting loot boxes and manipulative practices towards minors.