privacy

With New Patents Facebook Brings Us One Step Close to a Dystopian Future

This year Facebook filed two very interesting patents in the US. One was a patent for emotion recognition technology; which recognises human emotions through facial expressions and so can therefore assess what mood we are in at any given time-happy or anxious for example. This can be done either by a webcam or through a phone cam. The technology is relatively straight forward. Artificially intelligent driven algorithms analyses and then deciphers facial expressions, it then matches the duration and intensity of the expression with a corresponding emotion. Take contempt for example.

CIA-Backed Firm Touted Social Media Surveillance of Students to Sell Services to Police

Emails obtained by Lucy Parsons Labs reveal that Geofeedia touted social media surveillance of middle and high school students by its suburban Chicago police customers in an effort to sell their services to Evanston police.
Geofeedia provides law enforcement with tools to monitor social media use by mapping location and other data. It has received funding from the investment arm of the CIA, In-Q-Tel.

Google is Tracking You Even When Your Phone’s ‘Location History’ is Off

Android and iPhone users may be under the impression that Google is not tracking their location data if they’ve turned off “Location History” on their devices.
After all, the Google support page says, “With Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored.”
But a new Associated Press investigation showed how that is not really the case. Some Google apps still automatically collect users’ location markers—information it can use to benefit its advertising revenue. To wit: