Hacker News with Generative AI: Data Collection

Hundreds of smartphone apps are monitoring users through their microphones (the-independent.com)
Hundreds of apps and games are monitoring smartphone users through their microphones.

Privacy, Mobile Security, Smartphones, Data Collection

48 points by macawfish 12 days ago | 18 comments

Finding Things the Government Might Know About You (nytimes.com)
Two reporters spent over a month compiling and analyzing information about the reams of data the U.S. government collects about Americans.

Privacy, Government Surveillance, Data Collection, Journalism

58 points by anticorporate 13 days ago | 15 comments

Perplexity CEO says browser will track everything users do online to sell ads (techcrunch.com)
Perplexity CEO says its browser will track everything users do online to sell ‘hyper personalized’ ads

Privacy, Advertising, Browsers, Data Collection

39 points by healsdata 14 days ago | 3 comments

Microsoft Is Building a Database of Every Windows 11 User's Online Behaviors (techdirt.com)
Last year Microsoft announced that it was bringing a new feature to its under-performing Windows 11 OS dubbed “Recall.”

Privacy, Windows 11, Microsoft, Operating Systems, Data Collection

17 points by NotInOurNames 18 days ago | 1 comments

The Web Is Broken – Botnet Part 2 (wildeboer.net)
I guess you have all heard about the growing problem of AI companies trying to aggressively collect whatever data they can get their hands on to train their models. This has caused an explosive surge in web crawlers relentlessly hitting servers big and small. But who runs these crawlers? Turns out — it could be you!

AI, Web Scraping, Data Collection, Privacy

411 points by todsacerdoti 19 days ago | 274 comments

Trump Halts Data Collection on Drug Use, Maternal Mortality, Climate Change, Etc (propublica.org)
By slashing teams that gather critical data, the administration has left the federal government with no way of understanding if policies are working — and created a black hole of information whose consequences could ripple out for decades.

Politics, Data Collection, Government, Public Health, Climate Change

25 points by hn_acker 21 days ago | 2 comments

Trump, Doge Are Trying to Get Around Privacy Laws to Gather Your Personal Info (rollingstone.com)
Across the federal government, Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has gained access to untold volumes of data containing the personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans.

Privacy, Politics, Data Collection, Government

39 points by leotravis10 30 days ago | 13 comments

TV is watching you – Companies inventing new ways to make money off your data (vox.com)
Roku, Amazon, and practically every company in the streaming business are inventing new ways to make money off your data.

Privacy, Streaming, Data Collection, Technology, Business

64 points by rmason 41 days ago | 33 comments

How Google tracks Android device users before they've even opened an app (theregister.com)
Research from a leading academic shows Android users have advertising cookies and other gizmos working to build profiles on them even before they open their first app.

Privacy, Android, Data Collection, Advertising

95 points by owendarko 66 days ago | 57 comments

Mozilla Clarifies Firefox Data Collection with New Terms of Use (howtogeek.com)

Privacy, Firefox, Mozilla, Data Collection

8 points by cebert 70 days ago | 0 comments

Ask HN: Why does my iPhone show me ads relevant to a dinner conversation? (ycombinator.com)
Last night — for the second day in a row — I had a dinner-table conversation with my iPhone 16 in my pocket AND with microphone access "off" for essentially all apps including various Google apps and Facebook. Later, Facebook showed me ads relating to dinner-conversation topics.

Privacy, iPhone, Facebook, Advertising, Data Collection

6 points by dctoedt 95 days ago | 10 comments

Google loses in court, faces trial for collecting data on users who opted out (arstechnica.com)
A federal judge this week rejected Google's motion to throw out a class-action lawsuit alleging that it invaded the privacy of users who opted out of functionality that records a users' web and app activities.

Privacy, Lawsuits, Google, Data Collection, User Data

57 points by baal80spam 119 days ago | 4 comments

VW Group Collects Vehicle Movement Data (twitter.com)

Data Privacy, Automotive, Volkswagen, Data Collection

148 points by Luc 130 days ago | 133 comments

Web Crawler and Scraper for AI (spider.cloud)
Spider offers the finest data collecting solution. Engineered for speed and scalability, it allows you to elevate your AI projects.

Web Crawling, AI, Data Collection, Software, Tools

8 points by catskindleyou 140 days ago | 4 comments

BeReal: The app that won't take no for an answer (noyb.eu)
Today, noyb has filed a complaint against the social media platform BeReal over the latest “dark pattern” to get consent. When people open the app, they are confronted with a pop-up asking them to say “yes” or “no” to the use of their personal data for advertising purposes. So far so good, but BeReal wants to force a specific choice: if users click “accept”, they will never see the consent banner again.

Privacy, Social Media, Data Collection, User Experience, Dark Patterns

8 points by dotcoma 148 days ago | 0 comments

Why is my air fryer spying on me? We reveal the smart devices gathering data (which.co.uk)
Which? research has found evidence of excessive smart device surveillance - from air fryers demanding permission to listen in on conversations and sharing data with TikTok, to TVs wanting to know users’ exact locations at all times

Privacy, Smart Devices, Consumer Reports, Surveillance, Data Collection

7 points by gnabgib 174 days ago | 0 comments

Ask HN: I collect IP address of users, but do not store it. Am I GDPR compliant? (ycombinator.com)
For a side project of mine, I collect the IP address of users, log it to my server where the country of the user is identified(using ipinfo.io in the backend) and is saved in the database. Since I'm not storing the IP address as such, am I GDPR compliant? Do I need to add a consent banner?

GDPR, Privacy, Data Collection, Law, Security

7 points by rishikeshs 188 days ago | 27 comments

License Plate Readers Are Creating a US-Wide Database of More Than Just Cars (wired.com)
From Trump campaign signs to Planned Parenthood bumper stickers, license plate readers around the US are creating searchable databases that reveal Americans’ political leanings and more.

Privacy, Surveillance, Data Collection, Politics, Technology

61 points by walterbell 192 days ago | 24 comments

Russia blocked OONI Explorer, a large open dataset on Internet censorship (ooni.org)
As of 11th September 2024, Russia has blocked one of our platforms: OONI Explorer.

Internet Censorship, Russia, Open Data, Data Collection

5 points by pera 226 days ago | 0 comments

Leaked pitch deck proves that your phone is listening to what you say (phonearena.com)

Privacy, Smartphones, Data Collection

6 points by mikece 248 days ago | 0 comments

In Leak, Facebook Partner Brags About Listening to Your Phone's Microphone to S (futurism.com)

Privacy, Facebook, Data Collection

93 points by todsacerdoti 249 days ago | 45 comments

CMG pitch deck on listening to your conversations to target ads (gizmodo.com)