European Parliament Imposes Mass Electronic Surveillance Regulation After a Majority Votes it Down Three Times

 That title is polemical, okay? But it’s morally right.

If anybody cares, what actually happened is that an extension of the European Union’s mass surveillance regulation known as Chat Control 1.0 failed to make it out of the European Parliament twice in March. 

Unable to summon a clear parliamentary majority, advocates (mostly in the centre-Right European People’s Party (EPP)) turned to the European Council, which adopted the failed Chat Control 1.0 renewal on July 2nd. The Council’s position hardens automatically into law unless the European Parliament can summon an absolute majority to stop it. 

To forestall any such majority from forming, the EPP on Tuesday moved with member state backing for urgent procedure, angling to force their scheme through in the last days before the summer holiday, after many MEPs had already left. The parliament narrowly approved the urgent procedure, and in consequence there were not enough votes to stop Chat Control 1.0 when it came for a vote today. Hours ago, a majority of 314 MEPs voted to stop Chat Control against the wishes of the Council, while a minority of 276 voted to let it happen. Because 314 is less than the absolute majority of 361, Chat Control 1.0 passed even though most MEPs present didn’t want it to.

It was a sleazy vote, not least because it’s far from clear this procedural manoeuvre was even appropriate in this case. Also, electronic surveillance is bad, but if we are honest with ourselves this battle was already lost.

Chat Control 1.0 was first instated in 2021 as a temporary exemption to the ePrivacy Directive of the EU, allowing messaging services and online platforms to scan chats and other electronic communications for child sexual abuse material. The exemption expired in April, but various platforms have continued their surveillance with no legal basis in the intervening months. Now their formal permission to scan our private communications has been restored and extended through April 2028. We are, in other words, merely returning to the prior regime.

Chat Control 1.0 is a temporary stopgap while the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council try to negotiate their Child Sexual Abuse Regulation, or Chat Control 2.0. As envisioned by the Commission, this permanent law would not merely allow platforms to scan private communications for child sex abuse material, but require them to do so; would require additional AI-assisted automated scanning not only for known child pornography but also for such vaguely defined activities as ‘grooming’; and would extend scanning to end-to-end encrypted services like Signal via mandatory monitoring on the client side. This insane proposal has been watered down over the years, in large part because of parliamentary opposition, but it’s coming in some form. We’re getting Chat Control 2.0 before Chat Control 1.0 expires, and Chat Control 2.0 will be at least somewhat worse....<<<Read More>>>...

SignalTrace: Licence plate cameras will soon track phones, digital wearables and even your pet

 SignalTrace is a surveillance platform that is being marketed to law enforcement and government agencies in the United States. It allows the collection of data from various personal digital devices, including smartphones and smartwatches, carried or worn by people associated with a particular vehicle.

The goal of the technology is to “bridge the gap between vehicle and occupant,” creating a unique electronic fingerprint to follow people’s movements and associations.

They are no longer interested in tracking your car. They are interested in tracking you.

In 2024, a patent was granted to Leonardo, a leading global aerospace, defence, security and surveillance company, for an electronic detection system designed to help law enforcement identify people of interest using the signatures their electronic devices emit, such as fitness trackers, RFID tags and local signals from their mobile phones.

This technology underpins the ELSAG SignalTrace Intelligence System, which Leonardo is marketing to police, border security and other government agencies in the United States.

SignalTrace “bridges license plate recognition data with sensor-captured device identifiers – such as those from mobile phones, Bluetooth wearables, and vehicle systems – to create a unique, trackable ‘electronic fingerprint’ for investigative use,” according to an advertisement flyer.

The idea is to correlate these unique device identifiers to a vehicle license plate, 404 Media said. Putting it more succinctly, The Drive said, “License plate cameras will soon track phones, wearables, infotainment and even your pets.”...<<<Read More>>>...

The EU is pushing “Driver-Monitoring Cameras”. Here’s why.

 From July of this year, every vehicle registered in the European Union will be required to have driver-monitoring cameras in place. That’s not every new car manufactured, but every car registered.

The “Advanced Driver Distraction Warning” (ADDW) cameras are designed to monitor driver behaviour for signs of potential distraction, and then set off a warning if those signs are detected.

It was first announced in 2024 as part of the EU’s “Vision Zero” plan to eliminate car-related deaths by 2050.

But it’s not really about that.

It’s never about what they say it’s about.

Here’s where this goes…

Firstly, kiss successful insurance claims goodbye.

Any accident will be blamed on “sub-optimal driver performance”, and that time you checked your phone while stopped at a light, or your hands moved briefly from the 10-and-2 or your eyeline wasn’t correctly picked up by the mirror sensor, will be used to blame your fender-bender on you.

This will create a change in accident reporting statistics, spiking “driver error” as the cause for anything and everything that goes wrong on the road.

This, in turn, will kick off a big “people drive dangerously” propaganda push.

Headlines like “ADDW data harvesting has shown up 80% of us might be driving more recklessly than we think”, or “most veteran drivers slip in to bad habits, reports show” will appear.

Then comes the new legislation to act on this totally fabricated problem.

What is it? It’s re-certification....<<Read More>>>...

UK government has been spying on electric vehicle drivers and passengers using mobile phone data

For two years, the UK’s Department for Transport was spying on electric vehicle drivers and their passengers, both children and adults, using their mobile phone data to get insights into their behaviour.

Vehicles are a core component of the Internet of Things (“IoT”). Together with the AI and other technologies, IoT is part of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Modern connected cars are equipped with sensors, software and communication technologies that enable them to exchange data with other vehicles, infrastructure, devices and the internet. With 5G connectivity and advanced data analytics, vehicles are evolving into mobile data hubs, making them essential nodes in the broader IoT system. And the integration of IoT in vehicles contributes, in particular, to the development of autonomous driving and smart cities.

As Global Data explains, “While sensors and connectivity are essential enablers for IoT, the real value that is derived from these processes comes from the data. In today’s automotive landscape, data has become a strategic asset … Data has moved from being a byproduct to a core driver of innovation, becoming essential for the progress of autonomous driving, connected cars and AI-enabled features.”...<<<Read More>>>....

The digital panopticon: License plate readers are tracking you everywhere you go

 A nationwide network of automated license plate readers (ALPRs), primarily from companies like Flock Safety, is capturing and storing detailed location data on billions of American drivers.

These systems, deployed in thousands of communities, record not just license plates but also vehicle make, model, color and unique features, creating a digital "fingerprint" for each car.

Privacy advocates and civil liberties organizations like the ACLU warn this constitutes a form of mass surveillance, creating permanent records of citizens' movements without suspicion of a crime. Security vulnerabilities have been exposed, with live camera feeds and real-time vehicle data from some systems leaking onto the public internet without password protection.

The technology, funded by prominent Silicon Valley investors, raises significant Fourth Amendment concerns about unreasonable search and seizure, with calls for stricter regulation and data retention limits....<<<Read More>>>...

UK Online Safety Act is about global censorship – and American lawmakers are noticing

 The UK’s Online Safety Act is about censorship rather than safety. It requires age checks and algorithm changes that are leading to over-censorship of content.

The law’s scope of “harmful content” is subjective and can result in the blocking of legal content, with reports of censorship already emerging in the UK, including the blocking of footage and subreddits.

Censorship being imposed by the Act has caught the attention of US lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans. Democrat Senator Ron Wyden and Republican House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan have both expressed concerns about the impact the Act has on free expression and First Amendment rights in the US....<<<Read More>>>...

Food for Thought #741

 

AI-powered radar can now spy on your phone calls from 10 feet away

 The technology hinges on millimeter-wave radar — the same high-frequency signals used in self-driving cars, motion detectors and 5G networks. When a person speaks into a phone, the earpiece emits subtle vibrations imperceptible to the human eye. 

The radar system captures these minute movements, which are then processed by a modified version of Whisper, an AI speech-recognition model originally designed for clear audio.

Rather than retraining the entire AI system, researchers used a "low-rank adaptation" technique, tweaking just 1 percent of the model's parameters to optimize it for interpreting noisy radar data. The result? A system capable of reconstructing conversations with surprising — and unsettling — accuracy...<<<Read More>>>...

UK government covertly puts us all in a police lineup by using our passport photos for identification by facial recognition

The UK government has secretly been allowing police forces to search over 150 million passport and immigration database photos with Orwellian facial recognition technology.

The number of police mass facial recognition searches in passport and immigration databases is skyrocketing. Documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that the number of searches of the passport database surged from 2 in 2020 to 417 in 2023, and there was an almost sevenfold increase in searches of the immigration database from 16 in 2023 to 102 in 2024.

By using these databases as giant facial recognition watchlists, we are all at risk not only of profound invasions of privacy but misidentifications and injustice. It is the equivalent of the police secretly putting us all in a lineup of criminal suspects for identification without our knowledge.

In the video below, Big Brother Watch briefly explains what the UK government is surreptitiously doing and why it affects everyone with a passport and, possibly in the future, driving licences.

As one member of the public said, “We’re not far off from people being dragged out of their beds in the middle of the night because the computer has said they’ve done something, which they haven’t.”

Together with Privacy International, Big Brother Watch are calling for a suspension of facial recognition searches of the passport and immigration databases and has made preparations to pursue legal action against the Home Office and Metropolitan Police. You can learn more about their campaign to stop mass facial recognition surveillance and the associated legal action HERE.....<<<Read More>>>...

EU’s technocratic border control will be launched in October; it applies to all non-EU visitors

From 12 October, all visitors to all European Union countries will have their biometric data collected and stored by a centralised agency. This agency will not only collect data on our movements but will also collect data from the criminal and justice systems. In the future, it will also be collecting data from air carriers in advance on passengers.

On 30 July, the EU Commission published a press release about “the progressive start of operations of the EU’s Entry/Exit System (EES)” which will be launched on 12 October. This new EES will affect all non-EU nationals who travel to 29 European countries that make up the Schengen area.

“The EES is an advanced technological system that will digitally record the entries and exits of non-EU nationals … It will capture biometric data, such as fingerprints, facial image, and other travel information, gradually replacing the current system of passport stamping,” the press release states....<<<Read More>>>...

The Sinister Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill

 In 2023 Tony Blair and William Hague co-signed a report called A New National Purpose in which they reasoned: ‘With science and technology as our new national purpose, we can innovate rather than stagnate in the face of increasing technological change. This purpose must rise above political differences to achieve a new cross-party consensus that can survive any change of government.’

Now, just over a year into a Starmer-led administration, it is striking how many of Labour’s Bills are steroid-enhanced replicas of those proposed by previous Tory governments. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Bridget Phillipson’s inappropriately named Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. 

Alongside some measures similar to Boris Johnson’s 2022 Schools Bill, its pernicious Clause 4 enables much wider information-sharing through ‘consistent identifiers’ (CI) for every child. These will be assigned to children from birth, and the Department for Education (DfE) is presently trialling the use of their NHS number for this purpose.

Anyone who cares about children’s rights and the wise use and protection of personal data should be highly dubious of the kind of ‘wellbeing’ that this Bill looks set to advance....<<<Read More>>>...

Australian Senate rejects age verification for search engine users in surprise bipartisan push

 An urgent motion to block the rollout of mandatory age verification for search engine users has passed Australia's Senate with overwhelming cross-party support.

The motion, spearheaded by United Australia Party Senator Ralph Babet, stems from a recommendation by the federal eSafety Commissioner, who in early July urged the government to consider age verification requirements for users signed into search engines like Google and Bing. Verification methods under discussion included ID checks, biometric scanning, credit card authentication, parental vouching, AI-powered estimations or third-party verification services, raising immediate red flags for privacy advocates.

In a speech to the Senate on July 29, Babet acknowledged the importance of child safety but warned that the proposed measures posed a fundamental threat to Australians' civil liberties.

"Let me say from the outset that protecting children online is a moral imperative," he said. "Measures like safe-search filters for minors, better parental controls and the restriction of harmful content are of course welcome, but let's not kid ourselves – this is not about protecting children, it is about building a surveillance infrastructure under the cover of safety."...<<<Read More>>>....

Sacramento utility provider under fire for using SMART METERS as surveillance tools

 The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed a lawsuit against the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), accusing the public utility of conducting an unconstitutional mass surveillance program that has targeted tens of thousands of households over the past decade.

The lawsuit, which seeks to dismantle this invasive practice, highlights how SMUD's "smart meters" have been covertly transformed into tools of surveillance. This illegal surveillance disproportionately affected Asian American communities and violated the privacy rights of countless residents.

For over 10 years, SMUD has been sifting through the energy usage data of its 650,000 customers, flagging over 33,000 households as "suspicious" based on their electricity consumption. These tips, often generated without individualized suspicion or judicial oversight, have been routinely passed on to local law enforcement agencies.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed a lawsuit against the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), accusing the public utility of conducting an unconstitutional mass surveillance program that has targeted tens of thousands of households over the past decade.

The lawsuit, which seeks to dismantle this invasive practice, highlights how SMUD's "smart meters" have been covertly transformed into tools of surveillance. This illegal surveillance disproportionately affected Asian American communities and violated the privacy rights of countless residents.

For over 10 years, SMUD has been sifting through the energy usage data of its 650,000 customers, flagging over 33,000 households as "suspicious" based on their electricity consumption. These tips, often generated without individualized suspicion or judicial oversight, have been routinely passed on to local law enforcement agencies.

The EFF's legal filing reveals that SMUD analysts have sent detailed reports – including names, addresses and usage histories – to police departments. This effectively turns the utility into an arm of law enforcement....<<<Read More>>>....

Amazon’s AI wearable acquisition: Convenience or surveillance?

 Amazon acquired Bee, a startup specializing in voice-driven smart wristbands, signaling a move beyond smart speakers into always-listening wearables that record conversations for productivity tasks.

Bee's technology passively records speech unless muted, raising concerns about unintended audio capture and data security—especially under Amazon's ownership, given its mixed history with privacy (e.g., Ring camera controversies).

Companies like Meta, Apple and OpenAI are also investing in AI-powered wearables, betting on consumer willingness to trade privacy for convenience. Bee's $50 price makes it an affordable entry point, but risks remain with data integration.

While Bee currently allows data deletion and recording restrictions, critics fear Amazon's scale could weaken safeguards, prioritizing profit over privacy as seen in past tech industry practices.

The rise of AI wearables presents a societal choice between convenience and control, forcing consumers to weigh the benefits against potential erosion of personal privacy and corporate data dominance....<<<Read More>>>...

Austria advances controversial spyware law enabling government access to encrypted messaging apps

 Austria is on the brink of a major expansion of its surveillance powers, as its cabinet greenlights legislation that would allow law enforcement to infiltrate encrypted communications using spyware.

The cabinet proposed law, which targets widely used messaging platforms like WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram, would authorize the use of a tool known as source TKU (telecommunications surveillance at the source). The software enables authorities to bypass encryption by monitoring conversations directly on suspects' devices.

Under the newly approved legal framework, authorities can deploy malware known as the Bundestrojaner to intercept encrypted communications on mobile phones and computers even when individuals are not suspected of any crime, provided that all other investigative tools have been exhausted.

The amendments span several key laws, including the State Protection and Intelligence Service Act, the Security Police Act and the Telecommunications Act. Government documents outline two core aims: preventing serious constitutional threats that carry a potential sentence of at least 10 years, and enabling the monitoring of encrypted digital communication.

Karner promised that the use of spyware would be tightly regulated. A panel of three judges would have to approve any surveillance request and the number of individuals targeted annually is expected to remain between 25 and 30. Surpassing that limit would require mandatory reporting to Parliament. If encrypted surveillance exceeds 30 cases in one year, the Interior Minister must notify a permanent subcommittee of the National Council, Austria's lower house of Parliament...<<<Read More>>>....

EU digital identity wallet sparks privacy concerns amid rollout

 As the European Union (EU) prepares for the full-scale deployment of its Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet this fall, privacy advocates and experts are sounding the alarm over potential overreach in data collection and user manipulation.

The EUDI Wallet, currently in its testing phase, is designed to give EU citizens a single, secure platform to store and share digital credentials – from driver's licenses to medical records. This wallet will store digital versions of national ID cards, driving licenses, academic credentials and medical records, allowing users to authenticate themselves online and offline. The system, currently voluntary, is marketed as a way to reduce bureaucracy and enhance cross-border digital services. 

However, Henk Marsman, a researcher at Delft University of Technology and consultant at SonicBee, argued that without stringent safeguards, the initiative risks enabling excessive data harvesting by businesses and governments, undermining the very privacy it claims to protect. Henk warned that user control alone does not ensure privacy, as people can be easily manipulated by design tricks, dark patterns, or financial incentives—even when they believe they are making informed decisions.

"Even though I think I'm an autonomous being and I make informed decisions, I can be quite easily manipulated and influenced by nudging techniques, by dark patterns, or just by a five percent discount," Marsman said during the European Identity and Cloud Conference (EIC) in Berlin.

The issue, Marsman explained, lies in the incentives of "relying parties" – businesses and services that request identity verification. Many operate on data-driven models, creating a built-in motivation to demand more data than strictly needed.

"If the relying party wouldn't ask too much, we wouldn't have this risk. One of the challenges with relying parties is that they have a data-driven business model or at least some of them have, and that is the incentive to get more data off their users," Marsman continued...<<<Read More>>>...

How Engineered Dependency Erases Our Autonomy

Picture this: Your smartphone dies while you’re on a trip, and suddenly, you’re helpless—unable to navigate, pay, or even access your hotel reservation. 

This isn’t hypothetical; it’s our reality. According to DataReportal’s ‘Digital 2024 Global Overview Report‘ the average person now spends over 7 hours daily on digital devices, with 47% reporting anxiety when separated from their phones.

 What once was a minor inconvenience has now become a crisis, revealing how deeply we’ve integrated technology into our daily existence—from ordering coffee to proving our identity.

George Orwell envisioned a dystopia of forced submission, but he missed something crucial: people willingly surrendering their freedoms for convenience. As Shoshana Zuboff details in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, this willingness to trade privacy for convenience represents a fundamental shift in how power operates in the digital age. We don’t need Big Brother watching us—we invite surveillance into our homes through smart speakers, security cameras, and connected appliances, all in the name of making life easier.

We don’t just accept this surveillance; we’ve internalized it as a necessary trade-off. “Don’t worry,” we’re told, “your data’s safe, and you’ll get better recommendations and smarter services in return.” We’ve become so accustomed to being watched that we defend our watchers, developing an almost pathological attachment to the very systems that constrain us....<<<Read More>>>...

Fascism 2.0 – The Changing Face Of Social-Media Censorship

 Facebook make only about £34 a year from the average customer in the UK – a little under £3 a month (and that’s before costs), so clearly there is no head-room or motivation, for a human level of customer service or attention. The user is not the customer; rather, they are the product whose data is sold to advertisers.

Thus, users do not have a direct customer relationship with the platform. The network is not directly incentivised to “care” about the user before the advertiser. And no matter where you lie on the spectrum between “free speech absolutism” and “private entities have the right to censor any user”, with such low margins it is inevitable machine processing will have to be used to moderate posts and deal with the customer interface.

But it is a fact the customer processing and management capabilities Social Networks are now evolving is being utilised in a variety of ways beyond just moderation. And it is also true this automated processing is being done at scale and is now applied to every post every member makes. 68% of US voters are on Facebook. In the UK it’s 66% and France 73.2%. The figures are similar for every democratic nation in the West. So it is vitally important the applied rules should be politically neutral.


The power that exists within the ability to machine-process every users posts is far deeper and more profound than perhaps many realise. And while it can’t directly dictate what users write in their messages it has the capacity to fundamentally shape which messages gain traction.

Social Media services have become de-facto town squares and most would agree their corporate owners should avoid ever putting a hand on the scales and influencing politics.

Additionally as everyone who uses Facebook is aware, especially when it comes to politically sensitive topics, the system will qualify an individual’s reach; sometimes to an extreme degree. Or that user will simply be banned for a period of time, or banned from the network entirely.

So we can ask the question, since the social media corporations have so much censorship power, how do we know they aren’t engaging in unethical political interference? Can they be trusted with the responsibility?

I will return to this question, but it’s clear that trust in these corporations is deeply misplaced.

The pandemic woke many people up to the levels of control those in charge of our Social Media networks are imposing. They, write the rules to boost engagement for posts they favour, making certain individuals’ follower counts more valuable. Conversely, users who go against the grain (or against the establishment narrative) see their engagement subtly reduced or even tank, or they can be banned from the service entirely. And the evidence is that, somewhat contrary to the principles of democracy, hands have been very firmly placed on the scales at Facebook, Twitter and YouTube....<<<Read More>>>...

UK Ministers are Pushing for More Power to Snoop on Us.

 UK ministers are trying to rush through a new bill in parliament that if passed will strengthen the already over intrusive Investigatory Powers Act. The act, also known as the ‘Snoopers’ Charter which came into effect in 2016 allows State authorities to collect information about everything we do and say online and order private companies to store it.

The Act grants wide-ranging powers to “scoop up” and store all of our emails, texts, calls, location data and internet history, they can also hack into our phones and computers and create large ‘personal datasets’ on us – all without needing to suspect us of any criminal wrongdoing.

And they can do it in ‘bulk’, meaning to huge numbers of us at any one time according to Liberty the Human Rights Group who say that the information agencies can get their hands on paints an incredibly detailed picture of who we are, who we talk to, where we go and what we think.

It can reveal our health concerns, political views, religious beliefs, relationships and all of our movements – leaving nothing private. And by storing all the information in ‘personal datasets’ or hacking our devices and leaving them permanently damaged, they are putting our most sensitive personal data at risk of attack from others....<<<Read More>>>....

UK government funds and employs a “charity” which aims to disrupt and defund “disinformation” media outlets, globally

 On Tuesday, Big Brother Watch released documents that showed how the UK military supported Whitehall officials in monitoring the British public via the “Ministry of Truth.”

As well as the British Army’s 77th Brigade, the newly released documents show Royal Air Force (“RAF”) intelligence officers were also employed to spy on British citizens.

The documents show that at the same time, the UK government employed external contractors; one of which is the British not-for-profit Global Disinformation Index which has the goal of disrupting and defunding “disinformation sites.”

In January, Big Brother Watch released a report detailing secretive Whitehall units monitoring government critics’ speech online – including Members of Parliament, academics, journalists, human rights campaigners and the public – under the guise of combatting “misinformation.” The title of the report was ‘Ministry of Truth: the secretive government units spying on your speech’.

The ‘Ministry of Truth’ report also exposed the Government’s use of the British Army to scan their own citizens’ speech online, with exclusive testimony from a whistle-blower who worked in the “secretive information warfare machine”, the 77th Brigade.

Read more: 77th Brigade Exposed: The Secretive UK Military Unit spying on YOU if you can see through the lies, The Exposé, 31 January 2023

The documents released on Tuesday consist of emails and daily “Mis/Disinformation” reports produced by the 77th Brigade for the Cabinet Office. They show soldiers tracking narratives from Members of the UK Parliament and the corporate press. Big Brother Watch has requested months’ worth of these documents but “only a handful appear to have survived,” they said.

Other documents released on Tuesday consist of requests for military assistance from the Counter Disinformation Unit (“CDU”). These requests are called Military Aid to Civilian Authority (“MACA”) requests. At the time, the CDU was part of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport....<<<Read More>>>...