Technology Pill

This week we're discussing borders, biometrics and more, as we take a look at what kind of surveillance you might experience if you're traveling to the World Cup, or to the EU schengen area. Acronyms - ETIAS: European Travel Information and Authorisation System (new for visa exempt; no biometrics - run by a central unit operated by frontex; this is where manual checks carried out if automa...

This week we're joined by Bill Goodwin, investigations editor at Computer Weekly and award-winning journalist, to discuss Europol's secret shadow IT system — and what it tells us about how law enforcement agencies evade oversight. Links Computer Weekly investigation: https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366642525/They-protect-the-law-while-breaking-it-Inside-Europols-shadow-IT-system We Are...

This is the third and final edition of our series on young peoples’ digital health and human rights. Today we’re talking to Alberta Nadutey - a research officer for working on the Digital Health and Rights project about how young people in Ghana interact with digital health, and Minh Anh a young person from the Vietnam community advisory team about her participation in the research in Vietnam, and...

This week we're talking to Natalia Andrade and Laura Grisales Silva from Fundación Karisma about dating app data, the commodification of intimacy, and talking to Colombian young people about their experiences. Fundación Karisma are a member of the ⁠Digital Health and Rights Project⁠ . Links More from Fundación Karisma: https://info.karisma.org.co/ 2018 Grindr shared HIV status and more: https:...

This week we're talking to Joan Musenya about life in Kenya as a young person - from mobile money, to data protection, to government surveillance. Joan is a member of the Kenyan Community Advisory Team (K-CAT) helping to steer the Digital Health and Rights Project . Links - Digital Health and Rights Project report: https://digitalhealthandrights.com/resource-library/report-paying-the-costs-of-...

This week we're joined by Professor Peter Asaro from Stop Killer Robots, and Frank Slijper, Arms trade project lead at PAX to discuss military uses of AI, including Anthropic's stand-off with the US Department of Defense. Please note this podcast was recorded on the 20th March.**Links**Stop Killer Robots: https://www.stopkillerrobots.org/stop-killer-robots/Pax: https://paxforpeace.nl/who-we-are/or...

This week we're speaking to Professor Edgar Whitley - an expert on the design and implementation of ID systems. Links- More about Edgar: https://www.lse.ac.uk/people/edgar-whitley- More about the London School of Economics and ID: https://www.lse.ac.uk/research/research-impact-case-studies/scrapping-costly-controversial-proposals-identity-cards- Gus and Edgar's joint publications: - Global...

This week we're discussing what happens when AI is trained on a dead person's data to bring them back as a chatbot. Find out more from Gus and Caitlin, and their guest James Muldoon, Reader in Management at Essex Business School and Research Associate at the Oxford Internet Institute, about the ethics, the grief, and the companies making it happen. Links - https://jamesmuldoon.org - https:...

This week we're talking to Ben Wizner from the American Civil Liberties Union about what the ACLU have been doing in the first year of Trump's second term, what the difference is between this time and last time, and how an earth they can keep up. Links ACLU report: https://www.aclu.org/campaigns-initiatives/aclu-vs-trump Kyllo case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States Unde...

Join us as we discuss Border Externalisation - what is it, and why does it drive violence at the border? We're joined by two fantastic guests - Dan from the Border Violence Monitoring Network to discuss the EU's Border Externalisation, and Kathy from Al Otro Lado to discuss the America's. Border Violence Monitoring Network’s work BVMN's website https://borderviolence.eu/ Surveillan...

This week we're discussing the end of support (kind of) for Windows 10 - find out more from Chris and Tom about what you should worry about and what you can do now Windows 10 is officially (mostly) End of Life. Links - Read more about your options: https://privacyinternational.org/news-analysis/5686/end-line-windows-10 - Learn more about PI's position on the Cyber Resilience Act: https://p...

This week we talk to Ilia and Serhat about the creeping militarisation of technology, and with it our societies. Links All of our militarisation work: https://privacyinternational.org/campaigns/militarisation-of-tech What is Militarisation of Tech?: https://privacyinternational.org/long-read/5668/what-militarisation-tech Key Concerns Regarding Governance in the Era of Militarisation of Tech: https...

This week we're back to discussing stories that have been in the news over the past few months - in particular the stories that have stayed with us and kept us thinking about them. Links - Expansion of ICE biometrics - ⁠Dean Cain joins ICE ⁠ - ICE access to medicaid data - Industry Day at the US Customs and Border Protection - Inquiry by Microsoft - Investor concerns about Microsoft use by Isr...

This week Gus and Caitlin are rewilding the Internet with Maria Farrell. What do you want using the internet or your devices to feel like? What can ecology teach us about unwinding corporate capture of the digital commons? How do we take back our home online? Links - Maria's original rewilding article, with Robin Berjon, in Noema: https://www.noemamag.com/we-need-to-rewild-the-internet/ - Mari...

This week we're talking to Martha Dimitratou from ReproUncensored, and PI's own Sarah Simms about the international landscape for reproductive rights, and including barriers to access to reproductive healthcare, including abortion; and how big tech are collaborating with or supporting tactics to make access to healthcare harder. Links - Learn more about Repro uncensored: https://www.reprou...

This week we speak to Jen Persson, Director of Defend Digital Me, about the technologies being deployed in schools in England and Wales. Links: Read more from Defend Digital Me: https://defenddigitalme.org/research/ PI's work on Securitising Education: https://privacyinternational.org/campaigns/securitising-education 25 Years old - The Database State report: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/da...

This week we're talking to Gus about his experience being targeted by the Russian government, how it felt at the time, and then how it felt when he found out the government may be trying to undermine the tool he uses to keep himself and his family safe. Read more about Privacy International's challenge against the UK's secret TCN powers.

Join us this week as we discuss stories that have been in the news that we're still wondering about, obsessing about, and are as confused about as you are. Links * 2G phone networks are being shutdown; read the Rest of World story - PI's Low Cost Tech research - Listen to our podcast on connectivity and vertical mergers * Google anti-trust case and potential break up; read the Washington P...

This week we're discussing the 2024 incident in which a malformed update of CrowdStrike Falcon caused 8.5 million computers running Microsoft Windows to crash. Links - Read our in-depth article about what happened and what it tells us about the security and robustness of the modern internet - Find more about the 911 outages across several US states - CrowdStrike's own review of the problem...

This week we're speaking to Eduardo from Transparencia Electoral about modern elections all over the world that they've observed, and Vladimir from R3D about the 2024 elections in Mexico. We find out more about the technologies that are at use in elections all over the world. Links General - PI's technology, data and elections checklist - Transparencia Electoral's report - Transpar...

This week we're talking to Peter Bloom from Rhizomatica and Lũa Cruz from IDEC about internet connectivity, what drives social media companies to expand into internet provision, and what an earth is going on with Starlink in the amazon rainforest. Links: - Read PI's research: https://privacyinternational.org/long-read/5409/decoding-vertical-tech-integrations-why-do-they-matter - Learn more...

This week we're talking about facial recognition in the UK. Our research shows that members of parliament (MPs) don't know as much as they should about facial recognition use in the UK. So, what is going on? And what do MPs need to be aware of? Links: Write to your MP: https://pvcy.org/endofprivacypod Our previous research about how much MPs know about facial recognition: https://privacyinternatio...

This week we take a deep dive into the issues around the rights and privacy of the global disability community in the digital age. We're joined by Rosemary Kayess - Vice Chair of the UN Committee on the Convention of the Rights for Persons with Disabilities, and the Disability Discrimination commissioner of the Australian Human Rights Commission, Marc Workman - CEO of the World Blind Union (WBU),...

This week we're talking to Matthew Hodgson, one of the founders of Matrix - a network for secure, decentralised communication, and CEO/CTO of Element - a communications platform built using Matrix, about the regulatory environment matrix lives in, the difficulty of and the passion for interoperable communications at matrix, and the complications of building an encrypted communications platform bot...

This week we're talking about a backdoor inserted into a popular Linux file compression tool, which had the potential to massively undermine the security of vast swathes of the internet. What happened? How did it happen? And how was it thwarted? Links - Andres Freund's Mastodon - where he revealed the backdoor: https://mastodon.social/@AndresFreundTec - Read more in Ars Technica's arti...