Apple’s glitzy developer conference this June, WWDC, gave us our annual peek at the latest and greatest software the company is bringing to our devices, from iOS 15 to major updates to macOS, iPadOS, and more.

This year, as with other years, privacy improvements across Apple’s operating systems were front-and-center. Building on its anti-tracking pop-up boxes introduced last year that targeted cross-app tracking, iOS will now allow users to block email senders from tracking whether or not people are opening their emails.

Open tracking is one of the few ways people who send email are able to understand how well…

Earlier this year, Apple announced sweeping changes to their privacy policies, which sent shockwaves through the online advertising world. Beginning with iOS 14.5, which was released in April, Apple implemented Ad Tracking Transparency (ATT), a feature that requires apps that wish to track users for advertising purposes to ask for their permission first. Google has taken baby steps in the same direction with their Android OS and took a big step by moving to phase out tracking cookies. Privacy laws like California’s CCPA are discouraging the gathering of tracking data, too.

It’s hard to overstate how big a deal these…

Just say that we “fix” Facebook, making it possible for you to take your data and go to a rival service, one that respects your privacy, pays its taxes, and isn’t bent on enclosing all digital spaces into its pervasive surveillance walled garden.

It’s an idyllic vision, but our problems are just getting started.

When you take a Facebook post with you to a new platform, do you get to take other peoples’ comments, too? On the one hand, it sure feels like “things people said to me about my stuff” is part of “my data,” but at the same…

When Apple released its new anti-tracking update this week, experts and commentators appeared certain it was terrible news for Facebook. The update asks iPhone owners if they want the apps they use to track them across the web. And given how Facebook’s ad business relies on tracking, this seemed devastating. “It’s certain to hurt,” Politico said. Revenue drops are coming, analysts predicted. Facebook itself disclosed the threat in financial filings.

But whether Apple’s update does much — or any — damage to Facebook’s ad business is far from settled. With third-party tracking limited, advertisers will still need to spend money…

There’s a new privacy sheriff in town. His name is ATT and he rode in Monday on a horse named iOS 14.5. He likes apps just fine but not ones that pick your pockets for bits and pieces of data debris that he can share with his posse.

I don’t think it’s stretching the analogy too far to say that Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) policy for app developers is one of the most talked-about and potentially feared updates since Wyatt Earp strolled into Tombstone.

Now that it’s here, though, I’m astounded at all the misinformation and confusion surrounding this…

Well over a decade’s worth of posts, photos, likes, groups, and comments. That’s my Facebook data, which, as of today, I have even more options for collecting and transferring to other platforms.

I imagine myself downloading it all, piling it onto a rickety wooden cart, hitching it to my trusty donkey IO, and then pulling it across the digital terrain to Google Docs. Once there, I dump it all in, and then, taking one rueful look back at the massive, disorganized pile, I slam the shed doors on it and walk away.

Facebook’s acceleration of data transfer tools and options…

In March, the president of Rekor Systems Inc., Robert Berman, told investors that 2020 was a “transformative year.” The surveillance tech company’s platform, Rekor One, which converts regular cameras into automated license plate readers (ALPR), had proven alluring to cash-strapped state governments during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Oklahoma, which has seen its tax revenue plummet alongside falling oil prices, announced a statewide rollout of Rekor One in November to track uninsured motorists. …

Too often, facial recognition feels like a mysterious, society-pervading technology that is too complex for individuals to understand or combat. We read about scary new applications of the tech and its increasingly concerning role in determining who gets a job, who gets a loan, or even who gets arrested. Because facial recognition is often mobilized by governments and massive corporations, though, it’s easy for individuals to feel powerless in the face of these technologies.

But we’re not powerless. New laws, new tech, and new collective action movements are giving consumers the tools we need to fight back against indiscriminate or…