“Surveillance Society”

When Meta used superstar Kylie Jenner to promote its sleek new line of “spy glasses”, the social media company hoped the devices would reach the same broad acceptance that tablets and smartwatches have found before them.

But those plans have hit a snag in the UK, where venues from elite restaurants to popular pub chains have banned the £359 glasses in order to preserve the privacy of customers and staff.

Celebrated restaurateur Jeremy King, owner of London venues including Simpsons in the Strand, Arlington and The Park, said guests should not wear the recording glasses.

JEFFERSON, Ga. — Marci Bakely couldn’t understand how her ex-boyfriend always seemed to know where she was.

When she went to buy groceries or on a date or to the doctor, he’d text her about it, sometimes within minutes, despite working 15 miles from her home as a police chief in a small town in the Atlanta suburbs. One day in 2024, when he incorrectly suspected that she’d gone to see a man against his wishes, he messaged her, “I didn’t think you would slip up,” according to texts she shared with The Washington Post.

It sounds like something that James Bond would use: a gadget that self-destructs if it falls into the wrong hands. But it’s actually an open-source operating system that can be downloaded onto Android phones.

Federal prosecutors in Atlanta are bringing an obstruction charge against a U.S. citizen who gave customs officers what is known as a duress passcode, which activated software that erased the contents of his phone.

The authorities stopped Samuel Tunick, an Atlanta resident, for interrogation at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport as he returned to the United States on Jan. 24 last year, according to a November grand jury indictment. The authorities seized his phone before allowing him to enter the country. A hearing on the case was held last week in federal court in Atlanta.

New to me.

A ‘shameful’ Green Party councillor has been accused of telling ‘murderers, rapists and burglars’ how to avoid a Met Police van using facial recognition technology.

Hau-Yu Tam, cabinet member for sanctuary and healing at Lewisham Council, shared a map on her social media accounts showing the precise location of the police van on Tuesday.

Metropolitan Police has begun using cutting edge ‘Live Facial Recognition’ technology (LFR) to round up hundreds of criminals across the capital.

Live Facial Recognition vans???

t is the oldest trick in the authoritarian playbook. Anytime a Democrat politician looks into a television camera and declares a new policy is “for the kids,” history tells us it is time to do three things: grab your Bill of Rights, lock your wallet, and check your firearms.

The political left has mastered the art of semantic camouflage. Because leftists’ true intentions—total state control and the systematic dismantling of individual liberty—are entirely unpalatable to the average citizen, they must cloak their radical agendas in the warm blanket of public safety.

The first time that “NoMark” tried to knock out a Flock camera feed, he waited an hour for the perfect moment – pacing in and out of bushes that towered over him, a few feet behind a pole holding up the device.

“I was just so nervous,” he said.

NoMark, as he’s known on Instagram, had already gained an online following of hundreds of thousands for posting videos of himself wearing a black mask and taking on small-time vigilante missions: breaking up fights outside a bar and breaking into a refinery he believed was “polluting the city real bad”. The Minnesota Star Tribune dubbed him “Minneapolis’ Batman”. He spoke to the Guardian under condition of anonymity to discuss potentially illegal acts.

Meta is rolling out a badge on Facebook that requires users to record a video of their own face.

The feature, massively accelerating the normalization of face scanning and biometric data collection, is called Facebook Verified, and asks a user to record a short video selfie, which the company checks against the photos already on their profile to confirm a match.

The process is free and takes a few minutes.

On July 21st, Parliament gave final approval to the bill introducing a minimum age for accessing social media in France. The legislation establishes the principle of a ban on social media for those under the age of 15. Platforms will now be required to verify the age of their users before they open or maintain an account, using a ‘double anonymity’ verification system. Users will have to prove their age to a trusted third party, which will issue a cryptographic token certifying only that they are of legal age in relation to the set threshold, without disclosing their identity to the platform. The implementation schedule is phased: from September 2026 for new accounts, then from January 2027 for existing accounts.

I have wanted to write for the Daily Sceptic for a long time. It should be a straightforward ambition to fulfil. I have opinions, I support free speech and scepticism, and here is a publication built for exactly that. Instead, my first contribution arrives unsigned. I think the reason why is, in itself, the article.

Ann Widdecombe’s murder has reopened a question that surfaces from time to time: should politicians with ‘unfashionable’ views get extra protection? The investigation continues, so I won’t comment on that, but the fact that the question is even being asked in response to a 78 year-old woman being killed in her own home tells you something regardless of how the investigation concludes. We have been here before. Jo Cox in 2016. David Amess in 2021. A pattern is forming, whatever the final facts of this particular case turn out to be.

Coming soon to a Canada near you!

The federal government has quietly launched pilot projects testing digital identification apps, while insisting the technology will remain voluntary and does not represent the creation of a national digital ID system.

Blacklock’s Reporter says according to a Jan. 14 briefing note prepared by the Department of Employment, the government is testing three digital credential tools — GC Issue and Verify, GC Wallet Beta and GC Verify Beta — with a limited group of participants before any broader rollout.