GoKawiil
Tech News
Regulators concluded that Google mishandled location tracking, gathering and storing data that could expose sensitive personal details about users without adequate safeguards. As a result, the company has been fined $462 million.
Ireland's Data Protection Commission fined Google €403 million ($463 million) after a multi-year investigation into how it handled location data through Web & App Activity, Location History, and Location Accuracy features between 2018 and 2020. Regulators found Google failed to meet GDPR transparency and lawfulness requirements and violated data retention rules for two of the three features. Google must bring its location data practices into compliance within six months and says it has already updated its policies since 2019.
Chinese AI firm Z.ai, maker of the GLM models, faced backlash after developers discovered its ZCode coding assistant was quietly compressing and uploading local project files to Alibaba Cloud storage without permission. One developer found the tool made 564 attempts to exfiltrate a 313MB encrypted archive containing commercial project files, with a smaller 15KB file successfully transmitted before the issue was caught. Z.ai has since apologized, patched the unauthorized uploads, claimed the exfiltrated data was destroyed, and pledged to open-source ZCode for third-party security review.
Polish developer Pawel Szydlowski built ZuckOff, a free Bluetooth scanning app that identifies nearby smart glasses from Meta and Snap by matching device signals to fingerprints he compiled from purchased hardware. The app has drawn over 5,000 downloads on Apple's App Store and 1,000 on Google Play within its first month.
Xiaomi has detailed the Smart Privacy Display on its upcoming Xiaomi 18 Pro series, which alternates standard wide-angle pixels with narrow-angle pixels fitted with microscopic baffles in a 1:1 ratio. When privacy mode is switched on, the standard pixels turn off so only the baffled pixels emit light, cutting visible brightness to about 1% for viewers beyond 60 degrees. The feature can be activated through Quick Settings, the AI key, voice commands, app or page rules, location triggers, or automatic detection of someone looking over your shoulder via the front camera.
OpenAI runs an advertising collector at bzr.openai.com that sets a persistent, account-linked cookie called __obi on the openai.com domain. When companies that advertise on ChatGPT embed OpenAI's tracking code on their own websites, that cookie is transmitted back to OpenAI along with details of the page being viewed, including products searched, articles read and purchases made. A security researcher says they reproduced the mechanism on their own device and found it active across 936 advertiser pixels spanning 1,029 hostnames.
Australia's public service minister Katy Gallagher announced the government is exploring a ban on Meta's AI-enabled smart glasses in federal government buildings, citing privacy and security risks tied to their recording capabilities. Officials plan to consult the public service commission and hold a roundtable with major employers like Microsoft and Commonwealth Bank to develop broader AI workplace guidelines.
ChatGPT's memory feature has evolved from requiring users to explicitly say 'remember this' into an automatic system that continuously updates and revises what it retains about you, a process OpenAI calls 'dreaming.' This means the chatbot now decides on its own what details from your conversations to keep, edit, or discard, shaping how it responds to future prompts.
A Taiwanese husband suspected his wife of an affair after finding a stray toothbrush and garage footage of an unknown man driving her to their holiday home. Months later he opened his robot vacuum's companion app hoping to talk to his wife remotely and instead watched a live camera feed capturing her with another man. The incident highlights how ordinary smart-home devices now silently collect footage and data that can become unexpected evidence in personal disputes.
Australian authorities are reportedly considering a ban on smart glasses with built-in cameras inside government offices, driven by rising concerns about covert recording and privacy breaches. A BBC report from Sydney canvassed public opinion on the proposal and asked where else people might want such devices restricted.
South Korea's Personal Information Protection Commission has enacted rules allowing fines of up to 10% of a company's annual revenue for major data leaks caused by intent or gross negligence, up from the previous 3% cap. The new rules, effective Friday, apply when 10 million or more people's data is exposed, and also require firms to notify users within 72 hours even if a breach is only suspected. The heightened penalty targets repeat offenders within three years or firms that ignore corrective orders and are subsequently breached.
Senator Josh Hawley is calling on Flock Safety's chief executive to testify before the Senate next week over the company's automated license plate reading network. Hawley argues that the surveillance technology, deployed widely across the country, threatens Americans' basic privacy expectations during everyday activities like commuting or attending church.