Notices by Em :official_verified: (em0nm4stodon@infosec.exchange)

Miserably calculating for my taxes how much I paid in domain names last year 🫣

In privacy, we talk a lot about how to protect our own data,

But what about our responsibility to protect the data of others?

If you care about privacy rights, you must also care for the data of the people around you.

To make privacy work, we need to develop a culture that normalizes caring for everyone's data, not just our own.

https://www.privacyguides.org/articles/2025/03/10/the-privacy-of-others/

#Privacy #Consent #HumanRights

When you read about Bans of Social Media for Teens and Age Verification, you must remember what it truly means:

• Official identification of every adult using social media.

• Deanonymization of every account, endangering groups that often rely on pseudonymity for safety, such as victims of domestic violence, victims of stalkers, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people.

• Putting every adult at great danger of exploitation, fraud, and identity theft by forcing them to share their official ID with a for-profit third-party company with no incentive to protect it. Breaches have already happened.

• Constructing a system of mass surveillance to attach every comment on social media to a legal identity. Effectively allowing authoritarian governments to silence their critics and opposition.

• Potential for dystopian censorship and cutting off means of organization for groups of resistance to oppressive regime and organizations.

• Endangering children online by putting a clear identification beacon over every child or family with children online.

• Endangering the data of children who will inevitably try to pass as adults, and have their information collected by the third-party for-profit company.

• Diminishing the value of official identification due to the inevitable data breaches, eventually pushing the system to require even more intrusive identification techniques, such as iris scans and fingerprints.

• Installing a system of mass surveillance capable of attaching even more information to everyone's legal identity. With a potential to built list of people in certain groups, and scale-up state censorship and discrimination in unprecedented ways.

• The list goes on and on.

This isn't about protecting the children.
It never was.

Do not be duped by this excuse used to convince you to let go of your human rights. They are only trying to manipulate people lacking information.

Stay informed on the issues related to Age Verification, and push back for your rights to privacy and democracy.

The future depends on us.

#AgeVerification #Privacy #HumanRights #MassSurveillance #Authoritarianism

The horror of Age Verification is
arriving in Canada 🚨🇨🇦

Contact your federal MP and the office of the Prime Minister this week to tell them you strongly oppose the privacy-destroying and inefficient measure.

The time to push back is NOW: https://globalnews.ca/news/11797286/liberal-party-adopts-motion-social-media-ban-kids/

'Prime Minister Mark Carney said last month that the idea “merits an open and considered debate in Canada,” although he does not have a settled view on it yet and said there were good points on both sides.'

Shared educational resources with them on the dangers of Age Verification: https://www.eff.org/age

We do NOT want this nightmare in Canada. Fight back for your privacy rights! ✊🔒

#AgeVerification #Privacy #DigitalRights #HumanRights #MassSurveillance #Canada #CanPoli #CndPol

If a human right is in the way of your "innovative" technology, the expected solution should be to modify your technology to respect this human right, not to reduce the protections to this human right.

Technology and innovation must be in service of humanity, not the other way around.

#HumanRights #DigitalRights #Privacy #AI

"Texting a stranger is better for reducing loneliness than an AI chatbot, study finds"

From CTV News: https://www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/article/texting-a-stranger-is-better-for-reducing-loneliness-than-an-ai-chatbot-study-finds/

"The study found that only those who texted with a fellow human reported feeling less lonely at the end of the experiment.

'We thought that interacting with AI might be as helpful as texting with a random fellow first-year student,' said the study’s author, psychology PhD candidate Ruo-Ning Li, in a media release.

'But to our surprise, only the human-to-human texting reduced loneliness over time. The chatbot, even though we designed it to be the ideal supportive friend, didn’t shift loneliness.'"

#NoAI #Loneliness

If you have missed reading my articles,
know that there were 25 new mini-articles just published that I have personally written for Privacy Guides' new Activism section.

Those are all tips to support privacy advocacy work and actions, both for individuals and organizations.

Check #PrivacyActivistToolbox for the links to see them all 🧰👀

#Privacy #Activism

@Tutanota This is unbelievable. They literally cannot take no for an answer 🙄

First they ask for your date of birth,
but later they claim it's not enough.

Then they ask for your full name and location,
but later they claim it's not enough.

Then they ask for a copy of your passport,
but later they claim it's not enough.

Then they ask for your facial scan,
but later they claim it's not enough.

Then they ask for your fingerprints,
but later they claim it's not enough.

Then they ask for your palm scan,
but later they claim it's not enough.

Then they ask for a scan of your iris,
but later they claim it's not enough.

Then they ask for ...

#MassSurveillance #Authoritarianism #AgeVerification #Privacy #Democracy #HumanRights

The goal isn't to protect children,
the goal is to de-anonymize every comment and action on the internet, associating it with a legal ID, by eventually requesting official identification from every adult using a computer.

Some politicians have already stated this plainly.

This leads to censorship of anyone criticizing their government.

This leads to repression of marginalized people, especially immigrants, people of color, and trans and gender diverse people.

This leads to self-censorship of any comments or actions that could be interpreted against the system. Such as speaking out against fascism and authoritarian surveillance, or defending human rights publicly.

This leads to total control of the population and its tools of communications.

This leads to the end of democracy, centralizing power even more in the hands of a few.

Do not let them do this to us.

#MassSurveillance #AgeVerification #Authoritarianism #HumanRights

Today I just bought a hardcover copy of The AI Con, written by @alex and @emilymbender.

I'm so glad I heard about this book. I can't wait to start reading it! :blobcatreading:

#Bookstodon #Tech #NoAI #DigitalRights #HumanRights

Thinking about that time someone called me a "sweet summer child" and I very much feel like calling me a "bitter winter elder" would be so much more appropriate.

@promovicz It is now, Witch Prom 🤘

The age-assurance industry shouldn't exist.

Stop age verification now, and tell your governments and service providers they cannot trust these predatory corporations.

#AgeVerification #Privacy #MassSurveillance

Whenever you hear "ban for kids" on the internet, read in reality "ID collection by a sketchy third-party company that will definitely use it or leak it or both for every adult."

Because that's what this truly means.
Also, it doesn't even help the kids.

#AgeVerification #Privacy #MassSurveillance #Authoritarianism

If enough Canadians contact
their local representatives, as well the Mark Carney's office this week, we might be spared from this authoritarian mass-surveillance measure called "Age Verification" in Canada.

The time to fight back is NOW: https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/article/social-media-ban-for-kids-under-consideration-in-online-harms-bill-carney/

Privacy is a human right essential to safety and democracy. If we do not fight to protect it, we will lose it.

#AgeVerification #MassSurveillance #Privacy #Democracy #HumanRights #Canada #CanPoli

Bad news 😔💔

I am sad to announce today that unfortunately I will not be working with Privacy Guides anymore after the end of this month.

Good news! 🚨 :awesome:

I will be available for a new position or contract, starting in April!

I am looking for a position or contact for:

✊ Digital rights activist (with a specialty in privacy rights)

🔒 Privacy expert or consultant

:mastodon: Fediverse and Mastodon advocate

🙌 Managerial position

📰 Tech journalist

💻 Technical writer

💚 Or any other fitting positions

I am especially interested in working with nonprofit organisations, cooperatives, open-source projects, privacy-oriented software companies, or any other organisations working for the public good.

🇨🇦 Remote from Canada

:no_AI_logo: All the work I produce is guaranteed to be AI-free

Let me know if you hear of any good opportunities!

#FediHire #GetFediHired #Tech #Jobs

What do you think is missing the most currently in the privacy and digital rights activism landscape?

#Privacy #DigitalRights #Activism

@frank There are already many other more private ways to communicate than emails, but alas they are much less user-friendly, interoperable, and popular.

But it's important to pick the right technology for each task and protection we might need.

Here's the thing about Proton Mail:

With Proton Mail, the content of your email is fully end-to-end encrypted and inaccessible to service providers IF (and only if) you are communicating with another Proton Mail account, or you have set up a PGP key exchange otherwise.

The metadata of your email, however, isn't end-to-end encrypted. It is accessible in plain text to Proton. This includes:

• Your payment information
• The subject line of your emails
• Your IP address(es), which can reveal your location
• The email addresses you have communicated with
• The time you have sent and received emails

If Proton is legally forced to provide this information to law enforcement, they will. They have to.

If your threat model makes it that it's dangerous for you when this metadata is shared, you need to use another, more private, method of communication.

#ProtonMail #Privacy