Personal Privacy News Roundup - October 2024

Noteworthy Digital and Internet Privacy News From October 2024

Welcome to another issue of Secrets of Privacy where we discuss internet privacy related topics and provide practical tips to immediately enhance your privacy.

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October started out slow but picked up towards the end. Lot of AI privacy news this month, to nobody’s surprise given the pace at which AI is advancing and being adopted.

Sticking with our format update, this post is organized by the following categories:

1. Secrets of Privacy Posts from around the web

2. AI Scams and other AI related privacy news and notes

3. Privacy Coins and CBDC related privacy news and notes

4. All other digital and internet privacy news and notes

As always, feel free to drop a story in the comments that we overlooked.

Secrets of Privacy Posts from October:

Online ID Checks: The KYC of the Internet?

The Secrets of Privacy Lifetime Subscription Promo Is Now Live! 🚀

AI is Making Scams Smarter (must watch videos inside)

How to Stop Unwanted Emails in Their Tracks

The Rise of Surveillance in Insurance: When Your Policy Becomes a Privacy Concern

AI scams are here and getting more sophisticated. One of the best things you can do to protect yourself is to remove your personal information from Google and the data broker sites. That starves the scammers of vital information, making you a much harder target. You can DIY, or pay a reasonable fee to DeleteMe to do it for you. Sign up today and get 20% off using our affiliate link here. We’ve used DeleteMe for almost five years and love it for the peace of mind. It’s also a huge time saver.

AI Scams and other AI Privacy Related News and Notes

1. Fla. pol targeted in elaborate AI ‘car crash’ scam — which almost fooled his dad into forking over $35K (link)

2. Online scammers duping 20% of the U.S. adults they encounter (link)

3. Scammers use AI to mimic loved ones voices in new King County kidnapping scam (link)

4. Deepfake scams are now targeting more businesses than ever (link)

5. How Scammers Are Using AI to Try to Steal Multimillion Dollar Properties (link)

6. "Voice-Cloning Scam": US Man Shares Chilling Tale Of How His Parents Almost Paid $30,000 (link)

7. Report: North Koreans Are Using AI and Fake IDs to Get Remote Work in West (link)

8. Trend Micro Address AI Threat to Mobile Users with New App (link)

9. New Gmail Security Alert For 2.5 Billion Users As AI Hack Confirmed (link)

   

10. As Americans lose billions of dollars to digital scams, startups turn to AI for solutions (link)

11. Parents warned of disturbing kidnapping scheme using kids’ voice replicas (link)

12. Pig Butchering Scams Are Going High Tech (link)

13. AI-driven e-commerce fraud is surging, but you can fight back with more AI (link)

14. AI-Augmented Email Analysis Spots Latest Scams, Bad Content (link)

15. Voice-enabled AI agents can automate everything, even your phone scams (link)

16. SoftBank, Mastercard, and Anthropic cyber chiefs sound alarms on AI phishing and deepfakes—but those aren’t the only things keeping them up at night (link)

17. Don’t fall for AI scams cloning cops’ voices, police warn (link)

18. LinkedIn says it has verified 55 million users in effort to combat AI’s spread of scams, misinformation (link)

19. AI models fall for the same scams that we do (link)

20. Philippines landscape: Artificial intelligence, data privacy and cybersecurity (link)

21. Microsoft Provided Gender Detection AI on Accident (link)

Privacy Coins and Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) News and Notes

1. Russia updates digital ruble rollout, including obligation to accept CBDC (link)

2. CBDCs Undermine Financial Privacy (link)

3. Wholesale CBDCs take centre stage as retail projects slow (link)

4. Australia, Canada and Colombia were right to pause CBDC plans (link)

5. U.K. Faces Privacy Challenges Ahead Of 2025 CBDC Pilot (link)

6. China’s digital yuan ‘serves as a model CBDC’ that reduces cash reliance while ‘democratizing’ banking services: WEF report (link)

7. SuperEx丨The Global Race for CBDC Dominance: What Does It Mean for Bitcoin? (link)

8. RBI Governor Says India’s CBDC Pilot Could Transform Cross-Border Payments (link)

9. Can the Digital Ruble Shield Russia From Western Sanctions? (link)

10. Swift could integrate with mBridge CBDC cross border payment system? (link)

11. Bank of England to press on with digital currency in case banks fall short, Bailey says (link)

12. Circle Unveils New Confidentiality Whitepaper Advocating for Improved Privacy in Blockchain Applications (link)

Password managers are a must have in our digital first world. Not only do they organize your logins securely, they’re huge productivity boosts as we explained here. We use Proton Pass. Bitwarden is another large player. Both have limited free plans to try out. If you want full functionality, Proton Pass is only around $3/month. Use our affiliate link here to get started and support the newsletter.

All Other Privacy News and Notes

1. Scammers Hit Florida Hurricane Victims with Fake FEMA Claims, Malware Files (link)

2. Smart TV Surveillance? How Samsung and LG’s ACR Technology Tracks What You Watch (link)

3. VPN providers don’t protect your privacy online. Here’s what can. (link)

4. Australian retailers urged to step into the future with smart technologies for customers (link)

5. License Plate Readers Are Creating a US-Wide Database of More Than Just Cars (link)

6. Hacked Robot Vacuums Across the U.S. Started Yelling Slurs (link)

7. NY Times Criticizes Encryption, Citing “Disinformation Experts” Struggling to Access Private Messages (link)

8. When Did Google Search Become Totally Useless? (link)

9. Why you should power off your phone at least once a week - according to the NSA (link)

10. Millions of People Are Using Abusive AI ‘Nudify’ Bots on Telegram (link)

11. The future of scam detection combines what consumers want with what bankers need (link)

12. Privacy Focused Note-Taking Apps (link) via

    Monique Barrow

13. Keep your face private: protect yourself from PimEyes and Clearview AI and other facial recognition services with these tips (link) via

    Tate Jarrow

14. Who owns your shiny new Pixel 9 phone? You can’t say no to Google’s surveillance (link)

15. UnitedHealth Ransomware Attack Exposed 100 Million People (link)

16. Chance Conversations: Privacy's Advocate: Alexander Hanff on Industry Insights and Personal Journeys (link) via

    Carey Lening
    and
    Conor Hogan

17. Yes, your phone is tracking you via advertising ID, and companies are using it to sell your location and identity to anyone. Protect yourself by disabling this feature on your device. (link) via

    Tate Jarrow

18. 🍪 Cookie Monster's Nightmare (link) via

    Noa Kahalon
    and
    Samuel Solberg

19. Cop Companies Want All Your Data and Other Takeaways from This Year’s IACP Conference (link)

20. Surveillance business model drives data exploitation, threats to privacy – expert (link)

21. Best ways to maintain your online privacy in 2024 (link)

• Looking for help with a privacy issue or privacy concern? Chances are we’ve covered it already or will soon. Follow us on X, LinkedIn and YouTube to get caught up and to stay ahead of the curve on internet privacy.

• Check out our Personal Privacy Stack here.

• Disposable email addresses (a/k/a temporary or anonymous email addresses) can greatly enhance your digital privacy. Get started here.