Privacy

Here’s three steps for taking data privacy more seriously this year.

Google has approved an $8.25 million settlement for a class-action lawsuit alleging illegal data collection from devices owned by children younger than 13, according to The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.

The FTC's complaint, filed in January 2025, detailed how GM, through OnStar's "Smart Driver" feature, allegedly collected precise geolocation and driving behavior data every three seconds.

ICE List, a website exposing Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers' and Border Patrol agents' personal details, was noted by its administrator Dominick Skinner to have been taken down by a suspected Russian distributed denial-of-service attack following his reported release of data from nearly 4,500 immigration workers obtained from a Department of Homeland Security in the wake of the shooting of Renee Good, according to The Independent.

SecurityWeek reports that Intellexa's Predator spyware features self-diagnostic capabilities allowing learning from previous failed attack attempts, highlighting the tool's sophistication.

Google has begun offering Gemini users the ability to connect their Gmail, photos, search history, and YouTube data for more personalized AI responses.

Digital rights groups and hackers are actively developing and deploying counter-surveillance tools to challenge the extensive monitoring capabilities of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, particularly its access to vast automated license plate reader networks, The Register reports.