Someone posted this week about being locked out of their Reddit account entirely until they handed over photo ID to a third-party verification service. Not locked out of adult content. Locked out of everything. Account settings. The ability to delete their own account. The works. Just a popup from a company called Persona, sitting there blocking the door.

That’s a fairly significant thing to happen without much fanfare.

The immediate response from a lot of people in the thread was “just use a VPN,” which is technically correct and also completely misses the point. A VPN is a workaround. It is not a solution to a corporation deciding it can hold your own account hostage until you hand over biometric-adjacent data to a third party you’ve never heard of and didn’t agree to do business with.

There’s a line buried in the San Francisco audit story that stopped me mid-scroll. It notes that civil liberties groups argue people may avoid attending protests, seeking reproductive health care, or participating in political activities if they believe their movements are being tracked.

One commenter on the thread put it plainly: that is entirely the point.

I think they’re right. And that’s what makes this particular technology conversation different from most of the noise around privacy. We’re not talking about a data breach, or a company selling your purchase history to advertisers. We’re talking about a system where the chilling effect on lawful behaviour is arguably the intended outcome, whether anyone says so out loud or not.

There’s a term doing the rounds right now: surveillance pricing. The short version is that a company uses data it has collected about you, your location, your browsing habits, your income bracket, your postcode, to decide what price to show you for a product. Not a universal price. Your price. The one an algorithm has decided you’re likely to pay.

The Washington Post is now facing a class action over exactly this. The allegation is that subscription prices were personalised based on collected user data. Different people, different prices, same product.

There’s a story doing the rounds about the Flock AI licence plate reader system, and how at least 18 police officers in the US have been arrested for using it to stalk romantic partners. Eighteen that we know of. Arrested. Meaning the actual number of people who used it that way is almost certainly higher, because most of them didn’t get caught, and some who got caught probably didn’t get arrested.

There’s a story doing the rounds that deserves more attention than it’s getting. US senators are formally warning that the advertising data industry represents a national security threat, because location data harvested from ordinary apps is being used to track military personnel in active war zones. The Department of Defense, apparently, has yet to implement basic protections against this. In war zones. For its own troops.

Take a moment with that.

There’s a piece going around arguing that governments are breaking the internet in the name of child safety, and that forcing ISPs to ship routers with default family DNS filters would be a far cleaner solution. It’s a reasonable technical argument. The problem is it’s solving for the stated goal, and a lot of people are skeptical that the stated goal is the actual goal.

That scepticism is fair. When a government says “we need age verification on adult websites,” they are also describing a system that requires you to hand over identifying documents to visit legal content. The data gets collected. The data gets stored. The data gets breached, or sold, or handed to another agency under a different justification eighteen months later. We’ve seen this pattern enough times that treating the stated intention as the real one requires a certain generosity of spirit that the evidence doesn’t support.

There’s a story doing the rounds at the moment that has been sitting uncomfortably in my head all week. Researchers reviewing media reports in the US have identified at least 14 cases where police officers used automated licence plate reader (ALPR) systems to stalk romantic interests — current partners, exes, even strangers who happened to catch their eye. And the kicker? That number is almost certainly a laughable undercount.

The technology in question — largely supplied by a company called Flock Safety — is pitched as a community safety tool. Cameras everywhere, reading plates, building databases, helping cops catch criminals. Sounds reasonable on the surface, right? That’s always how these things are sold to us. And then, predictably, humans do what humans do with unchecked power.

There’s a story doing the rounds this week that I can’t stop thinking about, and it’s not really about the glasses. Well, it starts with the glasses — Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses recording people in bathrooms, in intimate moments, capturing banking details — all of it being piped through to AI trainers who were then fired when they had the audacity to speak up about it. Over a thousand workers, gone, after blowing the whistle on what they were being asked to review.

Been down a rabbit hole this week reading through discussions about a US bill called the Surveillance Accountability Act (H.R. 8470), which would require government agencies to obtain a warrant before accessing people’s digital data. And honestly, even though this is American legislation, it’s got me thinking hard about where we all stand on digital privacy — including here in Australia.

Let’s start with the thing that genuinely shocked some people in that discussion thread: in many cases, the government doesn’t currently need a warrant to access your digital data. Not because they’re breaking the law, but because of something called the “Third Party Doctrine” — essentially, if you’ve shared your data with a third party (say, Google, Apple, or Meta), you’ve arguably given up your expectation of privacy over it. So government agencies can approach those companies directly, sometimes without a warrant, and in some cases those companies just… hand it over.

Something’s been nagging at me this week. Word is spreading that Anthropic — the company behind Claude — is starting to require identity verification for users. Not just a credit card or an email address. We’re talking government-issued ID and facial recognition scans.

Let that sink in for a moment. A facial recognition scan. To use a chatbot.

I’ve been following the online discussion around this, and the reactions range from darkly amused to genuinely alarmed. Someone in one thread summed it up perfectly: “You now need to submit your passport and a DNA sample for every website or app. How the fuck did we reach this point?” A bit hyperbolic, sure, but the sentiment is completely understandable. There’s a very real sense that the walls are closing in on ordinary people who just want to use technology without handing over their entire identity.

So apparently NYC hospitals have been sharing patient health data with Palantir, and they’ve only just decided to stop. And the reaction from most people online was essentially: they were doing WHAT?

Yeah. That tracks.

For those who don’t know much about Palantir, they’re a US data analytics company with some genuinely unsettling associations — they’ve done work for ICE, assisted with surveillance operations, and their CEO is about as MAGA as it gets. To be fair, someone in the online discussion I was reading pointed out they also do legitimately useful things like tracking missing children and tracing food contamination outbreaks. But that’s the uncomfortable reality of dealing with companies like this — the good and the bad come bundled together, and you don’t always get to pick which parts you’re funding or feeding.

There’s a study doing the rounds this week claiming that six out of ten Europeans support Chat Control 2.0 because they believe it will improve online safety. My first reaction, honestly, was a hollow laugh into my batch brew. Six out of ten. Right.

Now, I’m not going to sit here and call everyone who supports this proposal an idiot — that’s lazy thinking and it doesn’t help anyone. But I do think a lot of those six out of ten would have a very different opinion if the survey question wasn’t framed as something like “do you want children to be safe online?” Because of course you do. Everyone does. That’s not even a real question.

There’s something deeply unsettling about reading that a former government employee walked out of the Social Security Administration with the personal data of 500 million Americans on a thumb drive. Not because data breaches are new—we’ve all received those “your information may have been compromised” emails more times than we can count—but because this wasn’t a sophisticated hack or a system vulnerability. This was someone just… taking it. With apparent blessing from above and an expectation of a presidential pardon if caught.

There’s something darkly poetic about watching Jake Tapper announce live on air that his network’s parent company is being bought out, telling everyone in the studio that it “affects everybody I’m looking at right now.” It’s like watching the Titanic’s captain announce over the PA system that yes, that scraping sound was indeed an iceberg, and no, the lifeboats won’t be necessary because the ship is unsinkable. Except in this case, we all knew the iceberg was there, we watched the ship aim straight for it, and now we’re supposed to act surprised when the water starts rushing in.

I’ve been following the age verification debate for a while now, and honestly, every time I think it can’t get more dystopian, something new comes along to prove me wrong. This week’s revelation about Persona – the age verification vendor that’s been exposed for running what essentially amounts to a comprehensive surveillance operation – is both shocking and entirely predictable.

For those who haven’t heard, researchers discovered that Persona’s system doesn’t just verify your age. Oh no, that would be far too reasonable. Instead, it performs 269 distinct verification checks, runs facial recognition against watchlists and politically exposed persons, screens “adverse media” across 14 categories including terrorism and espionage, and assigns risk and similarity scores. They collect and can retain for up to three years your IP addresses, browser fingerprints, device fingerprints, government ID numbers, phone numbers, names, faces, and a whole battery of “selfie” analytics.

I’ve been following the privacy community discussions lately, and something caught my attention that’s been gnawing at me: Europol’s increasingly opaque relationships with AI companies. It’s one of those stories that doesn’t get nearly enough attention in mainstream media, but it should absolutely terrify anyone who cares about privacy and civil liberties.

The basic issue is this – Europe’s law enforcement agency has been cosying up with various AI companies behind closed doors, with very little transparency about what they’re doing, what data they’re sharing, or what capabilities they’re building. One comment I saw really hit the nail on the head: this explains why the push for initiatives like ChatControl and ProtectEU never seems to stop. It’s not just bureaucratic momentum; it’s institutional desire. Law enforcement agencies want these tools, and they’re not particularly fussed about democratic oversight getting in the way.

There’s this phrase I keep seeing in discussions about digital privacy: “tactical redeployment.” Someone used it recently in a thread about Denmark’s decision to back away from the so-called “chat control” proposal, and honestly, it’s the perfect description of what’s been happening across Europe for the past few years.

The Danish Presidency has stepped back from pushing mandatory scanning of encrypted messages—at least for now. On the surface, that sounds like a win for privacy advocates. But here’s the thing that keeps me up at night: they didn’t let it go to a vote and fail. They just… backed away. Which means they can absolutely try again later when the public isn’t watching quite so closely.

I’ve been reading about this new ICE facial recognition app called Mobile Fortify, and honestly, it’s keeping me up at night. Not in the “oh that’s mildly concerning” way, but in the “this is genuinely terrifying and we’ve crossed a line we can’t uncross” way.

The headline itself is bad enough - mandatory facial scans, 15 years of data retention regardless of citizenship status. But it’s the detail buried in the reporting that really got me: ICE officials can apparently treat a biometric match from this app as “definitive” and ignore actual evidence of American citizenship, including birth certificates.

I’ve been watching something unsettling unfold over the past few months, and it’s finally reached the point where I need to talk about it. The ID verification demands are getting ridiculous.

YouTube wants it. Facebook wants it. LinkedIn is asking for it. Even platforms that used to pride themselves on being relatively hands-off are starting to implement these requirements. We’re watching the last remnants of anonymous—or even pseudonymous—internet interaction being stripped away, one platform at a time.

I’ve been mulling over something that’s been doing the rounds online lately, and it’s gotten under my skin more than most things do. It’s about Amazon Ring, Flock Safety, and how we’ve somehow collectively sleepwalked into a surveillance apparatus that would make George Orwell take notes. The frustrating bit? We paid for it ourselves.

Here’s the thing that really gets me: we’re living through this bizarre inversion of totalitarianism. We used to worry about governments forcing surveillance on us, right? That was the whole China-versus-the-West narrative. But nobody talks about the fact that America has arguably built something far more insidious—and we voluntarily installed it in our homes. We bought the cameras. We connected them to the internet. We gave corporations and law enforcement the keys to our front doors, all for the convenience of checking if a parcel arrived while we’re at work.

The news that hit my feed this morning made my blood run cold. A woman seeking an abortion was tracked using Flock camera systems – those ubiquitous license plate readers that seem to multiply on our streets like weeds after rain. The authorities used this surveillance network to build a case against her, turning what should be private healthcare into a digital dragnet.

This isn’t just about reproductive rights, though that’s certainly part of it. This is about how we’ve sleepwalked into a surveillance state while telling ourselves it’s all for our own good.

I’ve been following the discussion around Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses with growing unease, and frankly, I’m baffled by how casually we’re all accepting what amounts to a massive expansion of surveillance technology into our daily lives. While tech reviewers gush about the convenience and cool factor, we’re sleepwalking into a world where privacy becomes even more of a distant memory.

The fundamental issue here isn’t about the person wearing these glasses - it’s about everyone else around them. This represents a complete shift from the usual “don’t like it, don’t buy it” consumer choice argument. When someone walks into a café on Collins Street wearing these things, everyone in that space becomes a potential data point for Meta’s algorithms, whether they consented to it or not.

Been following this whole Chat Control saga in Europe lately, and honestly, it’s got me pretty wound up. The latest news about Denmark pushing hard for mass surveillance of our digital communications under the banner of “protecting children” has me reaching for my second latte of the day – and not in a good way.

Don’t get me wrong, protecting kids from abuse is absolutely crucial. But when I see politicians exempting themselves from the very surveillance they’re imposing on the rest of us, alarm bells start ringing louder than a Melbourne tram at peak hour. The irony becomes even more bitter when you learn that a Danish politician was recently charged with possessing thousands of CSAM images while simultaneously advocating for these intrusive measures. The hypocrisy is staggering.

The latest news about YouTube collecting selfies for AI-powered age verification has me genuinely concerned, and frankly, it should worry all of us. We’re witnessing another step in what feels like an inevitable march toward a surveillance state, wrapped up in the familiar packaging of “protecting the children.”

Don’t get me wrong - I understand the impulse to protect kids online. I’ve got a teenage daughter myself, and the internet can be a minefield for young people. But there’s something deeply unsettling about a mega-corporation like Google (YouTube’s parent company) building vast databases of our biometric data under the guise of age verification. It’s the classic privacy erosion playbook: identify a legitimate concern, propose a solution that massively overreaches, then act like anyone who objects doesn’t care about children’s safety.

Been following this whole Coldplay concert kiss cam drama that’s been doing the rounds online, and it’s got me thinking about something that goes way beyond celebrity gossip or infidelity scandals. The incident itself is almost beside the point - what really bothers me is this casual acceptance we seem to have developed around being filmed, broadcast, and potentially humiliated for the sake of “entertainment.”

The whole thing started when someone asked a pretty reasonable question about the legal implications of kiss cams and audience filming at concerts. They wondered about consent, about the fine print we never read, about whether we actually agree to having our most vulnerable moments broadcast to thousands of people. But instead of engaging with that important question, most of the discussion devolved into moral judgments about the people caught on camera.

Been thinking a lot lately about how our suburbs are quietly transforming into something that would make Orwell raise an eyebrow. What started as a discussion about neighbourhood surveillance tech has got me wondering: when did keeping an eye out for actual crime turn into keeping tabs on anyone who dares to be different?

The whole thing reminds me of walking through some of Melbourne’s newer housing estates - you know the ones, where every second house has a Ring doorbell and there’s a Neighbourhood Watch sticker on every telegraph pole. There’s this sterile, watchful quality to these places that feels fundamentally different from the communities I grew up in. Back then, if someone was acting suspicious, Mrs Henderson from next door would actually talk to them, not immediately start livestreaming to a Facebook group.

I’ve been reading about the latest expansion of digital surveillance programs in the US, and frankly, it’s keeping me up at night. The reports coming out about ICE and other agencies quietly expanding their contracts with private firms to monitor social media activity aren’t just troubling—they’re a glimpse into a future that feels uncomfortably familiar to anyone who’s read their history books.

The scope of what’s happening is staggering. We’re not talking about monitoring specific threats or criminal activity. These systems are designed to flag “negative opinions” about government operations, map out dissent, and link online activity to real-world identities. Your face, your phone, your location, your contacts, even your relatives—all fair game in this digital dragnet.

Scrolling through tech news this morning, I came across something that made me both hopeful and deeply frustrated at the same time. Google’s rolling out a new feature in Android 16 that can detect fake cell towers - those sneaky “stingray” devices that law enforcement and other actors use to intercept your phone communications. On one hand, it’s brilliant that our phones might finally warn us when we’re being spied on. On the other hand, the fact that we need this protection at all says everything about the surveillance state we’re living in.

Reading about Malaysia’s recent demands for telcos to hand over detailed phone records and internet usage data sent a chill down my spine. Not just because it’s happening in our neighbouring region, but because it feels like watching history repeat itself with frightening predictability.

The news transported me back to 2013 when Edward Snowden’s revelations about mass surveillance programs shook the world. Back then, many of us in the tech industry suspected something was amiss, but the scale of it was still shocking. Now, sitting in my home office and reading about Malaysia’s move, I’m struck by how familiar this playbook has become.

The recent news from Texas about law enforcement using automated license plate readers to track down a woman who had a self-managed abortion sent chills down my spine. Sitting here in my home office, looking out at the growing number of surveillance cameras dotting our own streets, I can’t help but think about how quickly we’re sliding into a surveillance state that would make George Orwell’s nightmares seem tame.

Remember when we thought CCTV cameras were invasive? Those seem almost quaint now compared to the vast networks of automated license plate readers (ALPRs) being deployed across cities worldwide. These systems, often operated by private companies, create massive databases of our movements, accessible to law enforcement without the traditional checks and balances of warrants or judicial oversight.

Remember when we used to laugh at dystopian novels? Those far-fetched stories about governments watching our every move seemed like pure fiction. Well, the latest news about Trump’s plan to create a comprehensive database of all Americans through Palantir has me reaching for my dog-eared copy of 1984.

The irony isn’t lost on me that a company named after the all-seeing stones from Lord of the Rings - tools that corrupted their users - is spearheading this effort. Peter Thiel’s tech company, which has already raised eyebrows with its surveillance capabilities, will now potentially have unprecedented access to consolidated data about every American citizen.

Remember those old spy movies where someone would discover a hidden camera and immediately change their behavior? Today, that’s not just a movie plot - it’s our daily reality. The other day, while setting up my new smart doorbell (yes, I know the irony), I found myself wondering about how these devices are fundamentally changing our behavior.

Living in the digital age means accepting a certain level of surveillance. My smart TV probably knows more about my viewing habits than my wife does. The apps on my iPhone track my location, my fitness data, and probably know when I’m having a cheeky scroll through social media during work hours. Even my daily coffee run to that little place on Degraves Street is logged somewhere in the digital ether through my payment app.

Remember when browsers were just tools to access the internet? Those simpler days seem increasingly distant as I read about Perplexity’s latest announcement regarding their new browser that plans to track “everything users do online” for hyper-personalized advertising. The brazenness of this declaration is both shocking and sadly unsurprising.

The tech industry’s relentless push toward surveillance capitalism has reached a new milestone. Gone are the days of subtle privacy invasions buried in lengthy terms of service agreements. Now, companies proudly announce their intentions to monitor every aspect of our digital lives, packaging it as a feature rather than the privacy nightmare it truly is.

Looking at the recent news about Discord implementing face scanning for age verification, I’m struck by a familiar sinking feeling. The same one I got when Facebook started pushing for real names, when Instagram began demanding phone numbers, and now as Discord joins the parade of platforms wanting to scan our faces.

The justification seems reasonable enough on the surface - protecting minors online is crucial. But there’s something deeply unsettling about a company that already has a questionable track record with privacy now wanting biometric data from its users. This is the same platform that has consistently refused to implement end-to-end encryption, claiming it would only benefit criminals.

Reading about a journalist’s investigation into police surveillance cameras in rural Virginia sent chills down my spine this morning. The investigation revealed an extensive network of automated license plate readers (ALPRs) tracking vehicles across hundreds of miles, and it got me thinking about our own surveillance situation here.

Remember when the biggest privacy concern was speed cameras on the Eastern Freeway? Those days seem quaint now. We’re living in an era where our movements are constantly monitored, logged, and stored in databases that can be accessed with frightening ease.

The recent news about the UK government ordering Apple to disable Advanced Data Protection has sent shockwaves through the tech community, and rightfully so. This isn’t just another local policy decision - it’s a concerning move that could have global implications for digital privacy.

Standing at my desk in my home office, looking at my iPhone and MacBook, I’m struck by the irony of the situation. Here we are, living in an era where digital security is more crucial than ever, yet governments seem determined to tear down the very protections we need.

The recent exodus of TikTok users to RedNote has left me both fascinated and deeply troubled. While sitting in my home office, watching this digital migration unfold, I can’t shake the feeling that we’re witnessing something more significant than just another app-switching trend.

The supposed logic behind this move is striking - users are protesting TikTok’s potential ban by jumping to an app with even stronger ties to the very concerns that sparked the ban discussion in the first place. It’s like watching someone protest food safety regulations by deliberately eating at an establishment with worse health violations.

Remember when mobile apps were just fun little diversions? Looking at the recent Wired article about location tracking through apps feels like watching a horror movie where the call is coming from inside the house. The scale of surveillance through seemingly innocent apps like Candy Crush and MyFitnessPal is staggering.

The tech industry has been playing fast and loose with our data for years, but this revelation takes it to a new level. Even when you explicitly deny location permissions, advertisers can still track you through IP addresses, WiFi networks, and even Bluetooth signals. The sheer number of compromised apps - over 15,000 - is mind-boggling. Just scrolling through the list made my stomach turn.

The recent revelation about Motorola’s ALPR systems leaking live video feeds and vehicle data has got me thinking about the surveillance state we’ve sleepwalked into. Sitting in traffic on Hoddle Street this morning, I found myself counting the number of cameras pointing at my car - traffic cameras, security cameras, and who knows what else.

Remember when we thought automatic number plate recognition was just about catching unregistered vehicles and toll dodgers? Those were simpler times. Now we’re learning that in just 20 minutes, one of these systems in Nashville captured data from nearly 1,000 vehicles. That’s not just license plates - we’re talking about detailed information about vehicle makes, models, and even photos.

Remember when the internet felt like the wild west of freedom and anonymity? Those days seem increasingly distant, particularly with the recent revelations about Reddit’s deepening integration with Google’s surveillance infrastructure.

Looking through my browser’s developer tools this morning, I noticed something disturbing - Reddit’s new interface (affectionately nicknamed “shreddit” by many) pings Google’s reCAPTCHA servers on every single page load. Not just during login, but every single time you view anything. This goes far beyond the typical bot prevention measures we’re familiar with.

Remember when we used to joke about people walking around with computers on their faces? Well, that future is here, and it’s far more unsettling than we imagined. Recently, two clever university students demonstrated just how vulnerable we all are to surveillance by combining smart glasses with facial recognition and data mining.

The demonstration was honestly chilling. These students managed to modify a pair of smart glasses to identify random people on the street, pulling up their personal information in real-time. Phone numbers, addresses, and other private details - all available at a glance. The most disturbing part? One demonstration showed a woman who, upon hearing the student mention details about their previous connection, immediately felt at ease speaking with a complete stranger.