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Meta has officially confirmed its decision to introduce a subscription plan for ad-free access to Instagram and Facebook for users in the European Union, EEA, and Switzerland. This move comes a few weeks after Meta first considered the idea, amidst regulatory pressure from the EU regarding the company's ad targeting and data gathering practices.

The subscription plan is priced at €9.99 per month for web users, while iOS and Android users will have to pay €12.99 per month. Users who opt not to subscribe can still use the services for free, but will continue to see targeted ads.

Until March 1, 2024, the initial subscription will cover all linked accounts in a user’s Accounts Center. However, from March 1, 2024, an additional fee of €6 per month for web users and €8 per month for iOS and Android users will be charged for each extra account listed in a user’s Account Center.

"A company which enables its clients to search a database of billions of images scraped from the internet for matches to a particular face has won an appeal against the UK's privacy watchdog.

Last year, Clearview AI was fined more than £7.5m by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) for unlawfully storing facial images.

Privacy International (who helped bring the original case I believe) responded to this on Mastodon:

"The first 33 pages of the judgment explain with great detail and clarity why Clearview falls squarely within the bounds of GDPR. Clearview's activities are entirely "related to the monitoring of behaviour" of UK data subjects.

In essence, what Clearview does is large-scale processing of a highly intrusive nature. That, the Tribunal agreed.

BUT in the last 2 pages the Tribunal tells us that because Clearview only sells to foreign governments, it doesn't fall under UK GDPR jurisdiction.

So Clearview would have been subject to GDPR if it sold its services to UK police or government authorities or commercial entities, but because it doesn't, it can do whatever the hell it wants with UK people's data - this is at best puzzling, at worst nonsensical."

I've done god only knows how many searches looking for a solution to this with no joy so any help you can offer would be great.

I'm after an image editor that has the following:

1. Must be PHP or JavaScript (even jQuery) or some combo of the two
2. Must allow images to be uploaded
3. Must allow text to be dynamically added, resized, color changed and positioned
4. Must allow fonts to be chosen from a list of fonts I upload to the server, not the basic browser fonts or Google Fonts etc.
5. Must allow generation and download of new image based on the old image + the added text

This is for my users, none of whom are experienced enough to do offline image editing.

A viral TikTok account is doxing ordinary and otherwise anonymous people on the internet using off-the-shelf facial recognition technology, creating content and growing a following by taking advantage of a fundamental new truth: privacy is now essentially dead in public spaces.

From the article:

Senior officials at the Home Office secretly lobbied the UK’s independent privacy regulator to act “favourably” towards a private firm keen to roll out controversial facial recognition technology across the country, according to internal government emails seen by the Observer.

Correspondence reveals that the Home Office wrote to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) warning that policing minister, Chris Philp, would “write to your commissioner” if the regulator’s investigation into Facewatch – whose facial recognition cameras have provoked huge opposition after being installed in shops – was not positive towards the firm.

Just passing on a tip from FediTips I didn't know about. Using the format

(server)/tags/(hashtag without the #).rss

Your RSS Reader can follow hashtags e.g.

https://mstdn.social/tags/dogs.rss

You can see everything with the hashtag 'dogs' on mstd.social and every instance mstdn.social can see.

Today we announce that we have completely removed all traces of disks being used by our VPN infrastructure!

Dark day for online privacy in the UK.

From the article:

"Russell Brand is facing a new allegation of sexual assault after the Met Police receive a report of an incident in 2003.

It comes after the Sunday Times and Channel 4 Dispatches investigation into the 48-year-old comedian accused him of rape, assault and emotional abuse between 2006 and 2013.

A spokesperson for the Met said: “We are aware of reporting by The Sunday Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches about allegations of sexual offences.

“On Sunday, 17 September, the Met received a report of a sexual assault which was alleged to have taken place in Soho in central London in 2003. Officers are in contact with the woman and will be providing her with support.""

I'm not sure if this is strictly privacy or more security related but it does affect iOS and Android and could have privacy implications. It was enough to make me to turn off 2G anyway.

Following on from my initial primer article on the very basics of what the Fediverse is, this next article concentrates on what Lemmy is, explaining in very simple terms how to choose an instance that's right for you, how to find and join Communities, what to expect, how federation works on Lemmy etc.

It's pretty obviously not meant for people who already know this stuff - it's aimed at people very new to, or considering joining, Lemmy.

As ever, critiques welcomed etc.

From the article:

The consumer champion Which? found companies appear to be gathering far more data than is needed for products to function. This includes smart TVs that ask for users’ viewing habits and a smart washing machine that requires people’s date of birth. Rocio Concha, director of policy and advocacy at Which?, said: “Consumers have already paid for smart products, in some cases thousands of pounds, so it is excessive that they have to continue to ‘pay’ with their personal information.”