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Using Google's products and services has always been fundamentally precarious—doing so gives the world's largest advertising company a lot of juicy personal data. Google has long said it won't use the sensitive data from products like Gmail, Drive, and Photos for ad personalization, but a change to the company's privacy policy appears to dismantle that firewall.
On October 16, Google issued an update to its privacy policy, spotted by Android Authority. The ad personalization section used to include a clear limit on data from certain apps. "We don’t show you personalized ads based on your content from Drive, Gmail, or Photos," the document said. Now, Google has updated it with the following language.
Updated language on when your sensitive data might inform ads.
Credit:
Google
This equivocation opens the door to using data from apps like Gmail and Photos in ads when it's shared with other Google services, and it just so happens Google has a mechanism for doing that, with Personal Intelligence. The company released Personal Intelligence in early 2026, allowing users to hand data from multiple apps to Google AI products. The idea is that the added context from your existing data will lead to better AI answers, but it's also proving to be a privacy minefield.
Explore Google Chrome's features, Gemini AI, Auto Browse, security settings, privacy controls, and Chrome Enterprise tools in this complete cheat sheet.
The post Google Chrome Cheat Sheet: Features, Gemini AI, Security, and More appeared first on TechRepublic.
ChatGPT now lets users lock private conversations with a PIN or biometrics. Learn how Locked Chats works, its limitations, and the risks of resetting a PIN.
The post ChatGPT Locked Chats Explained: How to Use It and What to Know appeared first on TechRepublic.
Australia is preparing legal action against Meta, TikTok, Snap, and Google over alleged breaches of its under-16 social media ban. Here's what could happen next.
The post Australia Prepares to Sue Meta, TikTok Over Under-16 Social Media Ban appeared first on TechRepublic.
Amazon's new Bee AI devices can summarize conversations, but their recording controls raise consent questions for employers and meeting participants.
The post Amazon Bee Frontier and Bee Eclipse Raise Workplace Consent Concerns appeared first on TechRepublic.
OpenAI expands ChatGPT's Chrome integration with tab access and browser automation. Learn what the update means for productivity, privacy, and enterprise security.
The post ChatGPT Can Now Do More in Chrome, but There’s a Security Trade-Off appeared first on TechRepublic.
Windows 11 offers controls for diagnostic data, location access, clipboard syncing, and personalized recommendations. Here's how to review seven privacy settings and understand their trade-offs.
The post 7 Windows 11 Privacy Settings You Should Check in 2026 appeared first on TechRepublic.
Muse, the new general-purpose AI agent from Meta, can expose sensitive information when users share conversations through web links, researchers reported Monday. In response to questions from Ars about the behavior, Meta said it's suspending the sharing feature while the company reviews it and considers making changes.
Like many online services, Muse has allowed users to share searches, conversations, images, and similar content with other people. Such share features usually involve clicking an option to create a unique URL that anyone can use to load a page hosting the content. To keep potentially sensitive information from being accessible to unintended people, the URLs typically contain a long sequence of text that can’t be easily guessed.
Muse, which Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last month was “built from the ground up for privacy and security,” seems to take the same precautions. But a central design decision for constructing URLs has made the links easy to discover. As a result, researchers from security firm Claroc said they were able to enumerate 6,800 links Muse users created for sharing conversations with others. After opening a few hundred of them, the researchers found information that was clearly not intended to be publicly available, including:
OpenAI agreed not to use Apple's alleged trade secrets as a judge considered an injunction. Both companies are now raising allegations over confidential files.
The post OpenAI Agrees Not to Use Apple Trade Secrets in Ongoing Lawsuit appeared first on TechRepublic.
AI agents expose gaps in enterprise access controls and audit trails. Here's how security leaders can rethink identity, data governance, and oversight.
The post Your Security Stack Knows Who Logged In. But Does It Know What AI Agents Do Next? appeared first on TechRepublic.
The EU is questioning OpenAI and Anthropic over AI agent security incidents, raising questions about the AI Act's reach into model development and testing.
The post EU Questions OpenAI, Anthropic Over AI Agent Security Incidents appeared first on TechRepublic.
Google and Singapore have developed an AI scam detector that analyzes private chats on smartphones, with public availability still unconfirmed.
The post Google and Singapore Develop AI Scam Detector That Works Entirely on Your Phone appeared first on TechRepublic.
Apple's new $200 indoor camera automatically turns away when residents return home. Here's how its privacy feature works and what remains unconfirmed.
The post Apple’s New $200 Indoor Camera Turns Away When You’re Home — for Privacy appeared first on TechRepublic.
Ofcom has opened a formal probe into whether Meta properly assessed safety risks before launching Instagram Instants under the UK Online Safety Act.
The post Meta Faces First Ofcom Probe Under Online Safety Act Over Instagram Instants appeared first on TechRepublic.
A Florida woman was arrested after Anthropic’s Claude reportedly flagged an alleged threat, showing how AI safety systems can escalate chats to police.
The post Florida Woman Arrested After Claude Flags Alleged Threat to Sheriff’s Office appeared first on TechRepublic.
Meta, TikTok and X are challenging Ofcom's demands for detailed moderation data under the UK's Online Safety Act in a London court.
The post Meta, TikTok and X Take Ofcom to Court Over Online Safety Data Demands appeared first on TechRepublic.
Norway has become the first major country to propose a temporary ban on the use of AI glasses in selected public places amid growing privacy concerns over wearable technology.
The rich Scandinavian country’s center-left government said on Monday that it would introduce a law to parliament soon on a temporary ban for places such as parks, beaches, schools, and kindergartens. It will also set up an expert group to propose permanent national rules.
“I am concerned about the introduction of powerful new technology where people risk being photographed, filmed, or recorded without their knowledge,” said Torgeir Micaelsen, Norway’s digitalization minister. A temporary ban “will give us time to conduct a thorough assessment and hold an informed debate that can lay the foundation for permanent regulation,” he said.
Apple says it is changing its macOS privacy settings to stop third-party app developers from misusing them to access message histories.
Friday's announcement comes two weeks after tech columnist Jason Aten said that Meta’s new general-purpose AI agent Muse sent him an unsolicited notification referencing a thread between him and a co-worker over Apple Messages. Aten said he never granted Muse permissions to read his messages and had assumed they were off-limits. Social media last week blew up with masses of people who agreed and said the incident showed that AI assistants given access to calendars, emails, messages, shopping accounts, and other resources are akin to a skill saw or other power tool. While potentially useful, they can do real damage if not used carefully.
Meta CTO David Singleton joined the fray with a rebuttal that appeared solid. For Muse to access Apple Messages, a user must manually give it two privileges. One is full-disk access, a macOS system-level permission. The other is to enable a Messages connector setting in Muse.
ChatGPT adds virtual clothing try-ons and product Favorites. Learn how the tools work, what the previews cannot confirm, and how to manage photo privacy.
The post OpenAI Launches Virtual Try-On for Clothes and Accessories in ChatGPT appeared first on TechRepublic.
See what you missed in Daily Tech Insider from Sept. 28–Oct. 2.
The post AI Agents, Security Crises, and Workforce Upheaval Define This Week in Tech appeared first on TechRepublic.
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Florida cops are facing questions after a mandate to remove all Flock cameras tracking cars on St. Lucie County roads led local police to uncover more than a dozen suspicious cameras operating without permits.
Local residents told The Washington Post that they were alarmed that no one knows who owns many of the mysterious cameras.
Of the 14 cameras found, 11 had no obvious owners, raising concerns about who has access to sensitive data that bad actors could abuse. After the cameras were discovered, St. Lucie County Commissioner James Clasby told a local news outlet that there’s “potential for non-law enforcement to have cameras out there, and I’m not OK with that.”
EncryptPro locks files with AES-256 from File Explorer and shares them over PGP without emailing passwords.
The post Encrypt a 10GB File in Seconds With This $40 Windows App appeared first on TechRepublic.
Meta’s Muse AI shared a Facebook Marketplace seller’s pickup address and arranged a deal that ended with a buyer showing up unexpectedly.
The post Meta AI Shares Seller’s Address: Facebook Marketplace Buyer Shows Up at His Home appeared first on TechRepublic.
Amazon plans more than 20,000 Smart Delivery Glasses by the end of 2027, bringing AI navigation and new privacy questions to its delivery network.
The post Amazon Plans 20,000+ Smart Glasses for Delivery Drivers in 2027 appeared first on TechRepublic.
In news that should surprise very few, connected cars remain a complete privacy nightmare. But now we have a better idea of what data those cars are giving away, and to whom, thanks to a study conducted by a team of researchers at Northeastern University and Consumer Reports. Testing 21 cars from 19 different brands revealed patterns of traffic to advertisers and trackers, as well as data shared with Big Tech firms like Microsoft and Adobe. And using a car’s companion app can multiply the problem, their testing found.
In 2023, the Mozilla Foundation published a widely covered report looking at the privacy policies of more than two dozen automakers. They were appalled, writing that “cars are the worst product category we have ever reviewed for privacy.” But that analysis was conducted by sitting down and reading all the various privacy policies of each brand; today’s study involved measuring traffic from actual cars under a number of scenarios, including idling and being driven. The researchers even parked 11 cars—just the electric ones—in a Faraday tent to see if the loss of a cellular signal would push that traffic to the car’s Wi-Fi connection instead.
Attempts to actually see what was in the data packets using modified certificates failed in every case. But “the network traces still yielded valuable information, including the domains contacted via DNS traffic, Server Name Indication (SNI) in TLS handshakes, the volume and timing of transmissions, and differences in behavior across experimental scenarios,” they found.
Anthropic declined an Australian Senate AI hearing as officials investigate an OpenAI agent breach and consider mandatory AI incident reporting.
The post Anthropic Declines Australian AI Hearing as OpenAI Agent Breach Faces Scrutiny appeared first on TechRepublic.
Attackers are exploiting CVE-2026-48842 against unpatched Roundcube servers months after a fix was released, raising urgency for organizations to update.
The post Attackers Target Unpatched Roundcube Servers With CVE-2026-48842 appeared first on TechRepublic.
Discord is rolling out machine-learning age assurance that estimates whether users are teens or adults without requiring most accounts to submit ID.
The post Discord Wants to Estimate Your Age Without Asking for ID appeared first on TechRepublic.
China reportedly probes DeepSeek and Moonshot after Anthropic alleged user requests reached Claude. Here’s what the data-routing claims mean for AI customers.
The post China Reportedly Probes DeepSeek, Moonshot Over Claude Data Routing appeared first on TechRepublic.
Windows 11 is testing storage sanitization in Cloud Rebuild, giving users and IT teams a stronger option for erasing PCs before reassignment or sale.
The post Windows 11 Is Getting a More Secure Way to Erase Data Before a Reset appeared first on TechRepublic.
Indonesia’s One Data Bill puts cross-border data transfers, data sovereignty, and overseas processing rules under formal negotiation.
The post Indonesia Weighs New Cross-Border Data Rules in One Data Bill Talks appeared first on TechRepublic.
Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has gone to great lengths to hype the security of its new AI assistant, Muse, claiming it is “built from the ground up for privacy and security.” A zero-day vulnerability that gives locally run apps and terminal commands complete control of the agent raises serious doubts. Further raising questions, Amazon on Sunday began blocking Muse from its site.
Meta introduced Muse a few weeks ago. The assistant “books appointments, fills out forms and handles customer service,” “proactively takes tasks off your plate,” and can “make purchases, generate images, create documents, and connect with your favorite apps and services.” The macOS app (curiously, there’s no Windows version) also works with a user’s WhatsApp, email, calendar, and social media accounts. When a task requires a tool that doesn’t exist, Muse creates one on the fly.
Of course, for Muse to do any of these things, users must first give it access to their accounts. This includes authenticating the assistant to each service and, because the app runs on macOS, giving it permissions to a broad range of operating system-restricted device resources, like writing files to disk, accessing the mic and camera, and monitoring location and calendars. Apple has spent years developing these defenses to prevent installed apps or commands entered into the terminal from accessing these resources, clearly because the company considers them a security threat. Muse completely undoes these default measures.
Researchers allege LG smart TVs can capture ambient audio and scan home networks, while LG disputes the findings and explains its privacy controls.
The post LG Pushes Back on Claims That Its Smart TVs Are Spying on Users appeared first on TechRepublic.
See what you missed in Daily Tech Insider from Sept. 7–11.
The post AI Agents, Foldables, Cyberthreats, and Chip Deals Define This Week in Tech appeared first on TechRepublic.
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Doug Kreuzkamp was shocked when news outlets reported that Google won an auction to buy a huge amount of operational data as part of Spirit Airlines’ bankruptcy proceedings.
Kreuzkamp founded a startup called Springshot in 2011, which created a widely used proprietary platform that helps humans and AI systems improve airline efficiency and quickly solve logistics problems so flights can stay on time and airlines can operate as smoothly as possible. Hundreds of airports use it globally.
Springshot powered Spirit’s technology stack for the last three years, right up to the “very last flight,” Kreuzkamp told Ars. Yet his company got no notice when Spirit prepared to auction off a massive dataset that he thinks likely improperly includes a substantial amount of data and intellectual property (IP) that Springshot owns—not Spirit.
Get AI-powered threat protection, encrypted connections, and more with this VPN lifetime subscription today.
The post This $50 lifetime VPN adds AI-powered protection to your connection appeared first on TechRepublic.
Meta launches Muse in the US, a personal AI agent that can book travel, shop, send emails, and run tasks, with security controls and paid plans.
The post Meta Launches Muse AI Agent to Run Errands, Book Travel, and Shop appeared first on TechRepublic.
Microsoft details Windows 11 age-signal APIs that let eligible apps receive age brackets without exposing users’ exact ages or birth dates.
The post Microsoft Confirms Windows 11 Age Signals for Apps — But They Aren’t Live Yet appeared first on TechRepublic.
IsThisSpam helps you check suspicious emails, texts, links, and websites before you click or respond.
The post This $30 Tool Helps You Spot Scams Before You Click appeared first on TechRepublic.
Before pasting passwords, medical records, source code, or company data into ChatGPT, use this checklist to decide what should stay private.
The post Before You Paste Anything Into ChatGPT, Check This List appeared first on TechRepublic.
AI could accelerate vulnerability discovery, shrinking the pool of exploits governments rely on while speeding up the race between attackers and defenders.
The post AI Could Shrink the Supply of Exploits Governments Rely On appeared first on TechRepublic.
Compare 12 Ray-Ban Meta alternatives for AI, privacy, sports and displays, including their key features, prices and trade-offs, to find the right pair.
The post 12 Best Ray-Ban Meta Alternatives to Buy in 2026 appeared first on TechRepublic.
Not long ago, I rented an SUV from a well-known car rental company. Within hours of an employee scanning my driver's license, a high-resolution scan of my ID was available for sale on the dark web.
An exposé published Tuesday by KrebsOnSecurity reports that my license was one of more than 153 million that were available through Nexus, the name of the new ID theft service. Like other driver's licenses available there—including some belonging to journalist Brian Krebs, his mother, an FBI assistant director, and several security researchers—my license was purported to include multiple image files showing both the front and back of the ID. Besides a basic image scan, the files also captured the images in the infrared and ultraviolet spectrums. Presumably, the additional formats may allow cloned-based counterfeit IDs to pass hologram tests.
Besides advertising the availability of driver's licenses, Nexus offered to sell a bevy of other forms of ID. They included:
Firefox for iPhone now includes a built-in ad blocker using EasyList, though first-party ads, search promotions and sponsored Firefox content can remain.
The post Mozilla Finally Brings Built-in Ad Blocking to Firefox on iPhone appeared first on TechRepublic.
Two Illinois customers allege Walmart created voiceprints from service calls without obtaining consent required under the state’s biometric privacy law.
The post Walmart Accused of Creating Voiceprints From Customer Service Calls appeared first on TechRepublic.
EEG-equipped earbuds can track signals linked to sleep, focus and fatigue, but brain-sensing wearables also raise new accuracy and privacy questions.
The post Your Next Earbuds May Know When Your Brain Is Tired appeared first on TechRepublic.
I filed a request with McDonald’s earlier this month to access all of the personal data the fast food company collected about me, and I received a stunning 515-page report a few days later that detailed my app interactions in granular detail and predicted I would never stop eating there.
Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, I have the legal right to request access to information from large companies that collect personal data. So I was curious what others might have on me, and I spent the next week filing more than 100 requests.
The CCPA went into effect in 2020, and three of its key provisions are the right to opt out of the selling of personal information, the right to delete that info, and the right to request a copy for yourself.
See what you missed in Daily Tech Insider from August 24–28.
The post AI Expansion Meets Security Crises, Costs, and Public Resistance in Tech This Week appeared first on TechRepublic.
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Plaud One uses AI earbuds and a 4G-connected case to record, summarize, and act on workplace conversations without relying on a nearby smartphone.
The post Plaud One: AI Earbuds That Listen, Summarize, and Take Action appeared first on TechRepublic.
Meta is rolling out an obvious fix to make its AI glasses less creepy amid backlash over the glasses' non-consensual recordings that have flooded the Internet.
On Friday, The Verge reported that Meta closed a loophole that made it easy for smart glasses users to cover up an LED light that is supposed to alert bystanders that the device is actively recording. Meta had previously deactivated recording if a user attempted to start capturing video after placing a sticker over the light, but people quickly learned that they could get around that by reversing the order of the steps and covering up the light after they started recording.
In a post on Threads, Meta’s executive vice president of wearables, Alex Himel, explained that an update would be rolled out soon that ensures that “the camera will now stop working if the light is covered during a recording." That way “the capture LED can reliably alert bystanders when photos or videos are being captured for someone’s gallery,” Himel said.
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