Identity management

Photo: SAVO PRELEVIC/AFP (Getty Images)Today’s kids, more online than any generation before, are paradoxically beset by a digital world that isn’t the most kid-friendly. From creeps to depression-spurring algorithms to cyberbullying, experts often link web use to skyrocketing mental health issues in young people.But help may be on the way. On Monday, the California Senate overwhelmingly voted (33 to 0) to pass a comprehensive children’s privacy bill designed to protect kids from web platforms’ most noxious and invasive…

Photo: Graeme Jennings-Pool (Getty Images)The Federal Trade Commission announced a lawsuit Monday against a major data broker, accusing it of offering services that allow for the tracking of Americans at sensitive locations, such as addiction clinics or domestic violence shelters. Commissioners voted 4-1 this week to bring a suit against Kochava, Inc., which calls itself the “industry leader for mobile app attribution” and sells mobile geo-location data on hundreds of millions of people. The suit accuses the company of…

Not a month ago, 53 House lawmakers voted, for the first time this century, to send a comprehensive federal privacy bill to the floor. It was a laudable achievement, but it’s been frozen in place ever since. Now, with fewer than 100 days until the midterm elections, any hope of getting national privacy reform done before a new Congress is sworn in is growing dimmer by the day.The American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA) may have advanced farther than any of its forerunners, but there are plenty of obstacles in…

Photo: ROBYN BECK/AFP (Getty Images)Log on to your Apple Store or Google Play account, and you’ll find dozens of apps that say they’ll keep track of your time of the month or that’ll help you know the status of your little bun in the oven. They’re also keeping track of you, and it’s become increasingly apparent since the U.S. Supreme Court ended the right to safe abortion byoverturning Roe v. Wade, many companies don’t hesitate to sell your pregnancy info to the highest bidder.Mozilla privacy researchers dove into 25…

These days, if your passwords and login credentials have appeared in a public data breach, you’re most likely going to know about it: Apple, Google, password managers, web browsers and more will all warn you if the details that they’re storing have been spotted in a breach. The next question is: what should you do about it?While each situation will be different, there are some basic steps that you’re always going to want to follow to make sure your accounts stay safely locked against unwelcome intruders. Act fast enough,…

Rep. Kelly Armstrong, a member of the House Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, accompanies House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy outside for a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, July 27, 2021.Photo: Associated Press (AP)House Republicans want to drastically change a federal privacy bill that Democrats in the Senate are also threatening to murder. The American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA) is one of the few pieces of privacy legislation to get the time of day on CapitolHill in the last few…

After putting nearly all of its eggs in one virtual basket, Meta is now looking for ways to make the metaverse a place that people actually want to visit, starting with giving users a surprisingly easy way to digitize themselves as a virtual reality avatar using just the hardware in their smartphone.Digital stunt doubles are more popular than ever in Hollywood, but as more than just a safer way to make the action on screen more exciting. Recreating many of Marvel’s comic book costumes in the movies can often only be…

Photo: VDB Photos (Shutterstock)In the decade-spanning conflict between the need for online privacy and efforts to stop fake accounts from accessing sensitive info, the tech monolith that is Microsoft is putting its massive weight behind the creation of standardized online identities. In its announcement Tuesday, Microsoft talked up its Entra management systems that includes Verified ID, promoting itself as a quick way of giving sensitive identification to entities thatneed to verify that you are who you say you are.In…