By Nate Tisa
The ACLU of Northern California has revealed U.S. firm Geofeedia used social media metadata access to deliver location and monitoring information to law enforcement agencies engaged in tracking activists, particularly those involved in the Ferguson, MO protests surrounding the death of Micheal Brown. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter cut Geofeedia’s API access in late September for violation of their respective privacy policies.
In the wake of Hurricane Matthew, government agencies and private firms are developing ways to use mobile application geolocation and metadata to track progress and compliance rates in areas of mandatory evacuation. Comparison of live data to existing baselines can give emergency planners an estimate of how many people remain in a given area that should be more or less void of activity.
U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May has banned wearable technology, including the Apple Watch, from all cabinet meetings out of fear that compromised devices could serve as microphones for foreign intelligence services. The decision comes on the heels of U.S. investigations into possible Russian hacks of the Democratic National Committee and other election-related entities.
The Tactical Tech Collective is hosting an open event with Mozilla in New York City this November and seeking workshop leaders. For more information see their website: https://tacticaltech.org.