SparkPress - Privacy and Security News
A snapshot of what privacy news looked like in October 2023, back when passkeys were still a novelty and the first White House order on AI had just landed. Short, dated, and left exactly as it was published.
Topic
Digital Privacy
A collection of 36 issues
Identity Unmasked: The Double-Edged Sword of Biometrics
A password can be changed after a breach. A fingerprint, an iris, a palm vein pattern cannot. That asymmetry is what makes biometrics the most convenient login you will ever use and the most permanent thing you can hand over.
The Ultimate Anti-Tracking Guide for 2023 by Ghostery
Ghostery wrote a tracking primer worth the read; this is the condensed version. Most useful for the line it draws between tracking that makes a site work and tracking that follows you off it.
Digital Privacy Laws in the United States: A Comprehensive Overview with Crosswalks
The US never wrote a GDPR. It wrote one law for children, one for banks, one for wiretaps, and one for terrorism — decades apart, each patching the last. A crosswalk of what the statutes cover and what falls between them.
Mock Location Apps for Android: A Deep Dive
Five Android apps that let you tell every other app on your phone you are somewhere else — for testing, for region locks, or simply to keep your real position out of somebody's log.
Firefox Privacy and Security Guide (2026)
Firefox 152 reorganised the privacy panel, and three recommendations in the old version of this guide are now wrong. One of them, disabling automatic updates, made readers less safe.
Android Auto vs. Android Automotive OS: A Comprehensive Comparison
Two products, one brand name, and a distinction most drivers never notice until they are shopping for a car. Working out which one is in the dashboard tells you whose software is running and what it is wired into.
Chrome's Advanced Privacy Features: Introducing the Privacy Sandbox
The third-party cookie is being retired by the company that profits most from it. A short look at what Chrome proposes to put in its place, presented in Google's own framing.
VoIP Services for Personal Use: An Overview
A second phone number is the cheapest identity partition you can buy. Which provider you rent it from decides who holds the call logs, whether the audio is encrypted, and whether 911 reaches anyone.
SPAM CALLS BE GONE!
Registering takes five minutes and costs nothing, but it only binds callers who were already following the law. Scammers were never checking the list — here is what the registry actually buys you.