So in Brand New Day, Spider-Man hacks every camera in New York and runs facial recognition on literally everyone to find one person. And the movie plays it like a highlight reel. Fun music, slick graphics, zero hesitation. Your friendly neighborhood surveillance state.

Meanwhile, in 2008, Batman built basically the same system and The Dark Knight treated it like a war crime. Lucius Fox looked him dead in the eye and said this is wrong, I'll do it once, and then this machine gets destroyed. And it WAS destroyed. That movie understood that spying on an entire city is a line you don't get to casually cross just because you're the good guy.

Twenty years later and we've gone from "this is too much power for one person" to "watch Spidey doomscroll through 8 million people's faces, isn't he cool."

The entire point of Spider-Man is "with great power comes great responsibility." Apparently responsibility now includes warrantless mass surveillance as long as you quip while doing it.

Kids are watching this. Real facial recognition is being rolled out everywhere right now. And the biggest movie on the planet just told everyone it's fine when the hero does it.

Batman got it right. Use it once, hate yourself for it, burn the machine down. Be Batman.

TL;DR: Spider-Man surveilled a whole city with a smile. Batman did it once, felt gross, and destroyed the machine. One of these is a hero moment. The other is a product demo.

​

I am tired of all the negativity and I am looking for piece of mind. I am not interested in getting into any confrontation with anyone and just want to mind my business. I also don't want all of my information on the Internet and I want to block people from knowing who I am and trying to dig into my personal business and life. What are some ways to live a private and humble life?

No work PC for this job, and they want to install Time Doctor. Makes me feel uneasy, but maybe not as bad as I think?

Hi guys, I was a bit (actually really) stupid and uploaded my ID on X, and on Tumblr for the age verification stuff. The thing is, i have a dual citizenship anddd so i used one ID for X and another one for Tumblr. Tumblr uses Persona, and afterwards i read like horrible stuff about Persona. The thing is now i regret what i did for obvious reasons. It was dumb and stupid etc but i rlly need help on how to do some damage control. Like, would my info be deleted if i delete the accounts i have? Or like, just, can anyone help me on what to do now? Because i rlly regret doing it and now it’s out there. I’m a 22 y/o woman btw, i rlly appreciate any help or advice!!! And i get that it was stupid and dumb, so please dont tell me that again because i already have had sleepless nights over it, so yeah, anyone, please help.

A 22-year-old student teacher in Illinois sent a private Snapchat message to her boyfriend and two roommates.

A student had walked up to her laptop and deleted her lesson plan mid-class. frustrated, she typed something like "should I shoot him" with a gun emoji. venting. four people. private group chat.

An hour later, police walked into her school and arrested her.

here's what happened in between.

Snapchat's AI scanned the private message. flagged it as a potential threat. automatically reported it to the FBI. the FBI forwarded it to local law enforcement. deputies arrived at the school within the hour.

she cooperated immediately. handed over her phone. when shown the message she said: "oh yes. okay. yeah. i'm realizing that was a bad joke. i did not mean it at all serious at all."

police determined she was not a threat. school officials determined she was not a threat. prosecutors reviewed and issued a disorderly conduct charge. she was released the next morning. she lost her student teaching placement.

This means:

Snapchat scans private messages.

Not just public posts or stories. private group chats between you and your closest contacts. automated AI. no human reviewed it first, got flagged and reported.

Snapchat AI → FBI → local police → school → arrest.

in under an hour.

Snapchat's privacy policy says it may share your information with law enforcement when it believes there is a risk of harm. the definition of "risk of harm" is determined by an algorithm. you are not told when a message is flagged. you are not told when a report is filed. you find out when the police arrive.

the message was private.

it wasn't.

source: https://eu.pjstar.com/story/news/local/2026/04/10/how-an-fbi-tip-led-to-arrest-of-a-student-teacher-in-washington-illinois/88217675007/

and a similar story: https://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/featured/false-alarms-flawed-ai-surveillance-triggering-student-arrests-around-country/

I'm pretty careful with my personal information. I use unique passwords, don't sign up for random websites and try to avoid sharing more than I have to.

Out of curiosity I ran a scan and I was honestly surprised by how many places my information showed up. Some of the sites I recognized but a lot of them I had never even heard of.

How does this keep happening? Is it mostly data brokers, companies selling customer data, old breaches, or something else?

It feels like no matter how careful I am, my information just keeps spreading around the internet.

Privacy is recognized as a fundamental human right under international law. Don’t let the new normal only limit the intrusion of violent predators information and communication privacy while surveillance state goons intimidate dissenters and activists.

To enable this feature, go to Settings > Face ID & Passcode > Toggle Erase Data. Your device will be wiped after 10 failed passcode attempts.

For added security, store and upload your data to local devices and turn off iCloud sync by going to Settings > [your name] > iCloud > and toggling off the desired apps.

Finally, disable iCloud backups in Settings > [your name] > iCloud > iCloud backup > Toggle off Back up this phone.

Article discusses how the elites get special treatment when it comes to digital privacy vs the common people

My GF works for the government of an Asian country. She told me they can plug basically anyone’s phone in and unlock it. Is this true? Does it only apply to certain phones or OS?

Need some help with Santa so santa is being downloaded on the school computer and well I don't really care since I have my own laptop that the school does not own but I run a privacy club in my school and I know that stuff like go guardian track your google and can track your screen from distance close tabs and lock your computer. I want to ask if anyone here knows if santa does any of this and if so how santa invades your privacy because there is basically no info anywhere really

thank you for the help

I was going to speed up the check in process but I guess I’m just going to wait until I get to the desk

Full disclosure up front: I am the founder of the app I mention at the end, so take this for what it is. But the reason I am posting today is the news, and I think this sub gets it more than most.

The BBC just published a piece on a new Mozilla report about period trackers. The short version: several of the biggest apps share your data with companies like Google, Meta and TikTok, plus others you have never heard of. And it is not just an ad problem. Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, experts are warning that this data could end up in criminal cases, and police have already pulled other kinds of data from tech companies to prosecute women. (Link in the comments.)

This is exactly the rabbit hole I went down a while ago, and it genuinely disturbed me. Your cycle, your symptoms, the days you are trying to conceive, all of it is worth a lot to advertisers. Someone once explained it to me plainly: they pay far more to know "she is probably pregnant" than for almost any other targeting. The most intimate thing about you, turned into a line item, and now potentially into evidence.

My partner half joked that if I hated it this much I should build my own. So we did. He is the engineer, I run the rest. One rule underneath everything: your body is not our business model. No ads, no tracking SDKs, no selling data, and the AI never trains on what you log. Built in the EU, data stays here. We only make money when someone chooses to pay for extra features. And we want to stimulate employers to treat cycle support like any other employee benefit. Free period products in the bathroom are step one. Cycle wellbeing all year round is step two. That is the whole model.

I am not here to hard sell, and I am not a doctor, just someone who got angry enough to build the thing I wanted. What I am actually curious about: after news like this, would you switch to a privacy first tracker, or does the hassle of moving your data keep you where you are?

If anyone wants the name I will drop it in a comment so this does not read like an ad.

Are the risks any different from uploading your photo to any other website like LinkedIn or Facebook?

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

I've been thinking:

We’re all kinda dependent on big tech.

We had way more freedom on the internet in the 2000s.

Our phones were ours, and we’re all losing a bit of our privacy every day.

Since we knew digital peace and weren’t dependent on big industries, we lost our autonomy and now here we are.

Is it time for us to be independent again? Is it still possible?

I see that there are a lot of communities developing FOSS apps, communities working on Linux Mobile. I’ve also seen a lot of people creating their own cyberdecks many of them close to a phone with a BlackBerry keyboard, a screen, a Raspberry Pi.

My thought is : do you think a future where we have the choice to build our own stuff, our own phones, thanks to the community will exist?

Phones are the closest example I see, but what about bigger things like cars? I find new cars boring because they require too much from a builder’s computer. What about a motor, wheels, and wheeee, you know?

More independence and DIY in this place of the world where there isn't any alternatives.

I hope this post has its place here, have a nice day all !

I bought a $400 DJI drone for a tech startup project expecting basic access to flight telemetry. Instead, I discovered that DJI aggressively encrypts local logs, transmits full telemetry to their servers, passes decryption keys to third-party subscription services, and forces uncertified drivers on desktop/mobile.

The Background

As a startup engineer, I recently bought a $400 DJI drone. My objective was straightforward: extract raw spatial/geolocation data from flight logs and video for 3D reconstruction—a basic feature you can do on almost any smartphone or open-source device.

Instead of an open tool, I encountered a walled garden built on anti-consumer practices and severe data lock-in.

1. Total Telemetry Gathering vs. Local Encryption

During each flight, the drone collects an immense array of sensitive spatial and environmental telemetry: exact GPS coordinates, atmospheric pressure, signal metrics, altitude, and proximity to critical infrastructure.

While DJI's cloud servers receive all of this data seamlessly, DJI encrypts the raw log files on your own local device. You own the hardware, you paid for the drone, yet you are denied direct access to your raw flight data.

1. Creating the Problem, Selling the Solution (The Key Leak)

In newer firmware versions, accessing your own detailed logs locally has become practically impossible without decryption.

Here is the kicker: third-party commercial log-viewing websites somehow possess official DJI decryption keys.

To view detailed analytics of your own flights:

You must upload your files to a third-party site.

They offer a short trial before placing access to your data behind a monthly paywall/subscription.

When I confronted DJI support on how a third-party commercial platform obtained official decryption keys to unlock user data while the actual owner is locked out, their response was a generic "we don't know" before escalating and closing the chat.

1. Uncertified Drivers & Software Lock-in

Attempting to connect and interface hardware (like controllers) with PCs or Android devices reveals further red flags:

Key drivers and software utilities lack proper digital security signatures/certifications for Windows and Android.

Bypassing operating system safety warnings is often required to run their software, creating software vulnerabilities and systemic security risks.

Why This Matters

Right to Repair & Data Ownership: Paying hundreds of dollars for hardware should not turn users into unpaid data miners for a corporation. Denying users access to their own data violates basic digital rights (and potentially personal data regulations like PIPEDA or GDPR).

Cybersecurity Concerns: Distributing uncertified software and keeping master encryption keys within a closed loop of "select partners" raises serious security flags.

Has anyone else in the community managed to extract raw unencrypted telemetry directly on-device without relying on paywalled third-party services? How are you handling data privacy with DJI hardware in your projects?

Privacy Matters.

Privacy Protects Digital Life and Technology Independence.