“Android 15 continues our work to build a platform that helps improve your productivity while giving you new capabilities to produce superior media experiences, minimize battery impact, maximize smooth app performance, and protect user privacy and security all on the most diverse lineup of devices out there,” Dave Burke, VP of engineering for Android, wrote in a blog post.

In Android 15, partial screen sharing support has been added, allowing users to share or save a specific app window instead of using the entire screen.

Also, the fitness and health tracking service Health Connect by Android is being updated with new data types.

The camera has also been updated with improvements for photos taken in low light and with improved flash intensity settings.

Enhancements in the Android Dynamic Performance Framework (ADPF) encompass a power-efficient mode tailored for hint sessions, dynamic adjustments of GPU and CPU frequencies to align with workload demands, and implementation of thermal headroom thresholds.

Developers have the option to test Android 15 on Pixel 6, 7, or 8 devices, as well as Pixel Fold or Pixel Tablet. Alternatively, developers can utilize the Android Emulator within Android Studio for testing on other devices.

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The company received a lot of negative feedback and took countless criticism for offering users paid versions of its apps as a way to avoid targeted advertising.

“More than 20pc of the EU population are already at risk of poverty. For the complainant in our case, as for many others, a ‘Pay or Okay’ system would mean paying the rent or having privacy”, said NOYB founder Max Schrems.

Rumours of this subscription model spread last month and were later confirmed by Meta, which said that allowing people to purchase a subscription for no ads “balances the requirements of European regulators while giving users choice.”

In its complaint, NOYB said that under EU law, consent for personalized ads is only valid if it is “freely given”, and argued that the subscription-based alternative is “the exact opposite” of free choice.

According to NOYB, a minimal fraction of individuals expresses a preference for their personal data to be employed in personalized advertising. Conversely, a study indicates that over 99% of people opt not to pay a privacy fee.

The organization also raises concerns about the expenses associated with preserving privacy under the proposed subscription model. NOYB highlights that users would need to commit to an annual subscription exceeding €250 to ensure that their Facebook and linked Instagram accounts remain devoid of personalized advertising.

Founded about nine years ago, Proton initially focused on a Gmail alternative called Proton Mail, but the company has expanded its horizons to include VPN, password management, calendaring and, cloud storage.

Last September, Proton debuted Proton Drive on the web, followed by mobile apps in December and Windows in July.

Proton Drive is now fully cross-platform, with users able to sync everything across all the devices they use.

Certainly! Proton Drive offers automatic full encryption for files and folders by default. Unlike Apple’s recent introduction of end-to-end encryption for certain iCloud data, which requires manual activation by users, Proton Drive ensures full encryption across all data, including metadata and file names, from the outset.

As for storage, Proton Drive provides 1GB for free, and users can opt for paid plans starting at $4 per month, which includes 200GB of storage and additional features. These features encompass the capability to automatically archive previous file versions for a period of up to 10 years.

Currently, Proton Drive for Mac exclusively synchronizes files to the cloud from the designated Proton Drive folder. However, Proton is actively developing the capability to extend synchronization to any local folder.

While Proton has a history of open-sourcing most of its applications, allowing third parties like security researchers to scrutinize the underlying code, the Proton Drive Mac app has not yet followed suit. The company assures that open-sourcing will be implemented in due course.

As for Linux users, Proton has indicated that eventual open-sourcing is part of its long-term roadmap, though a specific timeline has not been provided.

According to the charges, the company violated the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The issue relates to the way the music streaming platform handles users’ personal data and customers’ access to the information.

While Spotify provides the data it has on request by an individual, the company has not been specific enough about how this data is used.

The Swedish Data Protection Authority (IMY) found that although Spotify provides users with personal data it processes on request, it “does not inform clearly enough about how this data is used by the company”. It also said Spotify should be more transparent “about how and for what purposes individuals’ personal data is processed”. The lack of clarity meant that “it was difficult for individuals to understand how their personal data was being processed and to check whether the processing of their personal data was lawful”, the IME added.

The regulator said it considered the issues to be of a “low level of seriousness” and noted that the music company had taken steps to address them. IMY set the fine based on these factors, as well as Spotify’s revenue and number of users. The decision on the fine was made with the help of other data protection authorities in the EU, given that Spotify has users in many countries.

The FTC reached a settlement with the company that includes enhanced protections for child gamers. Additionally, the tech giant was found to have failed to inform parents of its data collection policies.

Will misuse of personal data and breach of privacy become a new trend? Just a few days ago, the same US commission fined Amazon $25 million for violating children’s privacy with its voice assistant Alexa.

The FTC said Microsoft violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act by failing to obtain proper parental consent and retaining personal data of children under 13 for longer than unreasonable.
for accounts created before 2021.

The law requires online services and websites targeting children to obtain parental consent and inform them of the personal data being collected about their child.

To access certain services Xbox users must create an account, with information such as full name, email address and date of birth collected.

Only after obtaining personal information, such as the child’s phone number, does Microsoft ask the parent for permission.

“Regrettably, we did not meet customer expectations and are committed to complying with the order to continue improving upon our safety measures,”

Microsoft’s Dave McCarthy, CVP of Xbox Player Services, wrote in an Xbox blog post.

As part of the settlement, Microsoft must also institute new safety protections for children. That includes maintaining a system to delete all personal data after two weeks if no parental consent is obtained.

Through their startup Inrupt, Berners-Lee and CEO John Bruce created the “Solid Pod” – or Personal Online Data Store. It allows people to store their data in one central location and control which people and apps have access to it, rather than having it stored by apps or sites all over the web, CNN Business reports.

Berners-Lee says that the main appeal of this kind of self-hosting is control and privacy, and John Bruce adds to this by noting that user data is not only protected from corporations and governments, but is also less likely to be stolen by hackers.

“I think we’ve all realized that the value of the web is embodied in the data available on it. In this new world where you look after your data yourself, it doesn’t live in big silos that are lucrative targets for attackers.”

Says John Bruce.

Inrupt’s platform is already being tested by the UK’s National Health Service and the government of the Belgian region of Flanders, which plans to use the devices in question to allow its citizens to choose how to share their personal data.

In October, the BBC introduced an experimental service using Pod devices for “viewing parties”, where multiple friends stream a programme at the same time. When the viewing party is over, the user can see the data that has been generated, including which programme they watched and who else joined in, and choose whether to delete or edit the information – or allow the BBC to use it.

In a blog post, Eleni Sharp, executive product manager for BBC Research and Development, described this method as a “radically different approach to data management”.

Inrupt has been operating since 2017 and has earned $30 million, and Berners-Lee says it will help shape the next iteration of the World Wide Web – Web 3.

“You’ll hear people talk about Web 3 and decentralization as being very similar in ideas and goals.”

said Paul Brody, Global Blockchain Leader at consulting firm Ernst and Young.

He believes Web 3 could change the way we use the internet.

Berners-Lee hopes his platform will give control back to internet users. He is convinced that the public is concerned about privacy and don’t want to stand idly by when web platforms have massive amounts of data and misuse it. In his view, what we are missing is empowerment. His desire is to get back to a situation where you have autonomy and you have control over all your data.

In fact, the study found that YouTube mostly collects your personal data for its own purposes to serve you more relevant ads. On the other hand, TikTok mostly allows third-party trackers to collect your data — “and from there, it’s hard to say what happens with it,” reports CNBC. The report noted:

“With third-party trackers, it’s essentially impossible to know who’s tracking your data or what information they’re collecting, from which posts you interact with to your physical location and any other personal information you share with the app. As the study noted, third-party trackers can track your activity on other sites even after you leave the app. “

The URL Genius used the Record App Activity feature from Apple’s iOS to conduct the research. They counted how many different domains track a user’s activity across 10 different social media apps — YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, Telegram, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Messenger and Whatsapp. The data was collected from users over the course of one visit, before they even log into their accounts.

YouTube and TikTok got 14 network contacts apiece, significantly higher than the study’s average number of six network contacts per app. The study also noted that numbers might be higher for users who are logged into accounts on those apps.

Moreover, the study found that ten of YouTube’s trackers were first-party network contacts. This, in fact, means that the platform was tracking user activity for its own purposes. Four of the contacts were from third-party domains, meaning the social platform was allowing a handful of mystery outside parties to collect information and track user activity.

TikTok results were even more surprising: 13 of the 14 network contacts on the popular social media app were from third parties. The third-party tracking still happened even when users didn’t opt into allowing tracking in each app’s settings, according to the study.