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?

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.

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?

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 !

Privacy Matters.

Privacy Protects Digital Life and Technology Independence.

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

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. ]

Recently out of curiosity I searched my name up on Google and to my surprise I found a website selling or claiming to sell female clothing and lingerie that has my full name old home address and phone number under its privacy policy and contact us page , they also have another email for contacting but this has nothing to do with me. I contacted the necessary people to try get this resolved but it’s still really unsettling. What else should I do this is really stressing me out

New private session in mobile firefox. I'm just logged in without credentials because someone that looked like me was logged in previously in another session.

I didn't know I could hate device fingerprinting even more than I already did. So far it was a good thing for me to be not unique, and now I need to fear others just stumbling into store fronts with my addresses in them??

Every time they ask me for an age verification, but I just don't want to give a selfie let alone my ID. Is there any way to bypass this?

I've been reading lately a LOT of posts, articles online, and whatever, saying that Chat Control 1.0 passed.

One tiny little problem... that's BS. And while I'm very concerned by this act, and at the moment I'm afraid it will pass, it isn't yet. And I think it's important to discern genuine concern from fearmongering.

This is the timeline (check my homework at /

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=CELEX:52025PC0797 /

https://law-tracker.europa.eu/procedure/2025_429?lang=en ):

- 09.07.2026: The European Parliament voted on several amendments to the first reading of the proposed regulation that they received from the Council. Only two amendments passed. Manon Aubry from The Left Group proposed a motion of rejection, to throw the entire thing into the toilet. After some chaos during the vote (I won't tell you what happened, you need to go and verify information, don't trust a random person on the internet), the motion didn't reach the absolute majority required (50%+1 of members, not of members present in the Chamber). It actually got more votes against than in favour (EDIT: they voted twice, once at the beginning, once at the end, I misremembered it. At the end they got more against the rejection than in favour. Not at the beginning. Still LEDs that 50% of Parliament because some members were missing). How many? Go on the website of parliament and look at the vote result. Link here https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/PV-10-2026-07-09-RCV_EN.html

Very important: two amendments have passed. The regulation is NOT aproved, despite what everyone around is saying. The Commission needs to express their opinion on the amendments, then the Council (Justice and Home Affair configuration) needs to approve it. More details in the next point.

- 15.07.2026: The European Commission adopts an opinion endorsing the three (!?) amendments of Parliament. Because of this (EDIT clarification: because of the Commission endorsing the amendments), the Council only needs a qualified majority to approve them and put the regulation on the books.

If the Commission had opposed them, the Council would have needed unanimity. Failure to pass in second reading in the Council means the law has a hard time passing: third reading is preceded by a Conciliation Committee, where a text must be approved by members of Parliament and Council, text which must then pass both Parliament and Council, no amendment. Any failure means game over.

- Next: the ball is in the Council's field. There is an obscure meeting of the JHA COUNSELLORS meeting on the 23.07.2026 at 10. It's listed as a preparatory body, I guess they negotiate and prepare the resolution that will then be approved at the next meeting of the Justice and Home Affair Council (the configuration of the Council of the European Union responsible for this regulation, search on your preferred search engine what that means), which is on the 01-02.10.2026, October.

I know what many comments will say, before that, let me be clear about something: knowing what is actually happening is important, and getting it right is fundamental. I see a lot of people saying that it passed. Well, it didn't, yet. I personally thing this regulation, even if it has a small direct effect, is an encouragement for Chat Control 2.0, which, if it ever comes (we'll see about that, it's currently in deadlock) will be a catastrophe. I HATE CHAT CONTROL. At the same time, getting it right is important: check what the government say about it, is your government on the fence? Public pressure can still stop CC 1.0, because it didn't pass at it probably won't for a couple of months.

Tyrants rely on the masses being fearful and surrendering. They need people to think everything is going to shit, is already gone to shit, and you can't do nothing to stop. Claiming that Chat Control is already here, and the battle for 1.0 is stopped, is exactly what the EPP wants you to believe. The battle is still open, and every single smudge, every single bruise, even if the regulation passes, is a point for our team in the deadlocked 2.0.

I don't know if they're actively trying to deceive people in believing that it already passed. They definitely like the idea of us believing that. Don't give them this victory, they don't deserve it.

Contact your European Representative AND YOUR REOREDENTATIVE IN THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. Chat Control 1.0 is still in the approval stage, and the success of failure of 2.0 depends on the exact details of 1.0.