Zack Whittaker reports: Bill Swearingen has spent the past year running largely the same test, over and over again. The goal was to produce a computer-generated pattern that could block the surveillance cameras lining America’s streets from detecting it. Some 31 million tests later, Swearingen says he can now produce patterns on-demand that, when applied...

Alexander Martin reports: A 20-year-old man was sentenced Monday to two years in prison for coercing more than 100 girls worldwide into sexual and self-harm activity using platforms such as Snapchat, Telegram and Discord, British authorities said. Justin Swaddle, of Leeds in northern England, targeted 117 female victims aged 13 to 17, according to the...

Lindsey Tonsager, Jenna Zhang, and Irene Kim of Covington and Burling write: On July 28, 2026, the New York Office of the Attorney General released final rules (the “Rules”) implementing the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act, which goes into effect on January 25, 2027. The SAFE for Kids Act requires online “addictive social media...

Seen on FourthAmendment.com, a decision from the Eastern District of New York: “The government seeks a warrant to search two cellular phones that have been in its possession for more than two months since the time to execute a prior search warrant lapsed. In United States v. Smith, 967 F.3d 198 (2d Cir. 2020), the...

July 31, 2026: Today, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) filed an amicus brief in Leslie v. City of New York, a case in which the New York Police Department (NYPD) secretively took the DNA of Shakira Leslie, a Black woman, from a water cup she used while handcuffed without her consent or knowledge. Leslie’s DNA was then unknowingly placed on...

Dhruv Mehrotra reports: On March 13, 2025, Hugo Moreno-Mendez arrived at the McLennan County Probation Department in Waco, Texas, expecting a routine probation check-in. Instead, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were waiting to arrest him. According to a criminal complaint reviewed by WIRED, officers drove Moreno-Mendez to a nearby ICE field office. There, one deportation officer after another...

The Associated Press and Anthony Izaguirre report: More than 20 states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration on Monday to block it from getting wide access to the personal information of millions of recipients of a benefits program for low-income families. The case is the latest legal action between states and the federal government...

Joseph Cox reports: A series of issues in Apple’s web browser engine — the tech underlying all browsers on iOS — means that Apple’s iCloud Private Relay tool, which is supposed to hide a user’s IP address, in many cases doesn’t actually work. Instead, the issues mean a malicious attacker can set up a website...

Lindsey Tonsager, Jenna Zhang, and Natalie Maas of Covington and Burling write: Consistent with recent years, 2026 has proved to be a busy year for children and teens’ privacy legislation. This post recaps notable developments and trends thus far in 2026. Our mid-year and end-of-year recaps for 2025 can be found here and here. App Marketplace Laws Two...

Carly Nairn reports: A federal judge has mostly tossed a privacy case brought against LinkedIn over the company’s Insight Tag. Users said the feature — which links actions on third-party advertiser websites to specific LinkedIn profiles — collected sensitive medical data without their permission. But Senior U.S. District Judge Edward Davila mostly granted the company’s...

Charmian Aw, Ciara O’Leary, and Florence Seow of Hogan Lovells Cadwalader write: Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Commission (“PDPC”) has issued its final Advisory Guidelines on Use of Personal Data in Generative AI (“Guidelines”), marking a significant development in Singapore’s AI governance framework. The Guidelines provide long-awaited clarity on how the Personal Data Protection Act 2012...

Jill Canfield and Tyler R. Bridegan of Womble Bond Dickinson write: The California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA), a 1967 penal code law originally designed to protect the privacy rights of California residents, has become the basis for a recent surge in demands and lawsuits. Plaintiffs’ attorneys are suing companies across the country for using...

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Joseph J. Lazzarotti of JacksonLewis writes: If you have heard of CIPA, BIPA, GIPA, or TCPA litigation, you may have an idea of where this post is headed. These acronyms reference federal and state laws that permit a private right of action for certain privacy-related claims, affording successful plaintiffs with statutory remedies. In a recent case, Bartholomew...

This is a fascinating piece on the incident and legal issues. Leave yourself time to read it all. Sam Liles writes: A story moving through privacy circles right now has a clean, alarming shape: federal agents forced a man to unlock his phone at the border, it self-destructed using a privacy feature, and now the...

The Federal Trade Commission, joined by Utah and California, by and through Los Angeles County Counsel, today sued Hims & Hers alleging that the telehealth provider shared consumers’ sensitive health information about medical conditions with third-party advertising platforms despite claiming its services maintain consumers’ privacy and deceives users about its billing and cancellation practices. In...

Dasha Litvinova of AP reports: < Russia’s main domestic security agency said Wednesday that Pavel Durov, founder and owner of the messaging app Telegram, has been charged with aiding terrorism and put on an international wanted list. The charges against Durov, who was born and  began his career in Russia  but later moved abroad, came as...

Jackson Healy reports: The Trump administration has ended its push to force the University of Pennsylvania to release a list of the names and personal contact information of Jewish people on campus, according to court documents filed Thursday. While tied to an ongoing federal inquiry into on-campus antisemitism accusations, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s now-dropped subpoena against...

Zack Whittaker reports: A U.S. magistrate judge last month denied to issue a search warrant allowing federal agents to snoop on the phones of “thousands of uninvolved, unsuspecting individuals” across Ohio in an effort to identify a suspected criminal’s device, a rare rebuke by a court blocking the use of a cell-site simulator. In the ruling,...

I think I missed this one, but you shouldn’t miss it, too. Thorin Klosowski of EFF writes: Oura Rings, Garmin GPS fitness watches, Apple Watches, Whoop bands—every year, more and more tech devices are promising to monitor our health and fitness, guide us toward healthier living, and provide useful health metrics to take to our...