@thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 11h ago

As I warned about months ago now, I can confirm that Google Chrome's #AI API is now actively being used for device fingerprinting and tracking purposes. Out of 100 of the top global english language content sites - around 30% are actively using the API for fingerprinting, Google Advertising (profiling) or both) without the legally required consent (EU law). #Privacy

198

1

349

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 3mo ago

Boosted by @trending@homestead.social

Yesterday I sent 836 emails to MEPs, Perm Reps, Ministers and their staff/advisors pleading with them to block the #ChatControl urgency vote. I am a #CSA survivor - it destroyed my entire family and left me estranged for the last 40 years. #CSAM is a really bad problem, but removing the #privacy of every single person in the #EU is not going to fix it: https://www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/csa-survivor-plea-to-eu-parliament/

That Privacy Guy!

CSA Survivor Pleads with EU Officials to block Chat Control vote — That Privacy Guy!

A child abuse survivor urges MEPs to reject Chat Control — mass scanning won

117

6

155

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 3mo ago

Anthropic secretly installs spyware when you install Claude Desktop Anthropic's Claude Desktop silently installs a Native Messaging bridge into seven Chromium browsers, including browsers Anthropic's own documentation says it does not support, and browsers the user has not even installed. https://www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/anthropic-spyware #ai #privacy #eprivacy #compliance #infosec #gdpr #law #cyber #security #anthropic #claude

thatprivacyguy.com

99

14

187

1

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 3mo ago

Google quietly removes the on-device AI privacy assurance from Chrome's Settings UI Google has quietly removed the privacy assurance from Chrome's on-device AI Settings UI. The sentence promising that the model runs locally without sending data to Google's servers has been deleted, and the toggle moved out of the System block to reduce the chance the change is noticed. There are three plausible reasons for tha… https://www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/google-quietly-removes-on-device-ai-privacy-claim #ai #chrome #consent #compliance #eprivacy #gdpr #google

thatprivacyguy.com

61

2

92

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 3mo ago

So I have the full list of those who Voted for Chat Control today including those who decided it wasn't worth turning up for and those who abstained. It was passed by a majority of 27 yet we had almost 100 MEPs either not turn up or abstain - they are not innocent. I will be launching a paper with their voting history and who lobbied them in the near future. They must not be permitted to remain as MEPs and need to be defeated in the next elections. Abstention/DNV is worse than cowardice.

23

15

17

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 3mo ago

#ChatControl vote in: Total votes: 646 In favour: 331 Against: 304 Abstention: 11 We need to make sure those who voted for it are not MEPs after the next election. They need to understand that their actions have consequences. #CSAM #Privacy

23

2

31

1

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 3mo ago

Data Sovereignty in light of US uncertainty EU and businesses are abandoning US tech giants for open source and self-hosted alternatives. Why data sovereignty matters now more than ever. https://www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/data-sovereignty-in-light-of-us-uncertainty #DataSovereignty #technology #SelfHosted #foss #gdpr #compliance #privacy #SurveillanceCapitalism #infosec #cyber #security

thatprivacyguy.com

20

2

18

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 3mo ago

The 415 - the MEPs who let Chat Control through, and the lobbyists in their diaries

Yesterday 331 MEPs voted to bring Chat Control back under an urgency procedure the President should never have allowed. Here is every one of the 415 who did not oppose it, with their voting records and every lobbyist they have met.

https://www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/chat-control-the-415-who-failed-you

#csam #chatcontrol #eprivacy #charter #eu #surveillance #lobbying #law

thatprivacyguy.com

12

0

28

2

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 3mo ago

CSA Survivor Pleads with EU Officials to block Chat Control vote A child abuse survivor urges MEPs to reject Chat Control — mass scanning won't protect children, and it breaks the encryption survivors need to safely report abuse. https://www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/csa-survivor-plea-to-eu-parliament #csam #charter #eprivacy #eu #law

thatprivacyguy.com

12

0

16

1

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 3mo ago

Today I have reached out to a number of MEPs who have a pro-fundamental rights voting history but for some reason did not vote in yesterday's urgency procedure vote.

I will be publishing a massive expose on the 400+ MEPs that allowed the urgency vote to prevail yesterday including voting history and who they had meetings with - I have asked those handful that usually are pro-rights to explain why they didn't vote yesterday so I can determine if they should be in the expose.

#ChatControl

eupolicy.social

EUpolicy.social - A Mastodon server for the EU bubble

11

3

9

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 3mo ago

The MEP investigating spyware was keeping his whole life on the phone that got hacked Pegasus infected the phone of an MEP who sat on the committee investigating it - a real assault on democracy. It also came out that he kept fifteen years of everything on that one phone and missed three warnings from Apple - and that's a failure we have to talk about too. https://www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/mep-spyware-committee-phone-security #surveillance #spyware #pegasus #cybersecurity #eu #pega #edps #privacy

thatprivacyguy.com

11

1

8

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 2mo ago

Chat Control in 9000 Words A picture is worth a thousand words. This one is worth nine thousand. A wordless nine-panel story of what mass surveillance does to the children it claims to protect. https://www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/chat-control-in-9000-words #chatcontrol #surveillance #privacy #encryption #ChildProtection

thatprivacyguy.com

7

5

10

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 2mo ago

Psychology

An extract from It's Personal. The Hawthorne Effect, the Chinese social credit system, and why observing everyone does not protect the children it claims to protect.

https://www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/the-psychology-of-surveillance

#surveillance #chatcontrol #csam #psychology #HumanRights #FreedomOfThought #china #privacy #psychographics #identity

thatprivacyguy.com

7

0

6

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 3mo ago

The Beast behind the Browser: Every Privacy Vulnerability in Chrome and How to Catch It A forensic reference to every client-side privacy vulnerability in Google Chrome — fingerprinting, storage tracking, header leaks — and how to detect each. https://www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/the-beast-behind-the-browser #SurveillanceCapitalism #adtech #martech #cookies #privacy #eprivacy #law #forensics

thatprivacyguy.com

8

0

8

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 3mo ago

The United Nations runs Google's ad-tech on its own website, without consent, while telling the rest of us to account for AI's footprint The UN demands AI accountability while running Google ad-tech, analytics and tracking on its own website - with no consent and a measurable, avoidable carbon cost. https://www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/un-tracking-without-consent #privacy #gdpr #eprivacy #environment #tracking #un #esg #HumanRights #hypocrisy #adtech #ai

thatprivacyguy.com

7

0

10

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@peter_mcmahan@mas.to Given you already use Ubuntu, Debian would be a sensible choice.

7

1

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 3mo ago

Digital Psychology: Why Privacy is so important for Self Determination Psychographic profiling and surveillance capitalism erode our autonomy. Why privacy is fundamental to self-determination, free thought, and democracy. https://www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/why-privacy-is-so-important-for-self-determination #privacy #SurveillanceCapitalism #psychology #manipulation #psychographics

thatprivacyguy.com

7

0

4

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 3mo ago

Strike III for EU-US data transfers The US Supreme Court has just ruled the FTC isn't independent of the President - and our entire data deal with America was built on the promise that it was. https://www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/strike-iii-for-eu-us-data-transfers #gdpr #adequacy #ftc #schrems #law #surveillance #dataprivacyframework #dpf #scotus #adequacy #compliance

thatprivacyguy.com

6

1

8

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@jmaris@eupolicy.social yes I am fully aware - but I am not sure what your point is - todays vote on the urgency procedure was a vote on chat control - if it had failed there would be no Thursday vote, period and there is no way a 361 majority is going to happen on ANY file the day before summer recess - it is impossible. Thursday's vote is completely irrelevant at this point - today's vote sealed it and all those responsible will be exposed.

4

13

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 3mo ago

Malta is in breach of the EU Treaties — the IDPC has confirmed in writing that no Maltese citizen is protected under the ePrivacy Directive against any tech company not established in Malta On 27 April 2026 I lodged a formal complaint with Malta's Information and Data Protection Commissioner against Anthropic. The IDPC has now confirmed in writing that no Maltese citizen has any protection under… https://www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/malta-eprivacy-treaty-breach #eprivacy #gdpr #charter #malta #idpc #anthropic #phorm #law #compliance

thatprivacyguy.com

3

0

5

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 2mo ago

Well that was insane - had a tough week so decided to do some fun stuff this weekend and setup the Xbox Series X over remote play on the Apple Vision Pro…

Playing Killer Instinct on a giant IMAX scale screen in the middle of a frozen tundra is like puppeteering giants… so much fun.

Forza Horizon almost had me tossing my cookies…

This was after hooking up the Mac Studio yesterday and playing No Man’s Sky at 8k ultrawide curved wrap around display via Mac Virtual Display on the Vision Pro…

2

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@jmaris@eupolicy.social @je5perl@eupolicy.social irrelevant - the surveillance is continuing and democracy in the EU has been overturned by a corrupt President of the Parliament.

1

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@richlv@mastodon.social @Digol@mastodon.social if you send all the emails at once yes it is going to trigger some technical safeguards, I emailed them all individually. Also they are legally obligated to read the emails they are sent even if they do think they are fake. But I do agree - when I ran our Phorm campaign back in 2008/2009 we did everything by paper (mostly faxes) which cost them real money and people to process and so could not be ignored. But I am well known in Brussels and Parliament (registered lobbyist).

1

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 14mo ago

#Beta Signups now available for my #iOS #privacy #news #app

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/alexanderhanff_privacy-news-beta-signup-activity-7355976018815254528-LOXw/

eupolicy.social

2

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 20mo ago

Just spent Valentine's Day driving up and down the autobahn for 5 hours in a Porsche Taycan (after Sixt upgraded me from a VW Tiguan...).

Wife loved it - the car is an absolute beast.

3

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 13mo ago

Replying to

I got to thinking - you know, it is really annoying when Siri mistakes something I say as a wake phrase - so I decided to take a different approach. I was thinking, why do we go through the trouble of parsing audio input using NLP to find out if it contains a wake phrase - that seems like a lot of steps that could be improved... So now I am working on creating a wake input which can be based on any audio signal (words, a song, a whistle a click - any sound).

1

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 13mo ago

Replying to

You see, unlike other Apple devices - Apple does not allow you to use #Siri as a system voice in VisionOS so the #TTS output from the agent is #robotic and doesn't sound natural at all... So I decided to include on device TTS using Chatterbox's TTS model for MPS (Apple Silicon) to make awesome sounding voice responses. That still wasn't enough...

1

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@je5perl@eupolicy.social @jmaris@eupolicy.social I am fully familiar with the history, I have been involved in this for 6 years already.

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@je5perl@eupolicy.social @jmaris@eupolicy.social there were 646 present today and we were short of a 361 majority (the minimum we need on Thursday, the day before summer recess) by 57 votes. If we were short 57 votes today we are not magically going to find them on Thursday - there is no belief politically (I am on several mailing lists covering this topic) that this can be achieved - it has never been achieved on this file, throughout it's near 6 year history.

0

10

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@jmaris@eupolicy.social @je5perl@eupolicy.social there have not been any similar positions - this is unprecedented - as in it has not happened before. Parliament already voted to reject this proposal 2x. There is zero chance of an absolute majority on the day before summer recess - this was an engineered coup of the democratic process.

0

1

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@jmaris@eupolicy.social @je5perl@eupolicy.social there is zero chance of a vote on Thursday that is going to result in an absolute majority - it is not even likely there will be enough MEPs there to be physically capable of meeting that majority let alone vote against the proposal to actually achieve reach the numbers.

0

3

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 13mo ago

Replying to

So I #created an #app that opens a mixed #immersive space and anchors to the head of the user (creating a HUD effect). Then I added wake word functionality so it would work like #Siri Then I went back to my #Agent code and added some new #OpenAI compatible #API endpoints with #authentication Then I connected my VisionOS app to the API... now I have a fully functioning AI Agent directly in VisionOS but that wasn't enough...

0

2

0

Alexander Hanff @thatprivacyguy@eupolicy.social

· 2mo ago

Call out to all ADHD'ers out there - how do you handle grief? I lost a close family member last week and I don't understand how to process it - I am very emotional generally and this just cripples me, I dont know how to process it.

0

3

1

0