With the overwhelming number of bad actors looking to profit off your personal information, it can often feel like there is no way to protect your data privacy. However, just because you are a target by cybercriminals does not mean that you cannot take proactive steps to guard against attacks.…
When many of us think about taking care of our cars, we usually envision the ability to manually replace whatever goes wrong, given enough knowledge and elbow grease. But when car companies promote their fleets as computers on wheels, it becomes obvious that our vehicles contain larger datasets of our…
As we head into the last months of 2023, it is difficult to overstate the data privacy transformations the United States and other global governments are experiencing. This was best observed over the summer when the European Union reached a new agreement with the U.S. over the regulation of the…
Here at MyIDMatters, we are no strangers to the misguided ways in which privacy is publicly discussed, either by the news or those in positions of power. By now, you should also be aware of the ways in which personal privacy is often dismissed or, even worse, denigrated. There are…
By this point, most everyone is at least casually familiar with the AI software ChatGPT, which allows users to input a variety of requests and parameters to produce original pieces of writing. This has resulted in a previously user-generated activity now being automated en masse, altering the way we engage…
Due to the sudden popularity of AI systems such as ChatGPT, many individuals view AI through the lens of user-generated inputs and commands. But AI applications have been employed by businesses for years—and we continually experience their effects in our everyday lives (e.g., Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure). This has…
With the preponderance of articles and think-pieces dedicated to crimeware-as-a-service (CaaS) this year (some of them covered here on MyIDMatters), we might do well to call 2023 “The Year of CaaS.” Unfortunately, however, the rise of CaaS has not led to a rise in awareness of the ways in which…
Responsible for securing institutions, all the way from colleges to banks, multi-factor authentication is a layered approach to securing individuals’ data. Yet despite its importance, many users do not understand the principles behind multi-factor authentication or how it differs from the ubiquitous two-factor identification. In this episode, we will discuss…
For many of us, our phones and applications are an important source of information and convenience: look no further than the map apps we turn to when we are in a new place or looking for the fastest commute to work. At their core, devices that allow us to keep…
In a previous article (The “California Effect,” Again), we observed the sudden rise in states making changes to their privacy laws: recently, California became the first in the nation to impose severe restrictions on internet companies’ interactions with minors. Although it will not go into effect until 2024, this law…
By now, we have all used Google’s search engine enough to know that the top-ranking pages are the most popular pages: “top-ranking” does not necessarily ensure the most accurate or even the most pertinent information. This is because search engines operate from an algorithm that assesses which content is the…
According to Consumer Intelligence Report Partners, two-thirds of Americans who shop on Amazon own at least one of its smart gadgets. However, what many of these consumers are not aware of is the fact that Amazon collects more data than nearly other company. As we have previously explored, with Ring…
In 2020, the Federal Trade Commission sued Facebook (now Meta), alleging that “the company illegally maintain[ed] its personal social networking monopoly through a years-long course of anticompetitive conduct.” This decision was predicated on evidence that showed Meta was operating against the spirit of anti-trust legislation and resulted in a privacy…
Over the past year, the world of cryptocurrency has experienced intense upheaval for what benefactors had once championed as a stable industry. In November, the downfall of Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX sent shockwaves through financial circles. Once worth up to $40 billion, FTX collapsed after surging withdrawals overwhelmed a company…