True, but it’s also possible to lock your phone (or switch it off) so it needs a passphrase again. Using biometrics also means you’re entering your password less and so have less chance of being snooped on in public for example. And using face/touch ID makes it easier to have a longer/more secure password since you don’t need to enter it as often. There’s pros and cons to each but I choose to use biometrics

What’s the reasoning behind disabling biometrics?

That’s really the only solution here. Companies can’t be forced to give up data they don’t have. A company that isn’t physically delivering things to you doesn’t need your real address. If it’s not depositing money into your account, they don’t need your credit card/bank info either, nor your real name

Exactly. Kmart did a similar trial a while back. This ruling will just open the floodgates for every company to roll out AI-powered facial recognition cameras everywhere

Make sure you don’t drive either. They scan number plates too

and it’s a really bad idea to teach people that that’s normal or acceptable.

This is a point so few people mention. Normalising having to give up personal information online is such a dangerous thing to do and companies/governments that enforce this shit are setting people up to be scammed

What are you basing this on? Anyone who can do research knows bitlocker-locked drives are recoverable with a Microsoft account, meaning MS hold the encryption keys and can hand them over to LE. That’s not a new thing. Apple offers similar functionality to make devices unlockable with an iCloud recovery option but it’s not mandatory. Do you have proof they’re ‘giving out’ encryption keys otherwise?

From my experience it seems to require verification or payment if you try to create multiple accounts over a short period of time, or if you create an account over Tor or a VPN. There might be other triggers that set it off but those are the ones I’ve found

I can pay for a VoIP number.

Have you done this recently? My experience is almost no 2FA/verification services will accept a VoIP number anymore

The threat of public wifi isn’t as big of a deal as it used to be. Before widespread VPNs and when internet traffic was unencrypted, anything you transmitted could be read by someone else on the network. But nowadays all an eavesdropper would see is what websites you’re connecting to (without a VPN) or the VPN if you are using one. Happy to be corrected if I’m mistaken though

TikTok’s whole purpose is mass data-harvesting of its users. An app designed to do that while being owned by foreign nation is a valid concern to point out. Of course, the US doesn’t actually care about anyone’s privacy, they just want the data for themselves. Hence wanting a sale to a US company rather than going after the actual data collection

All of this was done in close collaboration with the local police, despite these uses violating a 2022 ordinance that placed narrow limits on the use of facial recognition

If companies and law enforcement aren’t going to follow laws then why should citizens? A bit of coordinated vandalism would combat this shit

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I take some evasive measures if I know someone has a camera but generally it’s something I try not to think about. Our culture encourages privacy invasion and most people are happy to give up their own (or others’) if they’re told to. You’ve just gotta assume every step you take outside your house is being recorded

One of the very few things I liked about covid was (somewhat) normalising face coverings. But now that’s mostly gone

Better than SMS I suppose but still pointless for my needs. No encryption = no usage from me

What are you wanting to use it for? I use prepaid cards for most shopping online and just enter fake details if it’s a digital purchase. But obviously that only works for buying things, not being paid

This is pretty much every government’s response to a big sensitive data leak. Draft laws requiring companies to collect even more of it to be stolen

See people here want gambling ads banned, but the PM has ties to gambling lobby groupa so the gov won’t touch it. But when it comes to laws nobody wants like giving cops more invasive surveillance power the government can suddenly expedite them at record speed. We live in a fake democracy

It was also the brainchild of an unelected American with CIA ties who for some reason gets to decide what we can and can’t see on the internet under the guide of eSafety