We asked our staff to vote on their favorite stories of the year, added evergreen content and our top TC+ articles for a well-rounded 2021 list. Enjoy!
Delta Air Lines partners with TSA PreCheck to launch biometrics-based bag drops
Delta Air Lines, in partnership with TSA PreCheck, today announced an expansion of how it uses biometrics to let passengers drop their bags, go through security and board their plane by simply showing their face. For now, the newest part of this, the PreCheck bag-drop experience, is a pilot that’s only available in Atlanta and […]
TikTok dodges questions about biometric data collection in Senate hearing
In its first-ever Congressional hearing, TikTok successfully dodged questions about what it plans to do with the biometric data its privacy policy permits it to collect on the app’s U.S. users. In an update to the company’s U.S. privacy policy in June, TikTok added a new section that noted the app “may collect biometric identifiers […]
More than 100,000 people have had their eyes scanned for free cryptocurrency
Worldcoin reveals “orb” scanner, aims to distribute cryptocurrency to 1 billion people.
Biden’s new FTC nominee is a digital privacy advocate critical of Big Tech
President Biden made his latest nomination to the Federal Trade Commission this week, tapping digital privacy expert Alvaro Bedoya to join the agency as it takes a hard look at the tech industry. Bedoya is the founding director of the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown’s law school and previously served as chief counsel […]
The Taliban are showing us the dangers of personal data falling into the wrong hands
Digital ID systems are a powerful development tool, providing a legal identity to millions, but their misuse can be deadlyThe Taliban have openly talked about using US-made digital identity technology to hunt down Afghans who have worked with the inter…
Beware state surveillance of your lives – governments can change for the worse | John Naughton
With Afghan citizens’ data now in the hands of the Taliban, assumptions about controls that check misuse of intelligence are wide of the markIn the summer of 2013, shortly after Edward Snowden’s revelations about the surveillance capabilities of the Am…
Amazon will pay you $10 in credit for your palm print biometrics
How much is your palm print worth? If you ask Amazon, it’s about $10 in promotional credit if you enroll your palm prints in its checkout-free stores and link it to your Amazon account. Last year, Amazon introduced its new biometric palm print scanners, Amazon One, so customers can pay for goods in some stores […]