Meta Quietly Added Facial Recognition Code to Its Smart Glasses App A new WIRED investigation reports that Meta quietly included facial recognition technology in its Meta AI app, which works with Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses. The app has been downloaded more than 50 million times. Researchers found a hidden feature called “NameTag” that can detect faces and create digital face profiles. They activated parts of the system and received notifications showing a person had been recognized. Meta says the feature is not available to users and is currently turned off. The company also says it has not decided whether to launch facial recognition and is not building a central database of faces.

A Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is the ultimate threat to financial privacy. It would give the federal government unprecedented visibility and control over how Americans spend their money. BAN CBDC—FOREVER.

Brock Pierce was talking about digital currencies long before crypto went mainstream. As a co-founder of Tether and early Bitcoin advocate, he helped shape the infrastructure, funding, and vision that pushed blockchain from a niche experiment into a global industry. Love him or criticize him, his impact on crypto history is hard to ignore. #Crypto #Bitcoin #Blockchain #Tether #Web3

A DAO lets communities organize, vote, and manage funds transparently through blockchain-based smart contracts.

So-called age verification for social media is spreading across the world, framed as an effort to create a safer internet for children. In reality, age verification lays the foundation for a fully controlled internet. The age verification rush must be slowed down, and politicians need to recognize the consequences of different types of legislation and systems. Age verification is the wrong approach to fix “the social media problem” The big tech social media companies are bad. Their business model is bad; it is based on mass surveillance and manipulation, and they cooperate with governments in mapping entire populations. But age verification is fundamentally the wrong approach to preventing children from using big tech social media platforms. Introducing age verification is based on coercion; the state forces social media companies to verify their users’ identities. But the big tech social media platforms already know which of their users are children. Their business model depends on knowing this. They know how old users are, and they know exactly what type of person they are. As age verification is based on coercion, politicians could instead force platforms to stop doing the things politicians consider harmful to children, or force them to block children (again, they know who they are) from using their services. But instead, politicians seek to massively invade everyone’s privacy and undermine democratic rights on a global scale. In other words, the latter is the real objective – they do not want to protect children; they want to impose control. Slippery slope of age verification It is undeniable that age verification threatens freedom of expression, risks increasing mass surveillance, and is likely to lead to censorship. It will not only shrink the online world and reduce young people’s right to privacy (for example, if VPN services were to be restricted); but also risks becoming a significant step toward a controlled internet for everyone. Most age verification is identity verification Most countries are now considering introducing age verification systems, meaning that everyone would have to identify themselves either to the service/website they want to use or to a third party capable of linking them to their activity on that service or website. This is not age verification but identity verification, and the consequence is therefore that freedom of information is restricted (you can no longer visit regulated websites anonymously) and that you can no longer post anonymously on social media. This is a major problem in countries like the UK and Germany where the police conduct raids on people’s homes for posting content on social media that the authorities dislike. Or in the United States, where authorities are trying to pressure tech companies into revealing the identities behind accounts protesting ICE. Social media identity verification removes important tools for activists in countries where criticizing those in power is dangerous. Restrictions on app store or operating system level Some countries are looking to impose identity verification at the app store level or even within the operating system itself. This is an exciting experiment, since this is possible to circumvent using open-source operating systems. Some countries are already looking to include open-source systems. Since open-source systems cannot be controlled, politicians would ultimately need to ban devices that are not controlled by the state. The end point: telescreens like those in Orwell’s 1984, devices that both monitor you and broadcast only the information approved by the state. The Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) alternative and the EU The EU has presented its own age verification app as “completely anonymous”. The idea is to use Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) cryptography to break the link between the age credential issuer (EU governments) and the regulated services/sites. Currently, the EU app does not have ZKP functionality, contrasting Ursula von der Leyen’s claim that the app ”is technically ready to be used”. But more importantly, the app is currently designed to always function without ZKP technology; if ZKP is unavailable, the app falls back to a non-ZKP model. Even if fully developed ZKP technology could be implemented in the future, it would remain an optional extra feature that countries may choose to disable and that the EU could remove at any time. Read more on our site. mullvad.net/blog/age-verific…

"𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗿𝗮𝗳𝘁𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗮𝗿𝗻: 𝗢𝗻 𝗦𝘂𝗿𝘃𝗲𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲, 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗮𝗰𝘆, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗪𝗲 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗟𝗮𝘀𝘁." Sigge Another edition of #PIVX Voices is out! Where are community writes about #Privacy topics. ➡️medium.com/p/167a226a98d0 #PIVX #StoryAlert #PrivacyMatters

Privacy isn't an option; it’s a human right. 🛡️ With @_PIVX SHIELD, your financial data stays yours. With @CoinsBee, that privacy becomes spendable in the real world! ✅ Send Shielded PIVX ✅ Access 5,000 global brands ✅ No tracks left behind Your coins. Your business. Shop anonymously today. 👉 coinsbee.com/en/buy-gift-car… #PIVX #ShieldYourPrivacy #CryptoPayments #Web3 #PrivacyMatters #PIVXfam

AI agents are about to completely transform the crypto economy. And most people have no idea it's coming. Here's why this is the biggest opportunity in both AI and crypto right now: AI agents cannot use traditional banking rails. They can't get KYC'd. They can't open bank accounts. They can't move money through legacy systems. It's too slow, too permissioned, and not built for machines. Crypto solves every single one of those problems. When agents start transacting at scale, they'll do it wallet to wallet, chain to chain, agent to agent. Think about what this *could* mean: • Financial rails move on-chain • Agents execute trades, pay for services, and settle contracts autonomously • New protocols get built specifically for agent-to-agent transactions • The picks and shovels in that arena become some of the most valuable infrastructure on the planet To be clear, we are far from this point, and this won't happen overnight. Agents need to get more reliable first, and businesses need to feel comfortable letting them manage real money. That probably takes 3-5 years. But when it happens, it will transform the financial markets and present massive opportunities. This is one sector/vertical I'm constantly researching and actively investing in companies that are building this pivot. We are so early.

Michael Geist Weekly Digest, Issue #10: This week goes inside Bill C-22 committee hearings, the government's faltering defence of lawful access, tech exits and RCMP confirmations, and the massive trade liability buried in the CRTC's online streaming ruling linkedin.com/pulse/weekly-di…