r/europrivacy

Hi! Maybe a naïve question but you surely have seen the recent EU laws about driver monitoring: the new mandatory driver-facing camera to track attention for example, or the fact that the car will constantly track tour speed and match it against GPS data.

I get really worried about all the privacy issues that these news mandatory devices and components could create. As far as I know, the privacy aspect of these laws have been hugely tuned down because "it's for safety".

So, what is your opinion on that and do you have ideas or solutions to keep our privacy in our vehicles?

Hello,

I was looking for a Signal alternative, and saw in this spreadsheet

That Skred might be a viable option. I did find one user on Reddit saying:

"It looks sketchy at best.Claims that the encryption used is open sourced... So not the whole application then I assume. No link on their site to any source code. Would not use personally."

And indeed I couldn't find a link to the source code, I checked in GitHub.

So it's not actually open source? The app description mentions:

"All exchanges are encrypted from start to finish, from mobile to mobile. They are not stored on any server. The encryption technologies are open source and based on the work of hackers and hacktivists of the Guardian Project

Skred originated from the Skyrock Group, which in turn came from the free radio movement in France. It defends the freedom of expression on the air and on the internet. With Skred, you are free!"

Would you trust it?

Thanks.

hi,

Is there a legal way here in europe ( france to be specific) to have internet access withouth connecting to public wifi or withouth giving ID (using an alias??) to an ISP and still having a contract?

Thanks for any reply

Hi, I wanted to know how to buy crypto like Monero, Pirate chain, Orchid or other privacy crypto anonymously and which are the best hardware wallets and software wallet(for pirate chain).

Thanks for any reply

Hi,

I wanted to know if there was any legal way to have an anonymous Internet access and a sim. In 2018 it was possible i used SYMA MOBILE and i would buy a recharge in cash. But know you have to give name and ID to activate the SIM. For internet i always used fiber/adsl. Are there things like Visible or Mint mobile here in France/Europe?

Thanks for any reply

(...)

Even if they are rarely presented as such, devices such as the health pass or the health passport do fall into the category of coercive tools, because they condition, de facto or de jure depending on the case, access to certain places and activities. In itself, there is nothing exceptional about this: the "real" passport, the international vaccination card or the driver's license do the same thing, i.e. authorize or prohibit, which is one of the main functions of public power.

But the nature of the constraint changes when it is exercised through a control, if necessary accompanied by sanctions. And it is precisely here that digital technology could be the most "effective".

Let us specify that there are more implicit forms of control or constraint, but no less effective: a subway entrance gate that would start ringing very loudly when a contagious person or a person who is supposed to be confined passes by would in most cases be sufficiently dissuasive so that it would not even be necessary to transmit this information to the authorities in charge of controlling compliance with the rules. In early 2021, the press reported the case of a connected box, worn around the neck, that would ring (with an 85-decibel sound) in the event of non-compliance with distancing rules by employees of a company37(*). The initiative has been denounced as anxiety-provoking and unacceptable. Technically, however, there is no need for a box around the neck: a smartphone can do the same thing with its Bluetooth, and a sound of 100 decibels. In Asia, social control has taken much less anecdotal forms: in South Korea, the positive inhabitants of a neighborhood could be geolocated on a map accessible to all, and in China, we have seen honest citizens take charge of the "sanitary police" of their building. More generally, the social credit system (see above), although it rarely involves effective sanctions, is linked to this logic of social control.

Finally, in the most extreme crisis situations, digital tools could enable effective, exhaustive and real-time control of the population's compliance with restrictions, with dissuasive sanctions if necessary, and based on even more derogatory exploitation of personal data.

These tools are the most efficient, but also the most damaging to liberties - but once again, it would be irresponsible not to at least consider them, if only to convince oneself to do everything upstream to avoid reaching this point. Numerous cases of use are possible, and notably :

- control of movements: electronic bracelet to control the respect of quarantine, deactivation of the pass for public transport, automatic detection of the license plate by radars, gantries in stores, thermal cameras in restaurants, etc. ;

- health monitoring, via connected objects whose use would be mandatory this time, and whose data would be used for monitoring purposes;

- the control of company contacts, for example going to see a vulnerable member of one's family when one is contagious;

- transaction monitoring, for example to impose an automatic fine, to detect a purchase of a medical nature (which could suggest either contamination or smuggling in times of shortage), or the illegal pursuit of a professional activity (trade, etc.) despite restrictions.

(...)

Rather than drastically restricting the individual liberties of the entire population or of a part of it that might consider this unacceptable38(*) , digital technology could make it possible to internalize a fraction of the collective cost corresponding to the behavior of each individual or each group of people.

Applied to confinement, the reasoning would be as follows: every time I leave my home, I am at risk, not only for myself but also for the health system as a whole. If I still prefer to have my freedom to come and go, and I do leave my home, it is legitimate that I should assume in return a fraction of the extra cost paid by society because of the epidemic, for example in the form of a small increase in my social security contributions if the number or duration of my outings exceeds a certain threshold.

This additional cost would in any case be very minimal: this is an insurance logic (the additional cost is shared among all those who choose to go out, as this is not prohibited), and not a sanction logic, the principle of which is totally different (going out of the house is prohibited, the sanction is calculated to be dissuasive, and is all the higher as the chance of "getting caught" is low).

Such a model, of course, only works in the case of a low intensity epidemic, where the overload imposed on the health care system can be absorbed by the commitment of additional financial resources. It is therefore not adapted to acute crisis situations, where stronger measures are needed, and corresponds more to situations where it is appropriate to "live with" a circulating disease, with some adaptations.

In detail, the precise calibration of such a solution then depends on society's preferences and political choices. One could thus imagine, using the example of the alternative to confinement :

- a "universal" or "Beveridgian" system, where each exit counts equally for the calculation of the excess premium, whatever the individual risk factors or the reasons for the exit;

- an "insurance" or "Bismarckian" system, where those who run a greater risk (the elderly, for example), and therefore have a greater likelihood of burdening the health system, pay a higher price for each discharge;

- an "accountability" system, in which the additional cost depends not on the risk one takes for oneself, but on the risk one puts others at, depending for example on one's health status (vaccinated/immunized or not), the reasons for the trip (from vital professional activity to going out to a nightclub), or the circumstances of the trip (in the city, during rush hour, etc.). This last model is more "accurate" but also more intrusive, as it requires the use of more data. Depending on the criteria used, it may also involve assessing the "legitimacy" of the reasons for leaving (as with paper certificates, incidentally), as well as whether they are forced or chosen.

Translated with (free version)

This is not news, this is what is published in a French Senate official site.

Our colleagues in the Dernières nouvelles d'Alsace report that several bar owners in Grenoble have been taken into custody for not having preserved the history of access to the Wi-Fi hotspots they were making available.

"No one - not even the Umih professionals who provide the mandatory training in the context of a resumption of IV license - ever told me that I had to keep this history," reports one of the managers in the DNA columns.

According to the Electronic Post and Telecommunications Code, these wifi hotspot are considered as operators ("operator means any natural or legal person operating an electronic communications network open to the public or providing the public with an electronic communications service", article 32 15°).

The legislation was detailed by the 2006 law on the fight against terrorism, implemented by the decree of March 24, 2006 on the retention of electronic communications data.

The CNIL itself recalls these obligations: "the use of computers located in public spaces set up by municipalities or cybercafés is becoming common practice. Those in charge of these public spaces are obliged to keep traffic data".

source in french: