President of Signal, Chief Advisor to AI Now Institute
The Hugging Face incident was “both notable and alarming,” EFF’s @evacide.bsky.social told @sfexaminer.bsky.social, “not because ‘ooh, the model’s so powerful,’ but because it demonstrates a colossal failure on the part of OpenAI to secure the sandbox in which it was testing its model.”
OpenAI hacking incident highlights AI cyberrisksExperts take company to task for safety effortswww.sfexaminer.com
From @meredithmeredith.bsky.social is spot-on: “The extent of the tech industry’s influence over the AI research domain has parallels in the U.S. military’s dominance over scientific research during the Cold War. Tech firms are drawing from a similar playbook.” dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1...
Flock doesn't just search for cars, it searches for you. "'FreeForm' searches... allow cops to use Flock’s system as though they would use a search engine, with Flock’s AI and image recognition interpreting what footage and which people are relevant to a police officer’s search." @404media.co
How Cops Use Flock to Track People, Not CarsCops have used Flock's FreeForm search feature to look for people with tattoos and wearing specific sport shirts, and searches sometimes include the target's race, according to data reviewed by 404 Me...www.404media.co
I blogged about last week’s viral video of the pervert on the Scottish train filming some quiet teenage girls, and why it matters for the debate on young people and smartphones. I didn’t share it anywhere, but it’s top of Hacker News. This happens to me a lot. heatherburns.tech/2026/07/08/t...
The kids (with phones) are alright – Hi, I'm Heather Burnsheatherburns.tech
In which I speak at length with the inimitable @meredithmeredith.bsky.social for the @futurologypod.bsky.social podcast. As always, Meredith had strong, precise things to say about the ongoing digital erosion of privacy — and how AI is accelerating that erosion: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYVe...
Signal’s President Says You Have Plenty to Hide | The Futurology PodcastYouTube video by Futurologywww.youtube.com
Signal’s Meredith Whittaker: The Push for Online Safety Risks Mass Surveillance Interview by Mishal Hussain The president of the encrypted messaging app says autonomous AI agents, device scanning and digital advertising are converging into a new architecture of surveillance.
Signal's Meredith Whittaker: The Push for Online Safety Risks Mass SurveillanceThe president of the encrypted messaging app says autonomous AI agents, device scanning and digital advertising are converging into a new architecture of surveillance.www.bloomberg.com
AI is not your friend @meredithmeredith.bsky.social techcrunch.com/2026/06/20/s...
Signal’s Meredith Whittaker wants you to remember that AI chatbots ‘are not your friends’ | TechCrunch"These are not your friends. These are not conscious beings. These are not sentient interlocutors.”techcrunch.com"I also struggle with the persistent focus on privacy as the purported barrier to solving these issues, when we have most of the Epstein list walking around without consequences."
Hypervisible“We can’t live a full dignified life — with the ability to question authority, have different relationships with people, test ideas [and] blow off steam — if we don’t have private communication.”
“We can’t live a full dignified life — with the ability to question authority, have different relationships with people, test ideas [and] blow off steam — if we don’t have private communication.”
Signal's Meredith Whittaker: The Push for Online Safety Risks Mass SurveillanceThe president of the encrypted messaging app says autonomous AI agents, device scanning and digital advertising are converging into a new architecture of surveillance.www.bloomberg.com
Our statement on the UK gov't's demand that all content on all devices sold or used in the UK be scanned, on the presumption of nudity, using a dystopian combination of age verification & content scanning. This proposal will not safeguard children. It endangers us all. signal.org/blog/pdfs/20...
signal.org
New joint publication by @citizenlab.ca + @cancivlib.bsky.social! In which @kate-ro.bsky.social & I join forces w/ Tamir @digitalprivacy.ca to explain the federal govt's many... "(Un)forced Errors: Analysis of Proposed Surveillance Law Expansion under Bill C-22, An Act respecting lawful access" 🧵1/x
The Citizen Lab (Un)forced Errors: Analysis of Proposed Surveillance Law Expansion under Bill C-22, An Act respecting lawful access -This submission analyzes Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act, which would enact broad surveillance obligations and reforms in Canada. Issues include: the bill’s sweeping scope, significant constitutional...citizenlab.ca
🇨🇦's #BillC22 is entering committee study this week - and we're hearing it may become law by end of the month. We never say this: but this is the worst, most privacy-breaking bill we've seen. It MUST be stopped. Speak up against it and read on to learn more: www.openmedia.org/StopC22-bsky 1/
Stop the Surveillance State: Stop Bill C-22!🚨 Bill C-22 forces every Canadian internet provider, messaging app & cloud service to build surveillance backdoors and store a year of your data. Foreign state hackers exploited similar legislation in...www.openmedia.org
Reminder that I maintain a periodically-updated reading list of papers at the intersection of E2EE and Trust & Safety; suggestions welcome: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
Encryption + Trust & Safety reading list (updated 2026-05-20)docs.google.com
We often think of authoritarianism as lawless. But it can operate through law itself. What does it mean for democracy when that happens? ⬇️ DROPS TOMORROW: Lawyering Without Law, a new biweekly podcast from the Knight First Amendment Institute. Available on all platforms.
For TechCrunch, I wrote about the landmark Chatrie privacy case before the U.S. Supreme Court that examines the legality of "geofence" search warrants. The case could redefine digital privacy rights for people across the U.S. if cops are limited from mass-searching the databases of tech giants.
US Supreme Court appears split over controversial use of 'geofence' search warrants | TechCrunchThe U.S. top court is expected to rule on whether to allow police to identify criminal suspects by dragnet searching the databases of tech giants.techcrunch.comA response to recent reporting in Germany, in service of clarity and accountability: First, it’s important to be precise when it comes to critical infrastructure like Signal. Signal was not “hacked” — in that our encryption, infrastructure, & the integrity of the app’s code was not compromised. 1/
We are very happy that today Apple issued a patch and a security advisory. This comes following 404 Media reporting that the FBI accessed Signal message notification content via iOS despite the app being deleted.
No really, I am not kidding when I say that the data broker industry must be destroyed: www.npr.org/2026/03/25/n...
Your data is everywhere. The government is buying it without a warrantData brokers buy up huge amounts of information from cell phones and browsers to sell for targeted advertising. But the government, including ICE, also buys the data.www.npr.org
Would you really like to live in a society where you have no responsibility and no freedom, no choice, only the false option of obedience to the law, or disobedience followed by punishment? Would you really want to go live in a prison?