Privacy
noyb Files Five Complaints Against Scale AI Over Worker Tracking
Privacy group targets Scale AI's Outlier platform in four countries, alleging illegal monitoring of freelancers who train AI models.
This edition was produced with artificial intelligence. Text and voice are generated automatically.
noyb Files Five Complaints Against Scale AI Over Alleged Worker Surveillance
European digital privacy group noyb filed five complaints against Scale AI in France, Italy, the Netherlands and Austria on Tuesday, alleging illegal monitoring of freelance workers producing AI training data. The complaints target Outlier, a platform where more than 900,000 freelancers perform recorded tasks for clients including Meta, OpenAI and Google; Meta owns 49% of Scale AI. According to the complaints, up to 19 trackers follow workers, recording keystrokes and mouse movements every few seconds, and a DiPLab investigation found the resulting file could be rebuilt into a video replaying a full work session. Workers must also submit ID documents and face video to identity verification firm Persona, checks the complaints call invasive and in breach of EU biometric data rules. Noyb asks regulators to fine Scale AI and examine task assignment. Scale did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Privacy group files complaints against Scale AI over alleged worker surveillance →
Topics: Workplace surveillance and employee monitoringBiometrics
Research Links Big Tech Lobbying to EU Data Protection Rollback Push
New research by Corporate Europe Observatory and LobbyControl finds Big Tech lobbying is pushing the EU toward sweeping deregulation of data protection rules, with intensive campaigning involving Germany and Ireland. The publication, The Big Tech campaign to kill data protection in Europe, documents extensive contacts between Big Tech companies and policymakers over the European Commission’s proposed Digital Omnibus, introduced last November as part of a drive to simplify regulation and boost competitiveness. Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said the Digital Omnibus provides a simple, innovation-friendly environment for the European AI ecosystem. Researcher Bram Vraken warned the changes create a huge backdoor that could make the GDPR meaningless, potentially letting companies collect personal data to train and operate AI systems without consent. From November 2025, researchers identified 655 lobbyist meetings in the European Parliament as Big Tech lobbying budgets hit record levels.
Revealed: New data shows Big Tech lobbying pushing EU towards sweeping data-protection rollback →
Topics: GDPR, AI and the EU Digital Omnibus
ACLU Documents Police Stops Driven by AI-Flagged Travel Patterns
The ACLU reports that police are increasingly pulling drivers over because AI deems their travel patterns suspicious, based on automated license plate reader data. In September 2025, Grace Knowles was stopped in Louisiana by an officer who said her scanned plate showed suspicious travel patterns; he showed her software displaying a heat map of where she had been. Flock began touting AI flagging suspicious travel patterns in July 2025, and Wired later obtained files describing a next-generation system already used by some police, running open-ended queries of plate data plus arrest records, case files and commercial databases. Police use pretextual stops, called whisper stops or intel stops, as cover for the real reason. A Texas jury sided with oilfield supplies seller Schott after a pretext stop; the Institute for Justice noted the same county subjected thousands of other drivers to the same routine.
Topics: License plate readers (ALPR)Flock Safety
Mozilla Warns Canada’s Bill C-22 Threatens Encryption and Privacy
Canada’s Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act, would expand government access to data and threaten encryption, privacy and digital security, according to Mozilla. Part two, the Supporting Authorized Access to Information Act, would give sweeping powers to require electronic service providers to build and maintain capabilities facilitating government access. If passed as drafted, companies could be required to introduce vulnerabilities, build backdoors, bypass or weaken encryption, access data before encryption or decrypt it for law enforcement, and retain data they chose not to collect. Mozilla states there is no safe way to create exceptional access that only the intended actor can use, since such mechanisms can be discovered, exploited or abused by bad actors. The bill’s scope extends beyond Canadian services and users, and its confidentiality requirements would prevent services from informing users about breaches or backdoors. Mozilla calls on policymakers not to rush the process and to protect encryption and transparency.
Topics: Encryption backdoors and lawful accessEncryption
UK Labour MP Jess Asato Takes xAI to Court Over Deepfakes
Jess Asato, a British Labour MP who has campaigned against the use of technology to abuse women and girls, was targeted by deepfakes after calling out Elon Musk during the 2025 Grok deepfake scandal. Asato is now taking xAI to court over the matter. The case places a sitting UK parliamentarian in direct legal confrontation with Musk’s AI company, following a controversy in which Grok was used to generate non-consensual sexual imagery. Further details of the filing were not provided in the source material.
UK Politician Jess Asato Got Deepfaked. Now She’s Taking xAI to Court →