Privacy
The Front Row
“Both Sides of the Blade,” Reviewed: Claire Denis’s Politics of Privacy
The great French director’s latest is a modernist twist on romantic melodrama.
By Richard Brody
Annals of Law
Why the “Privacy” Wars Rage On
Privacy rights protect personal autonomy and shield survivors of abuse. They also conceal abuse and safeguard the powerful. Is the concept coherent?
By Jeannie Suk Gersen
Infinite Scroll
Raya and the Promise of Private Social Media
The app has created a space free of the problems that plague the rest of the Web, but only by leaving almost everybody out.
By Kyle Chayka
Shouts & Murmurs
Privacy Infringements Greater Than Vaccine Passports
My neighbor asking why my apartment always smells like eggs. You’ll know when I know, Nancy.
By Ginny Hogan and Eugenia Viti
Profiles
Taking Back Our Privacy
Moxie Marlinspike, the founder of the end-to-end encrypted messaging service Signal, is “trying to bring normality to the Internet.”
By Anna Wiener
Campaign Chronicles
How the Trump Campaign’s Mobile App Is Collecting Huge Amounts of Voter Data
The app, which was developed by the ad broker and software company Phunware, gathers users’ data in an invasive way reminiscent of the methods of Cambridge Analytica.
By Sue Halpern
Annals of Technology
Can We Track COVID-19 and Protect Privacy at the Same Time?
If we accept government data tracking, the surveillance necessary to curtail the coronavirus pandemic could become a permanent fixture in our lives.
By Sue Halpern
Dispatch
Seoul’s Radical Experiment in Digital Contact Tracing
In South Korea, the government is disseminating detailed tracking data on people with COVID-19.
By Max S. Kim
Daily Cartoon
Daily Cartoon: Friday, July 26th
“It’s this new app—you put in your Social Security number, and it makes you look like a cat.”
By Jason Adam Katzenstein
The Current
Mark Zuckerberg Announces Facebook’s Pivot to Privacy
After a scandalous year for the social-networking site, the move toward privacy seems designed to respond to a number of problems.
By Joshua Rothman
Cultural Comment
Why the Life-Insurance Industry Wants to Creep on Your Instagram
Insurers are using customers’ social-media posts to determine premiums, inviting the potential for our digital lives to become disingenuous performances.
By Nathan Heller
Comment
What 2018 Looked Like Fifty Years Ago
A book of technology predictions makes distressing reading at the end of a year that, a golden anniversary ago, looked positively thrilling.
By Jill Lepore
The Current
Facebook’s User-Data Revelations and the Drumbeat of Calls for Regulation
A new report says that Facebook has provided large companies with access to users’ private messages and friends lists—without their consent.
By Eric Lach
Annals of Technology
Should We Be Worried About Computerized Facial Recognition?
The technology could revolutionize policing, medicine, even agriculture—but its applications can easily be weaponized.
By David Owen
Double Take
Sunday Reading: Scandals
From The New Yorker’s archive, eight pieces about scandals that reflect the values of their time.
By Erin Overbey and Joshua Rothman
Daily Comment
How Serious Is the New Facebook Breach?
A Facebook breach today means more than a Facebook breach five or ten years ago, not only because the company has grown so dramatically but also because of the cumulative effect of multiple breaches.
By Evan Osnos
The Digital Age
Why Do We Care So Much About Privacy?
Big Tech wants to exploit our personal data, and the government wants to keep tabs on us. But “privacy” isn’t what’s really at stake.
By Louis Menand