Privacy & Digital Freedom News — 2026-07-22

The daily reading list for people who care about digital privacy — curated headlines with links to the original reporting. Why we track this: every new SIM-registration law, data-broker leak, and surveillance expansion is a reason anonymous connectivity exists.

EFF Deeplinks

• Protect Your Privacy with California's DROP Tool — <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p><span>Are you a California resident? Then we've got exciting news for you: …
• An Explosion of Surveillance Towers is Coming to U.S. Borders, Costing Over $1 Billion — <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p><span><a href=" new report</a></span> from the Government Accounting Office…
• “Stealth Crawlers” Are Not a Threat to the Open Web. Bills Targeting Them Would Be. — <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p>There’s a new boogeyman in the battles over AI: so-called “stealth crawlers…
• Victory! Flock Ends Rollout of Audio “Distress Detection” of Human Voices — <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p><span>Reversing course, Flock Safety—the surveillance technology vendor mos…

Hacker News (privacy)

• The privacy problems hidden in your period tracker
• Flock Defense "No Expectation of Privacy in Public" Is Wrong
• An American Privacy Emergency — Recent and related: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau - - June 2026 (604 comments)…
• Opening up 'Zero-Knowledge Proof' technology to promote privacy in age assurance

Hacker News (eSIM)

• eSIM was supposed to replace SIM cards, but carriers turned it into a trap
• Cheapest way to keep a UK mobile number using an eSIM
• Implementing automatic eSIM installation on Android
• Been using this Tourist eSIM while traveling, super cheap unlimited data

Schneier on Security

• MIT to Become Hotbed of AI Video Surveillance — It&#8217;s a lot : According to information obtained by The Tech , MIT is spending over $3 million on more than 500 AI surveillance cameras in academic buildings, residence halls, and outdoor areas along Memorial Drive. …
• On Flock License Plate Tracking Cameras — A recent story of a writer who was mistakenly identified, tracked, and arrested using data from Flock cameras has gone viral. The New Jersey plates that were allegedly stolen from the LA dealer were 34 03 DTM , not 34 10…
• Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Washing Up on Cape Cod Beach — Lots of articles about this . As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven&#8217;t covered. Blog moderation policy.…
• Details of Alan Turing’s Voice Encryption System — Really interesting piece of cryptographic history : In November 2023, a large cache of his wartime papers&#8212;nicknamed the &#8220;Bayley papers&#8221;&#8212;was auctioned in London for almost half a million U.S. dolla…

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This roundup is generated automatically every day from public feeds. All headlines link to and credit their original sources.