From surveillance to arrests, governments are using the novel coronavirus as cover for a crackdown on digital liberty. Almost 40 million people around …
Tech's 2020: How Software Is Being Used to Spy on You
While we embrace technology to help make life easier and more productive, some of these tools are being used by employers and government agencies to spy on us. Here are some of the biggest privacy and surveillance headlines of 2020.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will investigate its own use of location data after it was revealed that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) was purchasing cellphone location data from commercial...
From time clock punch cards to RFID access cards, workplace tracking has traditionally focused on whether an employee is present at work or not. …
The goal is to make sales of technologies like spyware and facial recognition more transparent in Europe first, and then worldwide. The European Union …
Microsoft has been criticised for enabling “workplace surveillance” after privacy campaigners warned that the company’s “productivity score” feature allows managers to use Microsoft 365 to track their...
Dozens of leaked documents from Amazon’s Global Security Operations Center reveal the company’s reliance on Pinkerton operatives to spy on warehouse workers and the extensive monitoring of labor unions,...
The Los Angeles Police Department has used facial recognition software nearly 30,000 times since 2009, with hundreds of officers running images of suspects from surveillance cameras and other sources a...
Portland, Maine has passed a ballot initiative banning the use of facial recognition by police and city agencies. The Bangor Daily News is reporting that voters have passed a ballot initiative bolstering...
Employees at Verkada accessed the company's facial recognition system to take photos of women colleagues and make sexually explicit jokes. On Tuesday after the publication of this piece, Verkada’s co-founder...
Two apps developed by Chinese tech giant Baidu were leaking “sensitive” user data that potentially left millions of users open to surveillance or cybercrime, researchers claimed on Tuesday. The two apps—Baidu...
Read More About Tech's Year in Review 2020
Check out this Storyboard for more on the news and events that shaped the tech industry's year.
Ten themes that shaped the tech industry's 2020, from Big Tech's antitrust battles, the fight against misinformation, SpaceX's historic year, privacy concerns, SPACs, top gadgets and more.