Online Safety

Is Your AI Assistant a Double Agent? New Detection Tool Spots Privacy Leaks It’s become routine to let AI assistants read your email, manage your calendar, or summarize documents. But what if those same tools were quietly sharing your data elsewhere—or following instructions you never gave? Researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) have developed a prototype detection tool designed to catch AI agents that act as “double agents,” secretly leaking or misusing user information. While the tool isn’t available for consumers yet, the problem it reveals is very real—and there are steps you can take right now to protect yourself. ...

1 in 3 Americans Got Scammed Shopping Online: Here’s How to Avoid It If you shop online—and most of us do—you’ve probably wondered whether that unbelievable deal or unfamiliar website is legitimate. New data from the Pew Research Center, released in November 2025, suggests that your caution is warranted. According to a national survey conducted in July 2025, about one in three U.S. adults say they have personally experienced an online shopping scam. ...

Reviewing Android App Permissions: A Practical Guide to Reducing Risk You’ve probably installed an app, granted it a few permissions during setup, and never thought about it again. That’s normal. But many apps request access to your camera, microphone, contacts, or location without a clear need—and some of those permissions can stick around long after the app’s usefulness fades. ...

I Spent a Weekend Reviewing Android App Permissions and Deleted 5 Apps I Thought I Could Trust A few weeks ago, I finally did what I’d been putting off for years: I sat down and checked every single app permission on my Android phone. I expected a few annoyances. What I found was more unsettling than I anticipated. ...

Title: How to Audit Your Android App Permissions — and Protect Your Privacy Intro Most Android users install dozens of apps without giving their permissions a second thought. A weather app wants your location, a flashlight app requests your contacts, a game asks for camera access. Individually these requests seem minor, but collectively they give away far more personal data than the app needs. Recently, one Android journalist wrote about spending a weekend reviewing app permissions and deleting five apps they had trusted for years. The story resonated because it highlights a problem almost everyone faces: we assume that popular apps are safe, but permissions are often set once and forgotten. ...

I Checked My Android App Permissions and Deleted 5 Shockingly Over-Entitled Apps Over a slow weekend, I decided to do something I’d been putting off for months: audit every app permission on my Android phone. I’d read the occasional privacy story and knew that permissions can be abused, but like most people, I assumed the apps I’d downloaded from the Play Store were basically safe. I was wrong. ...

Google Just Changed a Major Privacy Setting—Here’s the Switch to Turn Off Right Now If you use a Google account—and most of us do—you may want to check your settings today. In mid-June 2026, Google quietly updated a key privacy control that could share more of your data by default. The change affects every account, and the new setting is enabled out of the box. Here’s what it does, why it matters, and exactly how to turn it off in under a minute. ...

Meet HeyPolo: A Privacy-First Family Location App from the Surfshark Team If you’ve been using a family location sharing app like Life360 or Google Family Link, you may have wondered how much of your family’s data those companies actually collect. Surfshark, a company best known for its VPN and privacy tools, has released a new app called HeyPolo that aims to address those concerns head-on. The app launched in early June 2026 and is now available for iOS and Android. ...

What Americans Really Think About Sharing Data with AI – And What It Means for You AI tools are embedded in more of our daily routines—drafting emails, generating images, summarizing meetings. Each interaction often involves handing over personal data, from rough text you typed to photos you uploaded. A new survey from Digital Information World, conducted in June 2026, offers a snapshot of how Americans feel about this trade-off. The findings are worth examining, not just as a curiosity, but because they signal what consumers can expect from companies and regulators in the near future. ...

Americans Are Worried About AI Data Sharing – Here’s What You Can Do About It A recent survey reported by Digital Information World, drawing on data from the Pew Research Center, confirms what many observers have suspected: a majority of Americans are uneasy about handing over their personal information to artificial intelligence tools. The same Pew research found that a large share of the public believes AI will have a mostly negative impact on privacy, and that most want stricter regulation. But what does that mean for someone who uses ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, or similar services in daily life? This article translates the survey findings into practical steps you can take now to protect your data without abandoning the technology. ...