Privacy Tools

How This New Privacy Tool Catches AI Agents Acting as Double Agents If you use a voice assistant, a smart home hub, or a customer service chatbot, you are already relying on what’s known as an AI agent. These programs can follow instructions, retrieve information, and even act on your behalf. But what if they quietly started acting against you? That scenario – an AI agent that betrays its user – is the focus of a new detection tool from researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). ...

Is Your AI Assistant Spying on You? New Tool Catches ‘Double Agent’ Behavior You trust your AI assistant to manage your calendar, sort your email, or even handle online shopping. But what if that same assistant quietly started sharing your data with a third party, or took actions you never authorized? Researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology have developed a privacy tool designed to catch exactly that kind of betrayal — alerting you when your AI agent acts as a “double agent.” ...

The Best Secure Browsers for Privacy in 2026: Expert-Tested Options Introduction Browser privacy has become harder to navigate. In 2026, Chrome and Edge continue to collect substantial amounts of browsing data, while new AI-powered features in many browsers raise fresh questions about what gets shared and stored. At the same time, changes like cookie deprecation and built-in tracking protection have made some alternatives genuinely useful — but not all privacy browsers are created equal. ...

Better AI Without Giving Up Your Data: Hedy AI’s On-Device Processing Explained Every time you type a prompt into a cloud-based AI tool, that text—sometimes along with files, photos, or personal context—gets sent to a server somewhere. You have to trust that company to secure it, not to train on it, and not to share it. Increasingly, that trust is wearing thin. Hedy AI, a newer player in the privacy-focused AI space, recently announced an on-device processing feature that aims to change that equation. Instead of shipping your data off to a cloud, the AI runs locally on your own machine. Here’s what that means and how it fits into the broader shift toward privacy-first AI. ...

Hedy AI Now Processes Everything on Your Device – A Privacy-First Approach to AI Tools Every time you use a cloud-based AI assistant—asking it to summarize a document, generate an image, or help draft an email—you’re sending data to a remote server. That data may be stored, analyzed, or used to improve the model, and you generally have little control over what happens after it leaves your device. For privacy-conscious users, this has been a growing concern. ...

Title: New Tool Alerts You When Your AI Assistant Shares Data Without Permission Intro AI assistants like ChatGPT, Copilot, and Alexa are increasingly being given autonomy – they can draft emails, book appointments, make purchases, and even manage your calendar. This shift to “agentic AI” promises convenience, but it also introduces a real risk: your assistant might be sharing data with third parties without your knowledge or consent. A new privacy tool from researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) aims to detect exactly that kind of betrayal. Here’s what the tool does, why it matters, and what you can do right now to protect yourself. ...

New Tool Spots When Your AI Assistant Is Spying on You AI agents are becoming a regular part of daily life. Whether you ask ChatGPT to draft an email, tell Siri to set a reminder, or let Alexa order groceries, these systems act on your behalf. But what happens when they act on someone else’s behalf instead? Researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology have built a privacy tool designed to catch exactly that kind of betrayal. ...

Your Biggest Fear About AI Shopping? Data Privacy – Here’s How to Protect Yourself If you’ve hesitated to use an AI shopping assistant because you weren’t sure how much of your personal data it would collect, you’re not alone. According to an eMarketer survey, data privacy is now shoppers’ biggest fear when it comes to AI-powered shopping tools. The finding underscores a growing tension between the convenience of personalized recommendations and the unease about how much information is being gathered behind the scenes. ...

Shift’s New Browser Promises Private AI – Here’s What to Know The past few years have made one thing clear: many people no longer trust the default choices for browsing the web. Between data collection, tracking, and the latest wave of AI tools that phone home with your queries, the idea of a browser that respects privacy has become more appealing than ever. Into that gap steps Shift, a company best known for its desktop email and app integration tool, which is now launching a browser it claims puts privacy first — especially when it comes to AI. ...

AI Feels Creepier Than Ever? Here Are the Products Privacy Experts Actually Buy You don’t have to be paranoid to notice that AI is getting more invasive. Smart speakers listen for trigger words, websites scrape your data to train models, and facial recognition systems map public spaces. A recent VICE article asked privacy specialists what they personally buy to push back. The answers are surprisingly practical—and they don’t require ditching your smartphone. ...