back to article Twitter says it may harvest biometric, employment data from its addicts

As August and summer in the northern hemisphere draw to a close, Elon Musk's Twitter is making several changes to its platform, including a privacy policy update noting that it plans to begin collecting biometric data and employment information from the people still using the site, if provided.  The website's latest privacy …

  1. Ace2 Silver badge
    Pint

    Ah, LinkedIn

    Your corporate director from 4 jobs ago’s new direct report is proud to announce that his daughter has accepted a prestigious internship.

    Yay.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Ah, LinkedIn

      I became aware of LinkedIn's data mining ages ago, which is why I don't use it. Also substantially cuts down on people contacting me to ask if I'm not interested in enriching them by changing jobs.

      I also set up a few fake accounts, and it's interesting to see what kind of people are trying to build 'LinkedIn' capital by trying to become associated with just about anyone - given that my membership of some companies was 100% fictitious the link requests were dead giveaways..

      1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
        Windows

        So, basically, you polluted LinkedIn with fake profiles, and now you're saying that it's full of shit ?

        Interesting approach.

        1. IGotOut Silver badge

          It's been full of shit since day one.

          It's either "Look at me I post motivational quotes", or Recruitment agencies.

          That's it.

          It serve no real benefit, except to people that love "Inspirational" quotes (which in reality just piss everyone else off)

          1. Jedit Silver badge
            Pirate

            "It serve no real benefit"

            The only time I use LinkedIn is to post on a company's timeline whenever they spam my work address, recommending that your IT department blocks them at the domain level.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: "It serve no real benefit"

              It's a handy way of estimating someones age - just based on their school years.

              1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

                Re: "It serve no real benefit"

                Depending on your jurisdiction, estimating someone's age might not be something you want to do as part of your hiring process.

          2. heyrick Silver badge

            "It's been full of shit since day one."

            I used to get people (with names fitting a particular part of the world that wasn't a first world country) sending me requests to join LinkedIn, offers of things I might be interested in doing in countries I'd need to Google to find out where the hell they were).

            I contacted LinkedIn to ask if they could stop my email being spammed with this rubbish. They told me that it could be managed if I signed up and created a profile.

            I took a third option. I threw together some code to detect if the header said it was from LinkedIn and if it was, bounced the message back to their published support address, and deleted the local copy.

            I have no idea how long it took to get resolved or if they ever tried to get in touch. There's no more junk from them (using a different mail system these days), but it's been many years. Whatever, to hell with them.

            1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

              You could have taken up their option and created a profile with their own address.

        2. Excused Boots Bronze badge

          "So, basically, you polluted LinkedIn with fake profiles, and now you're saying that it's full of shit ?

          Interesting approach."

          Well, it's a tough job but someone's gotta do it!

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          control your emotion

  2. Someone Else Silver badge

    Cringe-worthiness

    Musk said over the weekend he considers LinkedIn's "cringe level … so high that I just can't bring myself to use it."

    So, as to not be outdone, Muskrat intends to raise Xwatter's cringe level to a level higher than that of this potential competitor.

    One could surmise, then, that there is a minimum "cringe level" that a site must maintain for Muskrat to be comfortable to use it.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Re: Cringe-worthiness

      It's funny because that's exactly what I think of him.

      And no, Musk, nothing you do with Xitter will ever be considered cool.

      1. Potemkine! Silver badge
        Pint

        Re: Cringe-worthiness

        And no, Musk, nothing you do with Xitter will ever be considered cool.

        I disagree. The Musk is crashing Xitter and makes whatever possible to make it irrelevant and that's pretty cool.

    2. My-Handle

      Re: Cringe-worthiness

      It's worse than the pot calling the kettle black - Musk's the sodding coal in this situation.

      1. DJV Silver badge

        Re: Musk's the sodding coal in this situation

        At least, under pressure, coal can turn into diamond.

        Musk, under pressure, just throws more (expensive) toys around!

        1. Jedit Silver badge
          Devil

          "Musk, under pressure, just throws more (expensive) toys around!"

          I think you will find that Musk has a great deal of expertise in the field of obtaining precious gems by putting something black under extreme pressure. Why, it's the family business.

          1. Excused Boots Bronze badge

            Re: "Musk, under pressure, just throws more (expensive) toys around!"

            "I think you will find that Musk has a great deal of expertise in the field of obtaining precious gems by putting something black under extreme pressure. Why, it's the family business."

            Annoyingly, it's not possible to upvote this more than once. It is brilliant, subtle, takes a slight degree of background knowledge to get the meaning - well played sir!

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Cringe-worthiness

      ah bless, I wondered whenthe first obsessive anti Musk rant in here would be, shame this comment section seems to be infesed with the rabid left

  3. DS999 Silver badge

    Requiring IDs for everyone

    Won't stop impersonation. Fake IDs are easy enough to create, especially when you would only be emailing a JPEG of that ID rather than letting them hold a physical ID that might have some anti-counterfeiting measures like holograms.

    So it won't stop the fraudsters, but it will compromise privacy for millions when that database of IDs inevitably leaks out from understaffed Xitter (pronounced "shitter")

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Requiring IDs for everyone

      Now wondering if he realises that not every government uses the same ID as the rest - will we all have to get a US driver's licence if we want to use X (well, I say "want"...)?

      He can't be expecting to require anything as standardised as a passport, think what that would do to the existing userbase.

      1. DS999 Silver badge

        Re: Requiring IDs for everyone

        The US has 50 different state driver's licenses, there are also passports, military IDs, government employee IDs, untold thousands of school IDs... Nevermind all the different types once you get outside US borders. They can't expect passports since many US citizens don't have one because they never leave the country (especially the types who really like the rightward tilt Elon has brought to the platform) They can't expect a driver's license / non driver's ID because people who don't drive often don't have one and almost no one under 16 (legal driving age in most states) would have one, so that requirement would almost be a "you must be 16 to use Xitter". So that means they have to accept the school IDs that a 15 year old, or a 20 year old college student in NYC who never learned to drive, would have.

        It will obviously be a pretty cursory examination. I would bet they automate it, once they train it on a particular ID type it would be pretty easy for an automated system to extract the necessary info via OCR. Maybe do some sort of half assed image recognition if they ask for a picture of you holding the ID.

        That's why I say faking it will be easy. The fake won't need to have the kind of quality that would be required to fool a cop who pulls you over, or even a bartender checking IDs to see if you're old enough to drink. Heck you probably don't even need to make a physical ID, just the image of one you email. And if necessary, use Photoshop or similar to scale and paste over the top of the your real ID in a photo of you "holding the ID".

        I haven't looked, but I would be shocked if there are not apps out there (at least on Android) that generate fake IDs.

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Requiring IDs for everyone

          Obviously the mugshot would be generated by AI.

          1. daflibble

            Re: Requiring IDs for everyone

            AI ID, for AI People vetted by AI, what could possibly go wrong?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Requiring IDs for everyone

      That's actually a solved problem - provided you're either US based or don't mind your ID leaking to a nation with less ability to protect your privacy than a colander can hold water (or interest in that).

      Europe DID have an ID check solution which was entirely contained in Europe (Germany) called 4Stop, but as they were bought in 2022 by US based Jumio I would now not touch them with a barge pole if you're a European user or company as that imported way too many legal bear traps and risks.

      Yes, I know there's a new thing to replace Privacy Shield (forgot it's name as I'm pre-coffee), but given the enthusiasm by which companies and dodgy agencies overseas seem to ignore the associated conditions for, well, profit, I do not expect that to survive that long either - the fundamental, unsolved problem is simply that the legal systems of the US and the EU differ too much, and I don't see either change.

      Anyway, back to the topic, even IF it was safe to use, I don't see Musk go anywhere near it:

      (1) the dodgy people he enables would no longer visit, so he'd have even fewer users

      (2) it would cost money, and Twitter X is already deep in the hole, and his *cough* "management" *cough* is only accelerating the decline..

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Requiring IDs for everyone

        "a new thing to replace Privacy Shield (forgot it's name as I'm pre-coffee)"

        "Fig-leaf" is a suitable generic for all their attempts.

  4. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Opportunity at X

    "recommend potential jobs for you."

    Yeah, right

    1. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Opportunity at X

      "Now you can become an X actor!"

  5. ecofeco Silver badge

    They are all doing it

    May? Like an alcoholic may have a drink or two?

    I've also noticed a serious uptick in user data swapping across the board. I've got blockers and cache clearing out the wazoo and I still see certain things targeted at me from my recent browsing. On completely different websites. This is not coincidence.

    1. keithpeter Silver badge
      Windows

      Re: They are all doing it

      @ecofeco

      Browser fingerprinting?

  6. TheMaskedMan Silver badge

    Only recently did his Muskiness float the idea that users won't be able to block fellow Xitters. Now he wants voice and video calls. Suppose you don't want to receive those calls, either from some or all xitters? Sounds like a nightmare to me!

    1. that one in the corner Silver badge

      The true nightmare starts when unblockable political video and audio personalised messages[1] start appearing.

      And do you trust that they will get the filtering right so that only Xusers in the US will receive them?

      [1] aka ads

    2. Jamie Jones Silver badge

      Good riddance to "block"

      Disabling the "blocking" option is one of Musks few good ideas.

      You can still "mute", and "blocks" will be converted to "mute". Mute stops you seeing their posts, notifications, or their ability to send you private messages.

      The only thing extra that "block" adds is stopping the user read YOUR posts, but on an unauthenticated system where anyone can create extra accounts, or even browse without logging in, that's useless, and just provides a false sense of security to those less knowledgeable of how things work.

      As it stands, if you REALLY want to restrict someone from seeing your posts (and this ignores people cut/pasting, or screenshots etc.) you need to restrict the tweet to your followers - that is this case now, and would be the case without the "block" function.

      1. Jamie Jones Silver badge

        Re: Good riddance to "block"

        I know we're not meant to talk about downvotes here, but I'd love the downvoter to explain why he or she disagrees with my post.

        1. milliemoo83

          Re: Good riddance to "block"

          He's taking a page out of Google's book.. their 'block email' option just dumps it in the spam folder. Does absoultely nothing to prevent it reaching the account in the first place.

          1. Jamie Jones Silver badge

            Re: Good riddance to "block"

            Thanks for the reply.

            No, it doesn't affect private messages - they are still "blocked" - in fact, unless you've set it liberally, private messages are enabled for followers only by default already.

            So, I repeat, to the obvious "security experts" on here who downvoted without replying, why is replacing block with mute an issue, when mute basically does exactly the same thing, but without the pretence of actually blocking someone?

        2. Excused Boots Bronze badge

          Re: Good riddance to "block"

          Or indeed why your reasonable request as to an explanation as to why you were downvoted, was itself, downvoted!

          Really odd!

  7. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    I wonder how close the bottom of the barrel might be.

    1. Number6

      You're assuming there is a bottom? Turtles all the way down...

      1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

        Turds all the way down...

        (fixed it for you)

    2. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

      I suspect Musk will mix metaphors and will start digging the moment he reaches that bottom.

      And no, those supplying the shovels won't get paid, of course.

      1. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge
        Joke

        Is this why he created the Boring Company?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Post of the Week, on a Friday no less.

          Well done.

          (still laughing :) ).

  8. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

    He's just trying to see how low he can go..

    .. before the platform becomes simply empty.

    And private data theft - well, from what I hear from Tesla that's not exactly a new idea.

  9. that one in the corner Silver badge

    Phrenology for the 21st Century

    > Biometric data would be extracted from images shared with X, the platform said.

    "X regrets we can not verify your account as you do not have the little piggy eyes and heavy eyebrow ridges we expect of our users. Plus it looks like you actually have a real forehead."

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Phrenology for the 21st Century

      Actually they are implementing a secure knob wrinkle biometric login.

      1. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

        Re: Phrenology for the 21st Century

        I *so* want to see the Pentagon access control in Monsters vs Aliens implemented..

        :)

    2. Orv Silver badge

      Re: Phrenology for the 21st Century

      I'll just get a prosthetic forehead and wear it on my real head.

      This is a growth industry -- *everybody* wants prosthetic foreheads on their real heads.

      1. that one in the corner Silver badge

        Re: Phrenology for the 21st Century

        Rats, I was in the store and only bought the rock to wind a string around!

  10. Number6

    Nearly time to leave

    I still have my Twitter account, mainly because to delete it requires effort on my part, so it sits there, occupying some of his hard disk space. As soon as he requires some of my cash or some of my data to keep using it, I'll finally cross the threshold and dump the account, assuming he doesn't dump it first.

  11. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Ex-directory

    "X is the effective global address book,"

    1. My-Handle

      Re: Ex-directory

      My initial knee-jerk reaction to that line was "lol, it's really not".

      A brief Google search session seems to bear that out. Depending on what source you look at, Twitter has something like 350 to 450 million monthly active users. Assuming they are all genuine (stop giggling in the back there), that's somewhere between 1/18th and 1/23rd of the global population (approx 8 billion) - hardly an address book.

      Even compared to other social media users, it doesn't stack up. Facebook apparently (by the likewise medium of a quick Google search) has about 3 billion monthly active users - 3 eighths of the world population (again, assuming all are genuine).

  12. Groo The Wanderer Silver badge

    Musk's dreams and fantasies of a Chinese style portal/hub of services creeps some people right out.

    Who would trust a petulant boy-child with such control over their life?

    Don't answer that, I already know that billions of "free-thinking" people are just _waiting_ to kneel in subservience like the Chinese do to Xi, right? The rest of us just have it all wrong...

    1. milliemoo83

      "Who would trust a petulant boy-child with such control over their life?"

      Those who voted in Bojo?

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Surely 'xcreted' is more appropriate than 'xeeted' ?

    "We will make sure that the X competitor to LinkedIn is cool," Musk xeeted. It's unclear when the feature would come to X, if ever. "

  14. Joe W Silver badge

    User consent....

    "In analyzing each image uploaded to Twitter to determine whether it contains nudity, Twitter actively collects, captures and/or otherwise obtains; stores; and/or makes use of the biometric identifiers and biometric information of any individual included in each photo," the suit alleges, in violation of Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act.

    X makes clear in its new privacy policy that such data will only be collected with user consent,

    Ok, let's assume some xithead takes my picture and posts it on xitter. There is no bloody way to get consent from the individual on the picture, user consent has sweet fanny adams to do with that!

    Bah. Eejit.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: User consent....

      They will have the consent of the user - who may even be the copyright holder - but nobody has ever said anything about the consent of the individuals who appear in the picture.

      Can you think of any of these social media thingies that ever said anything other than asking the consent of their user, aka the uploader?

      Remember all the fuss about Facebook, when they first allowed anyone to upload photos and then tag all the faces shown?

      Whether or not this will satisfy Illinois is another matter, but Elon Says "You did read the T&Cs, 'cos you clicked that you did."

      1. heyrick Silver badge

        Re: User consent....

        Now, would this be actual consent, or implied "you uploaded it therefore..." consent?

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: User consent....

          Or, better yet, implied consent because the Ts&Cs changed since your "read" and ticked them? Personally, I find changes to Ts&Cs are just more "dark patterns" in that they are humungously large and the change announcement invariably just leads you to the entire document. Since you have to tick a box to agree to them, they should be forced to record the exact date and time of that action and then when changes are announced, only show what changed with the option to read the whole thing again if you choose. At least that way you have a little more information by being able to see the changes and not have to memorise a 400 page document so can try to identify the very few but possibly game-changing differences.

          I note that the financial services watchdog in the UK has done so in that if there are changes to my banks Ts&Cs, they send a letter/email stating only the changes, marked by paragraph and clause numbers and stating exactly what has changed, so it is possible.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: User consent....

      I used to work with a woman who's children expressly forbid her from posting any pictures of their children on Facebook (or any social media). She went ahead, and did it anyway. Yes, she's one of those Facebook drones.

      Here children got very angry, and she was complaining to everyone in the office, trying to justify her actions. She made comments like "what's wrong with these people".

      I told her in front of the whole office: "If they were my kids, you would never see your grandchildren again, for a stunt like that". I went on: "They expressly forbid you from posting pictures on social media, and you did it anyway. And, now you have the nerve to complain? What the hell is wrong with YOU".

      This woman was a real piece of work...

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: User consent....

        Bravo!

    3. M.V. Lipvig Silver badge

      Re: User consent....

      I've often considered copywriting my name (when referring to me) as well as my image, just so I can go after them should my image or my name (when referring to me) is found on these sites. Would make for intereating case law, especially since celebrities have already paved the way here.

  15. sabroni Silver badge

    xeeted

    He didn't xeet, he tweeted a tweet. When they start serving all their content from x domains and not twitter domains then maybe it's time to start calling it X. Currently X is just a graphic on twitter.com, while other content is served from twimg.com. There's no X in either of those domains.

    He's super rich and he can do what he likes.

    We don't all have to go along with him.

    1. Korev Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: xeeted

      > He didn't xeet, he tweeted a tweet

      Or Xcreted?

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: xeeted

        An Xcretion.

  16. Naich

    Xeeted?

    Shouldn't that be X-creted?

  17. Barry Rueger

    If you build it - and don't fuck it up - they will come!

    Google. Facebook. Twitter. All cases where a solid and valuable tool has become almost unusable.

    When will our mighty tech gods learn the old lesson:

    If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

    1. heyrick Silver badge

      Re: If you build it - and don't fuck it up - they will come!

      Good ideas get corrupted by delusions of grandeur and promises of megabucks.

      A few might get proper rich from it all, but the rest of us get screwed. Thanks.

    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: If you build it - and don't fuck it up - they will come!

      I think the principle is "If it ain't broke it ain't making enough profit.".

  18. Nameless Dread

    Xit away

    Ever seen one of those pesky pop-up windows with an 'X' top RH corner to send it away?

    Well the other day, I got one but it was the wrong sort of 'X' and when I hit it as a reflex, our Elon got another hit he didn't deserve.

    Eternal vigilance, folks!

  19. Potemkine! Silver badge

    Great, The Musk will learn what GPRD means, and what are the associated penalties. Not sure it will improve his business plan.

  20. abend0c4 Silver badge

    How far could this go?

    I'm sure there will be a group of acolytes who'd be perfectly happy if Musk started harvesting their organs.

  21. Bebu
    Windows

    Seems peculiar to me...

    《analyzing each image uploaded to Twitter to determine whether it contains nudity,》

    Analyzing images to detect pictures of unclothed humans presumably.

    Would Botticelli's Nascita di Venere (The Birth of Venus) trigger the filter I wonder? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Birth_of_Venus_detail_-_Venus.jpg

    Posting any image of a renaissance painting featuring putti would probably be flagged a child exploitation material.

    I have to wonder what the "features" that must be exposed to trigger the nudity filter. Two whole nipples and a flash of pudenta? Seems a bit like strip poker.

    The whole Xitty cesspit is probably best avoided.

  22. Jock in a Frock

    GDPR?

    Doesn't this go well beyond any reasonable requirement and start to trigger some GDPR flags?

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