#data sharing

This setting exists and YOU should have it enabled!

I looked it up, as I know how misleading Instagram posts are and found this article from today:

● Some quotes from the article-

'A new clause appeared in Firefox’s terms of use. "When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox," the term read.'

● Response from FireFox:

"We need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible," Mozilla said in a blog post on the incident. "Without it, we couldn’t use information typed into Firefox, for example. It does NOT give us ownership of your data or a right to use it for anything other than what is described in the Privacy Notice."

FireFox also said, "[They] wipe any personal data related to the user."

I personally will still use FireFox as I do enjoy it and have extensions that help prevent data collection, but did want to share in case others may be weary with this and/or have not actually looked up the response from FireFox. They've already received heavy backlash, so there's no need to rag on them and said "The change was poorly worded and confusing"

TOR is a very good option if you would like to switch from FireFox altogether.

I also use DuckDuckGo as my main search engine, which helps some with preventing data sharing.

where to find the setting: account settings > Visibility

Sharing Brains

Brain imaging resource of data collected from individuals genetically inheriting predisposition to Alzheimer's disease provides insight into the onset in the much larger population who develop the disease sporadically and into brain ageing generally

Read the published research paper here

Image from work by Nicole S. McKay and colleagues

The Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Nature Neuroscience, July 2023

!Important!

NHS Digital is planning to give out everyone in the UK’s medical records, including some identifiable information, to third parties on the 1st of July.

This data includes information on “your sex, ethnicity and sexual orientation” and “clinical codes and data about diagnoses, symptoms, observations, test results, medications, allergies, immunisations, referrals and recalls, and appointments, including information about your physical, mental and sexual health” (quotes from the NHS Digital website). The data will also include coded identifying information, such as your postcode, which is deliberately de-codable in case you need to be identified (e.g. by your own doctor). The guardian article above mentions that critics of NHS Digital’s plan have said that this anonymisation via encoding “can be easily reversed“.

The Guardian article says that the data “will be made available to the private sector and other researchers”, the NHS Digital website says that the data can be used by any organisations who “[show that they] have a legal basis to use the data and that it will be used safely, securely and appropriately” and who have been approved by the Independent Group Advising on the Release of Data (IGARD).

Currently the only way to not have your data shared is to opt-out by filling in a form available on the NHS Digital website and returning it to your doctors surgery (by post or email) by the 23rd of June.

If ever you needed a reason to have limited government, this is it.