Saudi OpenAI employee arrested after recording device found in headquarters; The Guardian, October 13, 2026

Maya Yang, The Guardian; Saudi OpenAI employee arrested after recording device found in headquarters

"OpenAI said it has found a hidden recording device in one of its offices and has referred the matter to the FBI. One of its employees has been arrested.

In a statement on Tuesday, the San Francisco-based AI company said it discovered the “sophisticated recording device” and used one of its “models to understand the device and where it had come from”...

Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, a Saudi national, was arrested on 9 October, according to a press release from the US Department of Justice.

Alfozan allegedly plugged an encrypted recording device, concealed within toilet paper, into a TV in an executive conference room in OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters on 28 September. Meetings in the room regularly covered confidential information, the FBI’s press release said. A security sweep conducted two days later revealed the device, according to the justice department. Surveillance footage allegedly documented him walking around the meeting room in the days leading up to its discovery."

A college in Illinois tried to cancel its Flock contract and it refused; The Verge, October 11, 2026

TERRENCE O'BRIEN , The Verge; A college in Illinois tried to cancel its Flock contract and it refused

"In April of 2025, Elgin Community College had six Flock safety cameras installed to “enhance the safety and security of students.” But by September of that year, the school’s administration grew concerned that Flock was sharing data with Customs and Border Patrol, that camera feeds were not properly secured, and that both law enforcement and the company’s employees were abusing access to the data.

So in October of 2025, Elgin Community College requested Flock to remove its cameras. According to Elgin’s President Peggy Heinrich, Flock rejected the request, saying it had not violated its contract. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, school officials reached out again in December, offered to pay for the remaining five months of the contract, and still requested that the cameras be removed. They were met with silence."

Surveillance company Flock cuts staff as privacy backlash grows; TechCrunch, October 9, 2026

Zack Whittaker, TechCrunch; Surveillance company Flock cuts staff as privacy backlash grows

"Surveillance camera maker Flock is cutting its workforce as the company faces ongoing and growing backlash to its license plate readers and people-tracking technology.

News of the staff cuts comes from Reuters, which reported that Flock is reducing its staff by 18%, or around 270 employees, across the board. The publication said the employees are leaving at the end of October following a voluntary buyout program...

Flock has faced heavy criticism and mounting pushback from communities across the United States and legislators looking to rein in the company’s privately run mass surveillance program. Flock has installed over 100,000 license plate-reading cameras across the U.S., which allow police and federal agents to track the location and whereabouts of vehicles passing by them. Dozens of police officers have been arrested, fired, or forced to resign for abusing access to Flock’s system to search, track, and stalk people without a warrant or their permission."

‘Dystopian’: Co-op becomes latest firm to put staff under AI surveillance; The Guardian, October 8, 2026

Robert Booth, The Guardian; ‘Dystopian’: Co-op becomes latest firm to put staff under AI surveillance

"The Co-op has become the latest employer to place workers under AI surveillance with an automated listening technology that rates every phone call some of them make to customers.

In a system described as “oppressive and dystopian” by a whistleblower, Co-op Legal Services is using AI models to record, analyse and award a percentage score for interactions between agents and customers seeking advice about probate, wills and estates...

“You are being watched,” said a Co-op worker who spoke to the Guardian on condition of anonymity and said the AI created a sense of distrust. “It’s different from occasionally being listened to for compliance purposes. [You are] being monitored absolutely every word that you say and every time that you utter something … It just feels really dystopian. It’s the thin end of the wedge.”"

Countries weigh banning smart glasses over privacy concerns; Reuters, October 6, 2026

Reuters; Countries weigh banning smart glasses over privacy concerns

"Governments, courts and companies are considering restrictions and examining existing rules on smart glasses amid worries that the technology, brought to mainstream by ​Meta's Ray-Bans, could be used to photograph, film or audio-record confidential ‌materials or people without their knowledge.

Here is a summary of what countries and regions are doing to protect people's privacy, in alphabetical order."

‘This is not what I signed up for’: Flock cameras raise privacy concerns across West Virginia; The Dominion Post, October 8, 2026

 

EVIE SAFRAN, The Dominion Post; ‘This is not what I signed up for’: Flock cameras raise privacy concerns across West Virginia

"For Monongalia County residents Lathwell and Paige Reiring, concerns over Flock cameras have created an unlikely point of political common ground.

Lathwell identifies as politically conservative, while Reiring is a Mountain Party candidate for the West Virginia House of Delegates. Despite their political differences, both question how much information the government should be able to collect about people who have not been accused of a crime.

For Lathwell, the issue comes down to privacy.

"I don't like this at all," she said. "This is not what I signed up for."

Reiring's concerns center on the technology behind the cameras and the amount of data they can collect.

"For me, the issue is the automated aspect of ALPRs, automatic license plate readers, because a lot of these depend on AI-powered software and surveillance systems, which is where we get the harvesting of data," Reiring said.

Their concerns show how the debate surrounding Flock cameras does not fall neatly along traditional political lines. As the technology becomes more common in Monongalia County, residents from different sides of the political spectrum are raising similar questions about privacy, surveillance and the collection of their data.

As artificial intelligence becomes capable of doing tasks once left to people, Flock's automated license plate readers are doing the same for law enforcement - identifying vehicle information and making it searchable for officers.

The technology can speed up investigations. It also means information about ordinary drivers can be collected before they are suspected of a crime."

Flock Has a Powerful New AI Tool for Police. We Got Its Code; Wired, August 19, 2026

Dhruv Mehrotra, Dell Cameron , Wired; Flock Has a Powerful New AI Tool for Police. We Got Its Code

"Flock’s surveillance cameras have already sparked outrage. WIRED reconstructed its next-generation AI system, already in use by some police, to confirm it goes much further than tracking license plates."

PHILLY COPS ADMIT THAT THEY’RE TRACKING “FIRST AMENDMENT ACTIVITY” CRITICAL OF AI; The Intercept, June 1, 2026

Matt Sledge,  Sam Biddle , The Intercept; PHILLY COPS ADMIT THAT THEY’RE TRACKING “FIRST AMENDMENT ACTIVITY” CRITICAL OF AI

"AMERICANS SPEAKING OUT against artificial intelligence data centers on social media are falling under police surveillance, a confidential law enforcement bulletin obtained by The Intercept reveals.

A fusion center in Philadelphia combed through spicy internet comments from AI critics and concluded there is a growing risk of physical violence against data centers from “domestic violent extremists,” ranging from white supremacists to anarchists.

“Domestic violent extremists (DVEs) are likely interested in targeting artificial intelligence (AI) data centers, posing a physical and cyber threat to infrastructure in the Philadelphia regional area,” the Delaware Valley Intelligence Center wrote in a December alert.

The fusion center distributed its warning, marked “for official use only,” through the national fusion center network of state, local, and federal police agencies.

Like many of the reports produced by fusion centers, the bulletin points to news reports and social media posts, but cites little in the way of tangible threats. It acknowledges “a lack of specific information on plans to target AI data centers in the Philadelphia area,” but warns law enforcement that three planned data center facilities in the region could become targets of future protests."

AI license plate cameras tore this town apart and led to a state of emergency; The Washington Post, May 17, 2026

Annie Gowen, The Washington Post; AI license plate cameras tore this town apart and led to a state of emergency

"The cameras at the heart of the debate are run by Flock Safety, a technology company that has built a network of automatic license plate readers in more than 6,000 communities across the country in recent years. 

Flock’s system uses AI-enabled cameras to snap photos of every vehicle that passes, creating a digital “fingerprint” that includes data as personal as bumper stickers or gun racks.

Flock cameras are beloved by police because officers can use the company’s national database to track vehicle movements to recover drugs and stolen automobiles, and to solve even more serious crimes. A company spokesman said in a statement that the devices support “communities across the country in addressing crime and locating missing people.”...

Yet the company’s rapid expansion has given rise to citizen concerns about intrusive surveillance, worries that have intensified amid reports that federal immigration enforcement officials used the system to target immigrants."

Forget the AI job apocalypse. AI’s real threat is worker control and surveillance; The Guardian, May 11, 2026

Nazrul Islam , The Guardian; Forget the AI job apocalypse. AI’s real threat is worker control and surveillance

"The real danger that artificial intelligence poses to work is not just job loss – it is the growing divide between people who use AI to extend their skills and those whose working lives are increasingly shaped by opaque, AI-powered systems of surveillance and control.

The debate about artificial intelligence and how it will affect workers is stuck in the wrong place. On one side are warnings that machines are coming for millions of jobs. On the other are claims that AI will turbocharge productivity. Both stories miss what is already happening in workplaces across the world, from Britain to Kenya to the United States.

For some, AI can help remove the drudgery from daily work. These are often people in better-paid, higher-autonomy roles: analysts, consultants, lawyers, academics, managers. In these jobs, provided AI is being rolled out to augment workers rather than replace them, it can feel like a copilot. It can support human judgment, speed up routine tasks and create space for more creative thinking.

For many others, though, AI is not an assistant. It is a boss.

It appears in scheduling and monitoring tools, route optimisation software and automated performance dashboards – all systems that decide who gets what shift, how long a task should take and whether someone is performing at their maximum capacity. In these workplaces, AI is not something you use. It is something that watches and rules you.

That is the new divide we should all be paying attention to."

Palantir manifesto described as ‘ramblings of a supervillain’ amid UK contract fears; The Guardian, April 21, 2026

Aisha Down and Robert Booth, The Guardian ; Palantir manifesto described as ‘ramblings of a supervillain’ amid UK contract fears

Alarm caused by posts of Alex Karp, tech firm’s CEO, championing US military dominance and of AI weapons

"The US spy tech company Palantir published a manifesto extolling the benefits of American power and implying some cultures are inferior to others – in what MPs have called “a parody of a RoboCop film” and “the ramblings of a supervillain”.

“Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive,” wrote Palantir in a 22-point post on X over the weekend, which also called for an end to the “postwar neutering” of Germany and Japan...

The pronouncement is the most recent of a number of high-profile statements from Palantir and its chief executive, Alex Karp, which appear to indicate that Karp views himself as not simply the head of a software company, but a pundit with important insights into the future of civilisation."...

In an interview with CNBC in early March, Karp suggested that AI would “disrupt” the power of “highly educated, often female voters who vote mostly Democrat”,and instead empower “vocationally trained, working-class, often male, working-class voters”."

SHELLEY’S ‘FRANKENSTEIN’ GETS AN AI REBOOT AT PASADENA’S HASTINGS BRANCH LIBRARY; Pasadena Now, March 15, 2026

Pasadena Now; SHELLEY’S ‘FRANKENSTEIN’ GETS AN AI REBOOT AT PASADENA’S HASTINGS BRANCH LIBRARY

A discussion today ties the 1818 novel's warnings about creator responsibility to contemporary debates over artificial intelligence, part of the city's One City, One Story program 

"Two centuries before algorithms began analyzing people’s dreams and predicting their crimes, Mary Shelley wrote a novel about a scientist who built something he could not control. That novel, “Frankenstein,” is the subject of a free discussion today at Hastings Branch Library, where presenter Rosemary Choate will connect its 207-year-old themes to the same questions about artificial intelligence that Pasadena’s citywide reading program is exploring all month.

The event, titled “Frankenstein: Myths and the Real Story?” is part of the Pasadena Public Library’s 24th annual One City, One Story program, which this year selected Laila Lalami’s “The Dream Hotel” — a dystopian novel about a woman detained because an algorithm, fed by data from her dreams, deemed her a future criminal. The library has organized a month of lectures, films and book discussions around the novel’s themes of surveillance, technology and freedom, and the Frankenstein session draws a direct line between Shelley’s 1818 tale and the anxieties at the center of Lalami’s story.

Choate, a comparative literature and humanities instructor and founder of the Pomona College Alumni Book Club, will lead the discussion at 3 p.m. She will examine themes including creator responsibility, the consequences of unchecked technological ambition and society’s rejection of the “creation” — questions the library’s event description calls “highly relevant to contemporary debates surrounding the development and governance of AI,” according to the Pasadena Public Library’s event listing.

Shelley published “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus” anonymously in 1818, when she was 20 years old. The novel tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who assembles a creature from dead body parts and recoils from what he has made. The creature, abandoned by its creator, becomes violent as it fails to find acceptance. The novel is widely considered one of the first works of science fiction.

The One City, One Story program, now in its 24th year, selects a single book each year for citywide reading and discussion. A 19-member committee of community volunteers, led by Senior Librarian Christine Reeder, chose “The Dream Hotel” for its exploration of surveillance, freedom and the reach of technology into private life. The program is sponsored by The Friends of the Pasadena Public Library and the Pasadena Literary Alliance.

The month of events culminates in a conversation with Lalami and Pasadena Public Library Director Tim McDonald on Saturday, March 21, at 2 p.m. at Pasadena Presbyterian Church, 585 E. Colorado Blvd. That event is also free and open to the public."

OpenAI robotics leader resigns over concerns about Pentagon AI deal; NPR, March 8, 2026

Willem Marx , NPR; OpenAI robotics leader resigns over concerns about Pentagon AI deal

"A senior member of OpenAI's robotics team has resigned, citing concerns about how the company moved forward with a recently announced partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense.

Caitlin Kalinowski, who served as a member of technical staff focused on robotics and hardware, posted on social media that she had stepped down on "principle" after the company revealed plans to make its AI systems available inside secure Defense Department computing systems...

In public posts explaining her decision, Kalinowski wrote: "I resigned from OpenAI. I care deeply about the Robotics team and the work we built together. This wasn't an easy call."

She said policy guardrails around certain AI uses were not sufficiently defined before OpenAI announced an agreement with the Pentagon. "AI has an important role in national security," Kalinowski wrote. "But surveillance of Americans without judicial oversight and lethal autonomy without human authorization are lines that deserved more deliberation than they got.""

Anthropic’s Ethical Stand Could Be Paying Off; The Atlantic, March 7, 2026

 Ken Harbaugh, The Atlantic; Anthropic’s Ethical Stand Could Be Paying Off

"The events of the past week reminded me of my early days as a Navy pilot nearly three decades ago. One of my first tasks was to sign a document pledging never to surveil American citizens. By the time of the 9/11 attacks, I was an aircraft commander, leading combat-reconnaissance aircrews that gathered large-scale intelligence and informed battlefield targeting decisions. I took for granted that somewhere along those decision chains, a human being was in the loop.

I could not have defined artificial intelligence then, but I understood instinctively that a person, not a machine, would bear the weight of life-and-death choices. This was not a bureaucratic consideration. It was a hard line that those of us in uniform were expected to hold.

In the standoff between Anthropic and the Pentagon, a private company was forced to hold the line against its own government. In doing so, Anthropic may have earned something more valuable than the contract it lost. In an industry where trust is the scarcest resource, Anthropic just banked a substantial deposit."

Anthropic is clashing with the Pentagon over AI use. Here’s what each side wants; CNBC, February 18, 2026

 Ashley Capoot, CNBC; Anthropic is clashing with the Pentagon over AI use. Here’s what each side wants

"Anthropic wants assurance that its models will not be used for autonomous weapons or to “spy on Americans en masse,” according to a report from Axios. 

The DOD, by contrast, wants to use Anthropic’s models “for all lawful use cases” without limitation."

Palantir is caught in the middle of a brewing fight between Anthropic and the Pentagon; Fast Company, February 17, 2026

REBECCA HEILWEIL, Fast Company; Palantir is caught in the middle of a brewing fight between Anthropic and the Pentagon

"A dispute between AI company Anthropic and the Pentagon over how the military can use the company’s technology has now gone public. Amid tense negotiations, Anthropic has reportedly called for limits on two key applications: mass surveillance and autonomous weapons. The Department of Defense, which Trump renamed the Department of War last year, wants the freedom to use the technology without those restrictions.

Caught in the middle is Palantir. The defense contractor provides the secure cloud infrastructure that allows the military to use Anthropic’s Claude model, but it has stayed quiet as tensions escalate. That’s even as the Pentagon, per Axios, threatens to designate Anthropic a “supply chain risk,” a move that could force Palantir to cut ties with one of its most important AI partners."

Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti-ICE Accounts; The New York Times, February 13, 2026

 Sheera Frenkel and Mike Isaac , The New York Times; Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti-ICE Accounts

The department has sent Google, Meta and other companies hundreds of subpoenas for information on accounts that track or comment on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, officials and tech workers said.

"The Department of Homeland Security is expanding its efforts to identify Americans who oppose Immigration and Customs Enforcement by sending tech companies legal requests for the names, email addresses, telephone numbers and other identifying data behind social media accounts that track or criticize the agency.

In recent months, Google, Reddit, Discord and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, have received hundreds of administrative subpoenas from the Department of Homeland Security, according to four government officials and tech employees privy to the requests. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Google, Meta and Reddit complied with some of the requests, the government officials said. In the subpoenas, the department asked the companies for identifying details of accounts that do not have a real person’s name attached and that have criticized ICE or pointed to the locations of ICE agents. The New York Times saw two subpoenas that were sent to Meta over the last six months.

The tech companies, which can choose whether or not to provide the information, have said they review government requests before complying. Some of the companies notified the people whom the government had requested data on and gave them 10 to 14 days to fight the subpoena in court."

Professors Are Being Watched: ‘We’ve Never Seen This Much Surveillance’; The New York Times, February 4, 2026

Vimal Patel , The New York Times; Professors Are Being Watched: ‘We’ve Never Seen This Much Surveillance’

Scrutiny of university classrooms is being formalized, with new laws requiring professors to post syllabuses and tip lines for students to complain.

"College professors once taught free from political interference, with mostly their students and colleagues privy to their lectures and book assignments. Now, they are being watched by state officials, senior administrators and students themselves."

ICE’s surveillance app is a techno-authoritarian nightmare; The Guardian, January 30, 2026

Moustafa Bayoumi, The Guardian; ICE’s surveillance app is a techno-authoritarian nightmare

"Now is the time we must start paying attention to another highly damaging part of ICE’s arsenal: the agency’s deployment of mass surveillance.

I’m referring specifically to Mobile Fortify, a specialized app ICE has been using at least since May 2025. (Usage of the app was first reported last June by 404Media.) What is Mobile Fortify? It’s an app for facial recognition that can additionally take “contactless fingerprints” of someone simply by snapping a picture of a person’s fingers. The app has been used more than 100,000 times, including on children, as alleged in a lawsuit filed by the State of Illinois and the City of Chicago. And it’s dangerous."

How ICE is using facial recognition in Minnesota; The Guardian, January 27, 2026

Sanya Mansoor, The Guardian; How ICE is using facial recognition in Minnesota

"Immigration enforcement agents across the US are increasingly relying on a new smartphone app with facial recognition technology.

The app is named Mobile Fortify. Simply pointing a phone’s camera at their intended target and scanning the person’s face allows Mobile Fortify to pull data on an individual from multiple federal and state databases, some of which federal courts have deemed too inaccurate for arrest warrants.

The US Department of Homeland Security has used Mobile Fortify to scan faces and fingerprints in the field more than 100,000 times, according to a lawsuit brought by Illinois and Chicago against the federal agency, earlier this month. That’s a drastic shift from immigration enforcement’s earlier use of facial recognition technology, which was otherwise limited largely to investigations and ports of entry and exit, legal experts say."