“The system — whose backbone is a database of more than three billion images that Clearview claims to have scraped from Facebook, YouTube, Venmo and millions of other websites — goes far beyond anything ever constructed by the United States government or Silicon Valley giants.” Kashmir Hill in the NYT: The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It. (This is an important and concerning story. But ultimately, the greatest threats to our privacy are political ignorance and public apathy, not necessarily in that order.)

+ Reuters: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained.