Friday, June 20, 2025

Polaris of Enlightenment

The Swedish government launches AI inquiry

Published 26 September 2024
– By Editorial Staff
1 minute read

The Swedish government has decided to review legislation on the use of AI in Sweden to ensure that Swedish rules are in line with the new EU AI Regulation.

The new EU AI Regulation, which came into effect on 1 August this year, will create a common set of rules for the development and use of AI systems in the EU. It aims to ensure a high level of safety, health and protection of fundamental rights for all EU citizens.

The government has now decided to set up an inquiry to examine “the need for national adjustments” in Swedish laws to bring them into line with the regulation.

– We are in the midst of a technological change where AI has great potential to change the way we work in many sectors and in many parts of society. With this inquiry, we are taking an important step to ensure that AI is used in a way that is safe, reliable and in line with our fundamental values, said Minister for Civil Affairs Erik Slottner in a press release.

The inquiry will propose any necessary legislative changes, as well as measures for transparency and control. Helena Rosén Andersson has been appointed as the investigator and will report no later than 30 September 2025.

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Power shortages threaten southern Sweden this winter

The energy crisis in Europe

Published 17 June 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Residents in southern Sweden can expect sky-high electricity prices this winter.
2 minute read

Svenska kraftnät (the Swedish national grid operator) warns of a critical electricity shortage in southern Sweden this winter equivalent to the output of seven nuclear reactors. A new report shows that electricity area SE4, southern Götaland including Skåne, is particularly vulnerable.

The forecast points to a power shortage of 7,700 MWh/h during a normal winter in SE3 and SE4. The reason is insufficient plannable production in relation to consumption.

Malin Johansson, energy and climate manager at the industry organization IKEM, is calling for quick solutions:

This confirms that we need to quickly build new capacity in the form of gas turbines and batteries that can even out the peaks and cope with the power demand in southern Sweden, especially during cold, windless winter days.

Imports do not offer a reliable solution either, as the electricity systems of neighboring countries are often just as strained:

Analyses of import opportunities from neighboring countries show that most, like Sweden, are dependent on imports in strained situations. This indicates that import opportunities from our neighboring countries at these times may be limited if shortages occur simultaneously”, writes Svenska kraftnät.

– It’s no news that if there’s no wind in Denmark, there’s no wind in Skåne either. Every country must take responsibility for its own electricity system. We can’t rely on neighboring countries, says Malin Johansson.

“Must be able to produce around the clock”

Svenska kraftnät highlights consumer flexibility and storage as solutions, but Johansson is skeptical:

– Why should we create a market where industry is forced to be flexible? It’s not as if we have a high added value from selling electricity to other countries. Industry must be able to produce around the clock to promote growth and prosperity in Sweden.

The transmission capacity between SE3 and SE4 is insufficient during peak hours, which drives up electricity prices in SE4. The ERAA 2024 report confirms that margins are shrinking in southern Sweden, where demand is increasing while transmission from the north is limited. The situation requires urgent measures to secure the electricity supply.

The report points out that Europe’s electricity system is at risk of becoming increasingly vulnerable to power shortages. Despite extensive investments in wind and solar power, there is no realistic plan to replace fossil fuel-based electricity production that is being phased out for economic reasons. As a result, new capacity may not be built in time, which threatens security of supply.

Tech company bankrupt – “advanced AI” was 700 Indians

Published 14 June 2025
– By Editorial Staff
“AI washing” refers to a company exaggerating or lying about their products or services being powered by advanced artificial intelligence in order to attract investors and customers.
2 minute read

An AI company that marketed itself as a technological pioneer – and attracted investments from Microsoft, among others – has gone bankrupt. In the aftermath, it has been revealed that the technology was largely based on human labor, despite promises of advanced artificial intelligence.

Builder.ai, a British startup formerly known as Engineer.ai, claimed that their AI assistant Natasha could build apps as easily as ordering pizza. But as early as 2019, the Wall Street Journal revealed that much of the coding was actually done manually by a total of about 700 programmers in India.

Despite the allegations, Builder.ai secured over $450 million in funding from investors such as Microsoft, Qatar Investment Authority, IFC, and SoftBank’s DeepCore. At its peak, the company was valued at $1.5 billion.

In May 2025, founder and CEO Sachin Dev Duggal stepped down from his position, and when the new management took over, it emerged that the revelations made in 2019 were only the tip of the iceberg. For example, the company had reported revenues of $220 million in 2024, while the actual figures were $55 million. Furthermore, the company is suspected of inflating the figures through circular transactions and fake sales via “third-party resellers”, reports the Financial Times.

Following the new revelations, lenders froze the company’s account, forcing Builder.ai into bankruptcy. The company is now accused of so-called AI washing, which means that a company exaggerates or falsely claims that its products or services are powered by advanced artificial intelligence in order to attract investors and customers.

The company’s heavy promotion of “Natasha” as a revolutionary AI solution turned out to be a facade – behind the deceptive marketing ploy lay traditional, human-driven work and financial irregularities.

OpenAI now keeps your ChatGPT logs… Even if you delete them

Why trusting companies isn’t enough—and what you can do instead.

Published 14 June 2025
– By Naomi Brockwell
5 minute read

This week, we learned something disturbing: OpenAI is now being forced to retain all ChatGPT logs, even the ones users deliberately delete.

That includes:

  • Manually deleted conversations
  • “Temporary Chat” sessions that were never supposed to persist
  • Confidential business data passed through OpenAI’s API

The reason? A court order.

The New York Times and other media companies are suing OpenAI over alleged copyright infringement. As part of the lawsuit, they speculated that people might be using ChatGPT to bypass paywalls, and deleting their chats to cover their tracks. Based on that speculation alone, a judge issued a sweeping preservation order forcing OpenAI to retain every output log going forward.

Even OpenAI doesn’t know how long they’ll be required to keep this data.

This is bigger than just one court case

Let’s be clear: OpenAI is not a privacy tool. They collect a vast amount of user data, and everything you type is tied to your real-world identity. (They don’t even allow VoIP numbers at signup, only real mobile numbers.) OpenAI is a fantastic tool for productivity, coding, research, and brainstorming. But it is not a place to store your secrets.

That said, credit where it’s due: OpenAI is pushing back. They’ve challenged the court order, arguing it undermines user privacy, violates global norms, and forces them to retain sensitive data users explicitly asked to delete.

And they’re right to fight it.

If a company promises, “We won’t keep this”, and users act on that promise, they should be able to trust it. When that promise is quietly overridden by a legal mandate—and users only find out months later—it destroys the trust we rely on to function in a digital society.

Why this should scare you

This isn’t about sneaky opt-ins or buried fine print. It’s about people making deliberate choices to delete sensitive data—and those deletions being ignored.

That’s the real problem: the nullification of your right to delete.

Private thoughts. Business strategy. Health questions. Intimate disclosures. These are now being held under legal lock, despite clear user intent for them to be erased.

When a platform offers a “Delete” button or advertises “Temporary Chat”, the public expectation is clear: that information will not persist.

But in a system built for compliance, not consent, those expectations don’t matter.

I wish this weren’t the case

I want to live in a world where:

  • You can go to the doctor and trust that your medical records won’t be subpoenaed
  • You can talk to a lawyer without fearing your conversations could become public
  • Companies that want to protect your privacy aren’t forced to become surveillance warehouses

But we don’t live in that world.

We live in a world where:

  • Prosecutors can compel companies to hand over privileged legal communications (just ask Roger Ver’s lawyers)
  • Government entities can override privacy policies, without user consent or notification
  • “Delete” no longer means delete

This isn’t privacy. It’s panopticon compliance.

So what can you do?

You can’t change the court order.
But you can stop feeding the machine.

Here’s how to protect yourself:

1. Be careful what you share

When logged onto centralized tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity, your activities are stored and linked to a single identity across sessions. That makes your full history a treasure trove of data.

You can still use these tools for light, non-sensitive tasks, but be careful not to share:

  • Sensitive information
  • Legal or business strategies
  • Financial details
  • Anything that could harm you if leaked

These tools are great for brainstorming and productivity, but not for contracts, confessions, or client files.

2. Use privacy-respecting platforms (with caution)

If you want to use AI tools with stronger privacy protections, here are two promising options:
(there are many more, let us know in the comments about your favorites)

Brave’s Leo

  • Uses reverse proxies to strip IP addresses
  • Promises zero logging of queries
  • Supports local model integration so your data never leaves your device
  • Still requires trust in Brave’s infrastructure

Venice.ai

  • No account required
  • Strips IP addresses and doesn’t link sessions together
  • Uses a decentralized GPU marketplace to process your queries
  • Important caveat: Venice is just a frontend—the compute providers running your prompts can see what you input. Venice can’t enforce logging policies on backend providers.
  • Because it’s decentralized, at least no single provider can build a profile of you across sessions

In short: I trust Brave with more data, because privacy is central to their mission. And I trust Venice’s promise not to log data, but am hesitant about trusting faceless GPU providers to adhere to the same no-logging policies. But as a confidence booster, Venice’s decentralized model means even those processing your queries can’t see the full picture, which is a powerful safeguard in itself. So both options above are good for different purposes.

3. Run AI locally for maximum privacy

This is the gold standard.

When you run an AI model locally, your data never leaves your machine. No cloud. No logs.

Tools like Ollama, paired with OpenWebUI, let you easily run powerful open-source models on your own device.

We published a complete guide for getting started—even if you’re not technical.

The real battle: Your right to privacy

This isn’t just about one lawsuit or one company.

It’s about whether privacy means anything in the digital age.

AI tools are rapidly becoming our therapists, doctors, legal advisors, and confidants. They know what we eat, what we’re worried about, what we dream of, and what we fear. That kind of relationship demands confidentiality.

And yet, here we are, watching that expectation collapse under the weight of compliance.

If courts can force companies to preserve deleted chats indefinitely, then deletion becomes a lie. Consent becomes meaningless. And companies become surveillance hubs for whoever yells loudest in court.

The Fourth Amendment was supposed to stop this. It says a warrant is required before private data can be seized. But courts are now sidestepping that by ordering companies to keep everything in advance—just in case.

We should be fighting to reclaim that right. Not normalizing its erosion.

Final Thoughts

We are in a moment of profound transition.

AI is rapidly becoming integrated into our daily lives—not just as a search tool, but as a confidant, advisor, and assistant. That makes the stakes for privacy higher than ever.

If we want a future where privacy survives, we can’t just rely on the courts to protect us. We have to be deliberate about how we engage with technology—and push for tools that respect us by design.

As Erik Voorhees put it: “The only way to respect user privacy is to not keep their data in the first place”.

The good news? That kind of privacy is still possible.
You have options. You can use AI on your terms.

Just remember:

Privacy isn’t about hiding. It’s about control.
About choosing what you share—and with whom.

And right now, the smartest choice might be to share a whole lot less.

 

Yours in privacy,
Naomi

Naomi Brockwell is a privacy advocacy and professional speaker, MC, interviewer, producer, podcaster, specialising in blockchain, cryptocurrency and economics. She runs the NBTV channel on Youtube.

Swedish police urge parents to delete chat apps from children’s phones

organized crime

Published 13 June 2025
– By Editorial Staff
2 minute read

Ahead of the summer holidays, the Swedish police are warning that criminal gangs are using social media to recruit young people into crime. On Facebook, the authorities have published a list of apps that parents should keep a close eye on – or delete immediately.

Critics argue, however, that the list is arbitrary and that it is strange for the police to urge parents to delete apps that are used by Swedish authorities.

During the summer holidays, adults are often less present in young people’s everyday lives, while screen time increases. According to the police, this creates increased vulnerability. Criminal networks then try to recruit young people to handle weapons, sell drugs, or participate in serious violent crimes such as shootings and explosions.

To prevent this, a national information campaign has been launched in collaboration with the County Administrative Board. The police, together with the County Administrative Board, have compiled a list of mobile apps that they believe pose a significant risk:

  • Delete immediately: Signal, Telegram, Wickr Me
  • Keep control over: Snapchat, WhatsApp, Discord, Messenger
  • Monitor closely: TikTok, Instagram

Digital parental presence

Maja Karlsson, municipal police officer in Jönköping, also emphasizes the importance of digital parental presence:

We need to increase digital control and knowledge about which apps my child is using, who they are in contact with, and why they have downloaded different types of communication apps.

The police recommend that parents talk openly with their children about what they do online and use technical aids such as parental controls.

– There are tools available for parents who find it difficult. It’s not impossible, help is available, Karlsson continues.

Parents are also encouraged to establish fixed routines for their children and ensure they have access to meaningful summer activities.

“Complete madness”

However, the list has been met with harsh criticism from several quarters. Users point out that the Signal app is also used by the Swedish Armed Forces and question why the police list it as dangerous.

If general apps like Signal are considered dangerous, the phone app and text messaging should be first on the list”, writes another user.

Critics argue that it is not the apps themselves but how they are used that is crucial, and find it remarkable that the police are arbitrarily and without deeper justification telling parents which messaging apps are okay to use and which are not.

Complete madness to recommend uninstalling chat apps so broadly. You should know better”, comments another upset reader.

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