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European Commission has a "Wifi4EU" initative, provides 93k high-speed private access points across the EU, free of charge. (slrpnk.net)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/25779751

The intative promises to be privacy-friendly with no tracking. Stating:

Your privacy is important. The WiFi4EU app ensures a private online experience with no tracking or data collection. Simply connect and enjoy free public Wi-Fi without concerns.

Source: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/wifi4eu-citizens

Will be interesting to see how this spans and plays out in reality. Looks promising too, did a quick scan of their builtin permissions and trackers and looks good too. (Scanning tool is called Exodus)

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[–] 15 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Damn, this is so cool.
We could have had this in the States too, but, well, you all know.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    This will never be possible in the States. We still have areas with no cellular.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    Ironically enough there's basically a private version of this through Comcast turning their rented CPEs into their own unlicensed wifi mesh, they call it WiFi Pass – they at least have the courtesy to give it to you gratis if you're already paying for residential service.

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  • [–] -4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    It shows you are american and not familiar with the EU.
    'privacy friendly' is a euphemistic PR term, not unlike making the horrible Patriot Act worse and renaming it the 'Freedom Act'.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Do you have other examples? I am really curious when they said privacy friendly and ended up snooping.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago*

    I'll copy my answer to an EU fanboy:

    Never said the rest is safer, doesn’t mean they are ‘privacy friendly’, they aren’t.

    It’s quite a leap to go from that to just assuming they’ll secretly and illegally spy on you

    Plenty of stuff like this or this or this

    And they did as much against Pegasus as they do against israel. Some words and recommendations.

    22 EU clients, at least, have acquired it. quite a leap to go from that to just assuming they will not spy on you as a collective, more than is already ‘publicly available’. Organisations that spy usually don’t advertise their practices.

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