Julia Angwin

Senior Reporter

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Julia Angwin is a senior reporter at ProPublica. From 2000 to 2013, she was a reporter at The Wall Street Journal, where she led a privacy investigative team that was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting in 2011 and won a Gerald Loeb Award in 2010. Her book "Dragnet Nation: A Quest for Privacy, Security and Freedom in a World of Relentless Surveillance," was published by Times Books in 2014, and was shortlisted for Best Business Book of the Year by the Financial Times.

Also in 2014, Julia was named reporter of the year by the Newswomenâs Club of New York. In 2003, she was on a team of reporters at The Wall Street Journal that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting for coverage of corporate corruption. She is also the author of âStealing MySpace: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in Americaâ (Random House, March 2009). She earned a B.A. in mathematics from the University of Chicago and an MBA from the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University.

To send her encrypted PGP e-mail, you can use the following public key: F292 E93A 86B3 1713 05A6 FE9F 85C9 09BB C664 D201 (0xC664D201)

Making Algorithms Accountable

As algorithms control more aspects of our lives, we need to be able to challenge them.

ProPublica Responds to Company’s Critique of Machine Bias Story

Northpointe asserts that a software program it sells that predicts the likelihood a person will commit future crimes is equally fair to black and white defendants. We re-examined the data, considered the company’s criticisms, and stand by our conclusions.

Technical Response to Northpointe

Northpointe asserts that a software program it sells that predicts the likelihood a person will commit future crimes is equally fair to black and white defendants. We re-examined the data, considered the company’s criticisms, and stand by our conclusions.

What Algorithmic Injustice Looks Like in Real Life

A computer program rated defendants’ risk of committing a future crime. These are the results.

Machine Bias

There’s software used across the country to predict future criminals. And it’s biased against blacks.

5 Things You Should Know About the FCC’s Proposed Privacy Rules

It stops Verizon’s zombie cookie in its tracks, but allows AT&T to keep charging customers extra if they want privacy.

Verizon to Pay $1.35 Million to Settle Zombie Cookie Privacy Charges

The settlement is the latest sign that the FCC is stepping up privacy enforcement actions.

What’s Really at Stake in the Apple Encryption Debate

The government has never been allowed to create a “backdoor” to encrypted devices. Now, it’s trying to force Apple to build one.

I Ramped Up My Internet Security, and You Should Too

Here’s how ProPublica reporter Julia Angwin upped her defenses against hackers and spies.

Fact-Checking the Debate on Encryption

The existence of coded communications is a reality and the U.S. may not be able to do much about it.

Own a Vizio Smart TV? It’s Watching You

Vizio, one of the most popular brands on the market, is offering advertisers “highly specific viewing behavior data on a massive scale.”

Verizon’s Zombie Cookie Gets New Life

Verizon is merging its cellphone tracking supercookie with AOL’s ad tracking network to match users’ online habits with their offline details.

First Library to Support Anonymous Internet Browsing Effort Stops After DHS Email

A library in a small New Hampshire town started to help Internet users around the world surf anonymously using Tor. Until the Department of Homeland Security raised a red flag.

Here's Why the Close Collaboration Between the NSA and AT&T Matters

New disclosures about the National Security Agency's partnership with AT&T could reignite constitutional challenges to the spy agency's efforts to wiretap the Internet.

A Trail of Evidence Leading to AT&T’s Partnership with the NSA

Documents provided by Edward Snowden mention a special relationship between the National Security Agency and an unnamed telecommunications company. Here’s how we figured out that’s AT&T.

NSA Spying Relies on AT&T’s ‘Extreme Willingness to Help’

The National Security Agency’s ability to capture Internet traffic on United States soil has been based on an extraordinary, decadeslong partnership with a single company: AT&T.

6 Tips for Protecting Your Communications From Prying Eyes

In an age of ubiquitous surveillance, there are still some things you can do to keep your communications private -- and not all of it is high-tech.

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