Week in the Privacy News 2026-31

Good Monday, friends of privacy!

This week has brought us many news, ranging from open-letter by NVIDIA's CEO, Indian government attempting to ban Bitchat or winners of Zama's Mainnet Season 3 being announced. Brought to you all in one list by yours truly, as always.

And for tool of the week, Freedom Tool - A blockchain-based voting platform.

Tool of the week

• Freedom Tool - voting platform using ZK cryptography to verify voter eligibility while enabling anonymous and transparent polls

Insights

• Google’s new account-recovery option stores a video clip of your face
• Zama announces nine winners of its Mainnet Season 3 developer program
• NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang writes an open letter calling for the protection of open-source AI
• Privacy Pools joins Common S3nse to showcase ZK-powered private transfers
• India’s attempt to ban Bitchat sparks debate over open-source software and digital rights

Knowledge

• Ethereum Time Capsule prepares to unlock memories sealed by the community in 2025
• AI Hub curates useful tools and resources for nonprofit organizations
• L2BEAT explores security councils in practice across Ethereum rollups
• Artists and writers confront censorship in times of conflict
• Vietnam proposes banning children under 16 from posting on social media

Inspiration: Going On(Line) an offering of media from the web

• Get the book The Politics of Privacy: Autonomy and Power in the Digital Age
• Check the State of Decentralised Privacy report
• The Digital Independence They Don't Want You To Have by Naomi Brockwell
• Web3 Privacy Now courses in our Academy

Inspiration: Going Off(Line) an offering of IRL events

*(new/changes in **bold**)*

• Aug 14–16 - HOPE (Hackers on Planet Earth) - New York, USA
• Aug 26–27 - ETH Belgrade - Belgrade, Serbia
• Sep 13–15 - ETHTaipei - Taipei, Taiwan
• Sep 15–16 - European Blockchain Convention - Barcelona, Spain
• Sep 19–27 - ETHTokyo - Tokyo, Japan
• Nov 2 - Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress #3 - Mumbai, India