The FCC Wants to Kill Burner Phones

Published 13 June 2026 · tech

After WIRED reported last week that Meta’s smart glasses app contained code that would enable the company to activate face-recognition features on the devices, the

After WIRED reported last week that Meta’s smart glasses app contained code that would enable the company to activate face-recognition features on the devices, the company removed the code this week without commenting on why or whether it plans to add such functionality back into the app later. Another WIRED investigation this week found that xAI’s Grok is still hosting sexualized deepfakes, including “nudified” images and videos, of celebrities and at least one prominent US politician. After limiting the release of its new Mythos-class AI model over concerns about its potential impacts on cybersecurity, Anthropic announced a model upgrade for partners in its limited-access group this week and launched a “safe” version of the model to the public with guardrails meant to keep the system from being used to fuel cyberattacks. Meanwhile, the United States Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a new directive to federal agencies this week in reaction to new AI threats that includes a requirement to fix the most urgent software vulnerabilities in as little as three days.

As Europe looks to separate and insulate itself from US Big Tech, WIRED created a timeline that tracks all the ways EU governments, companies, and other organizations are moving away from US tech. A new open-source project dubbed Encrypted Spaces could be used to make countless mainstream collaboration apps more private and surveillance-resistant with end-to-end encryption. And illegal pharmacy and scam websites hijacked Spotify’s search rankings using fake podcasts, according to a new joint US Congressional report. The 2026 World Cup is in full swing, and WIRED looked at the surveillance technologies, from anti-drone tech to face recognition, that are being used in US, Canadian, and Mexican stadiums. We also mapped every Flock license plate reader near a US World Cup stadium. More broadly, Amnesty International said this week that it has concluded fans in all three host countries—both local residents and visitors—face potential human rights violations as a result of the FIFA tournament.

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing two Florida police departments over its use of FACES, one of the longest-running face recognition tools in the US, after its alleged misuse led to the wrongful arrest of a Fort Myers man. Donald Trump, meanwhile, jeopardized the future of a key surveillance authority after selecting Bill Pulte, who’s been described as “deeply unqualified,” as the acting director of national intelligence. (Trump has since selected an alternative nominee for the permanent role.) And there’s more. Each week, we round up the security and privacy news we didn’t cover in depth ourselves. Click the headlines to read the full stories. And stay safe out there. As difficult as digital anonymity has become in the modern world, obtaining a phone number without revealing almost any identifying information—whether by buying a temporary burner phone or registering an account with a privacy-preserving phone carrier—has remained entirely legal in the US.