If you're planning on traveling to the European Union in the near future, you'd best grease up as a new border security project is planning on sliding into your background, personal story and biometrics before you have a chance top step off of your plane.

From Lonely Planet:

A new EU-funded project designed to ramp up security will put travelers from outside the European Union to the test by using lie-detecting technology. Countries participating in the project include Luxembourg, Greece, Cyprus, Poland, Spain, Hungary, Germany, Latvia and the UK.

The iBorderCtrl project has been implemented because more than 700 million people enter the EU every year, and the huge volume of travelers and vehicles is putting pressure on external borders. This makes it increasingly difficult for border staff to uphold strict security protocols including checking the travel documents and biometrics of every passenger, while keeping disruption to a minimum. The project aims to facilitate the work of border guards in spotting illegal immigrants, and contribute to the prevention of crime and terrorism.

As part of the project which was seemingly named by someone who's watched Hackers at least 90 times, iBorderCtrl will consist of two parts. The first is a creepy online component that visitors to countries enrolled in the program will have to endure before they leave home. Speaking to a virtual border guard, they'll be asked about their gender, ethnicity and to upload a photo of their passport in order to sort out their visa. The program will also inform travelers of their rights while they're in the EU. Read the rest

MEPs in European Parliament want Facebook to submit to a full audit by European Union bodies to determine whether the U.S. based social media company adequately protects users’ personal data. The demand made in the form of an EU resolution adopted Thursday, October 25, 2018, follows the company's recent breach scandal, in which data belonging to 87 million Facebook users around the world were improperly obtained and misused. Read the rest

Google [Alphabet Inc.] will soon charge hardware companies up to $40 per device to use Google apps, under a new licensing plan that will replace one struck down by the EU earlier this year as anti-competitive, reports Reuters. Read the rest

When a new Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell explainer video comes out, I stop what I'm doing and watch it. The latest one, about the European Union, asks, "Should we double down or give up and go our separate ways?"

This video will probably not make everybody happy. Probably for completely opposite reasons. Some people want less political and economic integration, some want more of it. Some want to stop immigration, others want better integration instead. Some want an EU army, others want to disband Nato. And most will have a collection of different opinions about all of that. It’s the same for our team, we don’t all share the same vision for Europe and the world.

We tried our best to present different sides and view points, while being fair and as neutral as possible. But obviously we can’t go into too much detail in a video that is only 7 minutes long. We also clearly marked where we are stating our opinion. The sources we used are in the video description.

The last year has taught us that we have to try our best to get everybody back to the table again and stop screaming at each other. We all could have done a better job at this in the past, Kurzgesagt too. Everybody comes from a different place and has different ideas of where the world should go and how to tackle our problems. And as long as we are trying to base our opinions on facts then that is completely fine.