There's good news for the millions of people with federal student loans who've made payments on that debt during the Covid pandemic: many of them will be eligible to get the money back. CNBC reports: The U.S. Department of Education says that many borrowers eligible for President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness plan who made payments on their debt during the pandemic-era pause on the bills will automatically be refunded. The relief policy has been in effect since March 2020, and is scheduled to end Dec. 31. More than 9 million people made at least one payment on their federal student debt between April 2020 and March 2022, according to the government. The vast majority of borrowers haven't made any payments, taking advantage of the suspension of the bills and accrual of interest.

Payments made since March 2020 on federal student loans eligible for the pause should now be refundable, said higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz. The roughly 5 million student loan borrowers who have commercially held Federal Family Education Loans (FFEL) weren't eligible for the payment pause and won't be for the refund either. Any payments made before the pandemic also don't qualify, Kantrowitz said.

Not all borrowers need to apply for the refund, said Elaine Rubin, senior contributor and communications specialist at Edvisors. The refunding process will be automatic for borrowers who are eligible for student loan forgiveness and for those who made voluntary payments during the pause that brought their balance below the maximum forgiveness amount: either $10,000 or $20,000, Rubin said. "They will be offered an automatic refund for the difference," Rubin said. If you paid your loan in full during the pandemic, however, you'll have to take action and request the payments back. Borrowers who have refinanced their federal loans will also need to ask their student loan servicer for the refund, Kantrowitz said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Shoppers at a supermarket chain in southern England are being tracked by facial recognition cameras, prompting a legal complaint by a privacy rights group. Big Brother Watch said Southern Co-operative's use of biometric scans in 35 stores across Portsmouth, Bournemouth, Bristol, Brighton and Hove, Chichester, Southampton, and London was "Orwellian in the extreme" and urged Britain's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) to investigate whether it breaches data protection legislation.

The complaint claims the use of the biometric cameras "is infringing the data rights of a significant number of UK data subjects." It outlines how the facial recognition system, sold by surveillance company Facewatch, creates a biometric profile of every visitor to stores where the cameras are installed, enabling Southern Co-operative to create a "blacklist" of customers. If a customer on the list enters the store, staff are alerted. [...] "We take our responsibilities around the use of facial recognition extremely seriously and work hard to balance our customers' rights with the need to protect our colleagues and customers from unacceptable violence and abuse," Southern Co-operative said. It said it uses the facial recognition cameras only in stores where there is a high level of crime to protect staff from known offenders and does not store images of an individual unless they have been identified as an offender. Kmart and Bunnings stores in Australia are also being investigated for the privacy implications of their facial recognition systems. The two chains were trialing the technology to spot banned customers, prevent refund fraud and reduce theft.

An anonymous reader writes "Voice over IP (VoIP) provider Jajah has announced it will be shutting down on January 31, 2014. This means Jajah.com and Jajah Direct services will no longer be offered, and users will not be able to make any more calls. Existing Jajah users will be able to use their account normally until the kill date, but new registrations meanwhile are no longer being accepted. You can also apply for a refund of any balance remaining on your account prior to the service closing by submitting a request to customer support (processing time is 30 days)."

Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton writes "In 2007, I wrote that you could find troves of credit card numbers on Google, most of them still active, using the simple trick of Googling the first 8 digits of your credit card number. The trick itself had been publicized by other writers at least as far back as 2004, but in 2013, it appears to still be just as easy. One possible solution that I didn't consider last time, would be for Google itself to notify the webmasters and credit card companies of the leaked information, and then display a warning alongside the search results." Read on for the rest of Bennett's thoughts.

Almost all Slashdot interview guests are suggested by readers. One week we might invite a physicist; the next week a tech-interested politician or lawyer; the week after that an outstanding programmer. And once in a while we choose someone off-the-wall -- like Alex Chiu -- to keep things from getting too serious around here. Please realize that not every Slashdot interview is going to be your particular cup of tea, but it is someone's. (And, of course, you can send your interview guest suggestion to roblimo@slashdot.org. I read every one.) But enough of that. Let's turn the floor over to Alex Chiu, purveyor of Eternal Life Rings and decidedly non-mainstream opinions on religion, science, and politics.

HumpBackB wrote us about the lawsuit that ISP Media3 has filed against MAPS and its Realtime Blackhole List. The RBL, despite blocking only 2% of spam, is widely seen as an effective tool against mail abuse. I'm going to risk life and limb, and say that it has become, instead, just another censorware tool. Here's why.

A few weeks ago, you asked questions of Ryan Lackey, CTO for HavenCo, a company dedicated to providing secure off-shore data hosting from Sealand, a principality off the coast of England. Ryan has lately survived dental emergencies, the loss of a laptop (it dropped into the North Sea -- how many people can say that?) and other stresses, but he's followed through with some interesting answers. He even has some ideas for how you can make a lot of money, and lists the tools you need to start your own data haven. Kudos to Ryan for taking the time to answer so thoroughly.