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Judge Denies RFK Jr.’s Request for Restraining Order Against Google in Censorship Suit + More
Judge Denies RFK Jr.’s Request for Restraining Order Against Google in Censorship Suit
A federal judge on Wednesday denied a request from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to temporarily restrain Google from removing two videos of the presidential candidate as he seeks to sue the company for censorship.
U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson, an appointee of President Joe Biden, wrote that Kennedy’s claim that the company violated his First Amendment rights is unlikely to succeed because Google is a private entity. Thompson also wrote that a restraining order was not necessary because he would not be irreparably harmed if the order was not granted.
In his suit, Kennedy claimed Google has engaged in censorship under the coercion of federal government officials. YouTube, which is owned by Google, had removed videos of Kennedy making what the company said were medical misinformation claims. The firm contends that the content violated YouTube’s policy against discussing the COVID-19 vaccines.
“We are pursuing this case on behalf of all those Americans who oppose censorship by the Government working through private companies,” Kennedy’s campaign told POLITICO in a statement. “We are prepared to continue our efforts.”
The litigation is expected to continue, with the judge setting the next hearing in the case for Nov. 7.
The Kindergarten Vaccine Exemption Rate Keeps Ticking Up
The nationwide median rate of kindergartners with vaccine exemptions nearly doubled between the school years ending in 2012 and 2022, per CDC estimates.
The big picture: While COVID-19 vaccination is not required for young children attending public school anywhere in the U.S., it appears that concerns over that shot may be fueling broader vaccine skepticism among a relatively small but growing number of parents — though that trend certainly existed before the pandemic.
While children are generally required to get a number of vaccinations before attending public school, exemptions can be given for both medical and non-medical reasons (such as religious or moral objections), depending on local rules.
By the numbers: The nationwide median kindergarten vaccine exemption rate was rising even before the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing from 1.4% in 2012 to 2.6% in 2019. Zoom in: As of 2022, Idaho (9.8%), Utah (7.4%) and Oregon (7%) had the highest median kindergarten vaccination exemption rates.
Kentucky School District Cancels Classes 2 Weeks Into Year Due to COVID, Flu and Strep Outbreaks
Less than two weeks into the school year, a Kentucky school district has canceled in-person classes for the rest of the week after nearly a fifth of the students came down with illnesses including COVID-19, strep throat and the flu.
The Lee County School district, which has just under 900 students, began classes on Aug. 9 but noticed attendance drop to about 82% on Friday, according to Superintendent Earl Ray Schuler.
The district canceled classes on Tuesday and Wednesday and will shift to remote learning on Thursday and Friday. Extracurricular activities, including sports practices and games, have been canceled through the week to allow for a deep clean of the school, Schuler said.
Mask Mandates Reemerge Amid Upturn in COVID Cases
The recent upturn in COVID-19 cases in some regions has spurred a handful of entities around the country to reinstate mask mandates, reigniting the debate over what place masking requirements have in an era of living with the coronavirus.
Earlier this week, Hollywood movie studio Lionsgate asked its employees to wear masks on certain floors of its facilities in Santa Monica in response to a few staff members testing positive for COVID-19.
Kaiser Permanente began to require staff, patients and visitors to wear masks at its facility in Santa Rosa, Calif., this week in response to a spike in cases. Upstate Medical University in New York announced a similar decision last week for two of its hospitals.
Schools like Rutgers University in New Jersey and Morris Brown College in Georgia have issued mask mandates for their respective campuses, with the Atlanta-based school reinstating masks as a two-week precautionary measure.
Driverless Cars Are Worse at Spotting Kids and Dark-Skinned People, Study Says
Driverless car systems have a bias problem, according to a new study from Kings College London. The study examined eight AI-powered pedestrian detection systems used for autonomous driving research. Researchers ran more than 8,000 images through the software and found that the self-driving car systems were nearly 20% better at detecting adult pedestrians than kids, and more than 7.5% better at detecting light-skinned pedestrians over dark-skinned ones. The AI was even worse at spotting dark-skinned people in low light and low settings, making the tech even less safe at night.
For children and people of color, crossing the street could get more dangerous in the near future. According to the researchers, a major source of the technology’s problems with kids and dark-skinned people comes from bias in the data used to train the AI, which contains more adults and light-skinned people.
Algorithms reflect the biases present in datasets and the minds of the people who create them. One common example is facial recognition software, which consistently demonstrates less accuracy with the faces of women, dark-skinned people, and Asian people, in particular. These concerns haven’t stopped the enthusiastic embrace of this kind of AI technology. Facial recognition is already responsible for putting innocent black people in jail.
You Are Not Responsible for Your Own Online Privacy
Generative AI completely obliterates the idea of individual responsibility for privacy because you can’t control these algorithms’ access to your information, or what they do with it. Tools like ChatGPT, Dall-E, and Google Bard are trained on data scraped without consent, or even notice.
At their worst, training sets suck up vast amounts of digital information and combine it into a data slurry that serves as the raw material for generative AI. As tech companies are scrambling to incorporate generative AI into every imaginable product, from search engines to games to military gadgets, it’s impossible to know where this output is going, or how it might be interpreted.
Their privacy-violating predecessors, data brokers, also scraped the web and assembled massive dossiers on individuals, but their outputs aren’t available to the average person, for free, or integrated into search engines and word processors. The widespread availability of generative AI compounds potential privacy violations and opens up more people to harmful consequences.
Breakthrough AI Implants Let Paralyzed Woman ‘Talk’ for First Time in Years
A woman who didn’t utter a word for years after a paralyzing stroke has regained the ability to speak through artificial intelligence.
The groundbreaking procedure uses an array of 253 electrodes, which were implanted in the brain of Ann Johnson, 48, and then linked to a bank of computers through a small port connection affixed to her head.
The team from the University of California, San Francisco, together with colleagues from the University of California, Berkeley, said this is the first time either speech or facial expressions have been synthesized from brain signals.
To train the AI system, Johnson had to silently “repeat” different phrases from a 1,024-word vocabulary over and over until the computer recognized the brain activity pattern associated with each sound.
YouTube Faces Fresh Complaint Over Its Children’s Privacy Practices + More
YouTube Faces Fresh Complaint Over Its Children’s Privacy Practices
Children’s privacy advocates are urging federal regulators to consider issuing a massive fine “upwards of tens of billions of dollars” and imposing sweeping privacy limits on Google-owned YouTube over reports that it may have let companies track kids’ data across the internet.
Ad tracking firm Adalytics last week released a report suggesting that YouTube served ads for adults on videos labeled as “made for kids,” stoking concern that the video-sharing giant may be trampling on federal privacy protections for children, as the New York Times first reported.
In response, Sens. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the matter, writing that the purported tactics may have “impacted hundreds of thousands, to potentially millions, of children across the United States.”
Now children’s privacy advocates including Fairplay and the Center for Digital Democracy are kicking the process into high gear, filing a formal complaint with the FTC on Wednesday that floats forceful new privacy restrictions for YouTube.
The complaint alleges that Adalytics’ research and additional tests run by Fairplay raise “serious questions about whether Google is violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act,” or COPPA. The law requires sites to get parental consent to collect data from users under 13.
Here’s Why Readers Are Against Vaccine Mandates for Healthcare Workers
Current state rules do not require most healthcare workers to be vaccinated against COVID, but newly proposed amendments could change that.
The amendments address COVID-19 and influenza vaccinations for personnel of clinics, out-of-hospital dialysis units, hospice programs, hospitals, adult day health programs, emergency medical services, and long-term care facilities — all of which are subject to medical, religious, and personal exemptions.
Some healthcare leaders, however, such as the Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association, are worried the ambiguous wording in the new amendments could create confusion about the implementation of the new rules, not to mention that enforcement could end in “unnecessary and costly litigation.”
Jay from Plymouth said healthcare staffing shortages were already “extremely tight,” and he warned adding a vaccine requirement would be “draconian” and “a horrible idea.” Stevie from Peabody echoed Jay’s concerns about how vaccine mandates could affect healthcare staffing: “People have left jobs they love because of this,” he said.
Atlanta-Based Morris Brown College Says They Are Reinstating COVID Mask Mandates
Atlanta-based Morris Brown College has announced that the school is reinstating its COVID mask mandate for the next two weeks as a result of positive cases at the Atlanta University Center.
The historically black college posted a note on its official Instagram account noting that the protocols would be in effect for the next 14 days. This includes a requirement for mask-wearing by students and employees, physical distancing, contact tracing, and other significant efforts to reduce the spread of COVID-19 among the population on the Atlanta campus.
There is no word, at present, if any of the other collegiate institutions at the AU Center — including Morehouse College, Spelman College, and Clark Atlanta University — are planning to return to mask mandates.
Recalled Products Linked to More Than 100 Infant Deaths Still for Sale on Facebook, Lawmakers Say
Recalled baby products linked to more than 100 infant deaths are still widely sold on Facebook Marketplace despite thousands of requests from federal regulators to take down the items, four members of Congress said.
In a letter sent Friday to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the lawmakers said the Boppy lounger, which was recalled in 2021, and the Fisher-Price Rock ’n Play, an infant sleep product that was recalled in 2019, are among the items still sold on the platform.
Lawmakers wrote that the Consumer Product Safety Commission has sent Facebook parent Meta about 1,000 requests a month since 2022 to remove the recalled Boppy Newborn Lounger, but the product keeps cropping up for sale on the platform.
“Meta’s failure to prevent recalled products from being posted for sale on its platform has resulted in your users and their children being placed at risk of purchasing and using a product that CPSC has found to pose a serious risk of injury and potential death,” the lawmakers wrote.
Whole Foods Sparks Boycott Calls Over ‘Controversial’ Change
Whole Foods Market‘s new store in Washington, DC, has earned the ire of some shoppers not happy with technology that requires them to scan a QR code to enter.
The supermarket opened a new 47,000-square-foot store in the historic Walter Reed development on June 28 with a range of specialized features. The new store includes gates at multiple points during the shopping experience which require a QR code to pass through. They are located at the entrance, at either end of the checkout and at the exit. The system replicates those seen at Amazon Fresh stores around the country (Whole Foods Market is a subsidiary of the online retail giant).
By scanning a code upon entrance at the gates, shoppers at the D.C. Whole Foods simply need to take what they want off a shelf and it is added to their virtual basket. Then they just pay the total at the checkout or via the app. It’s a feature that left some people unimpressed.
Concerns around the use of such technologies stem from potential data breaches and identity theft to the moral objection of companies using information about their customers’ shopping habits to direct bespoke marketing to them. Concerns around the use of such technologies stem from potential data breaches and identity theft to the moral objection of companies using information about their customers’ shopping habits to direct bespoke marketing to them.
Political analyst Michael Ashura posted on X: “If we don’t boycott stores like this we’re sleepwalking into tech totalitarianism.”
Senator Ted Cruz Slams U.S. Agency for ‘Collusion’ With EU on Big Tech Rules
U.S. Republican Senator Ted Cruz called for details on the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) work with its European counterparts in a letter to FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan on Tuesday.
The conservative Texas lawmaker criticized Khan and other FTC staff for meeting with European Commission officials to discuss incoming EU rules designed to rein in Big Tech companies, which are largely U.S.-based.
“It is one thing for the EU to target U.S. businesses,” the letter said, but “it is altogether unthinkable that an agency of the U.S. government would actively help the EU” on its digital platform regulation.
The letter comes just as tech giants like Meta, X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok are set to have to comply with the Commission’s Digital Services Act (DSA); they face steep fines if they don’t follow the DSA’s content-moderation rules, adopted in 2022.
Facebook Works to Manipulate Public in the Entire World, Says Elon Musk as He Attacks Mark Zuckerberg Again
Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg‘s cage fight might seem fictional but there seems to be no end to their social media war. Musk, who owns X aka Twitter, has now launched a fresh attack on Zuckerberg over algorithms that their companies use to surface and spread content.
In a tweet on Wednesday, Musk accused Mark Zuckerberg — the owner of Meta — of manipulating the public across the globe. He said that because of this specific reason, and to avoid getting caught, Facebook will never open its algorithms to public scrutiny.
Musk reposted a tweet shared by Michael Shellenberger, an American author, who claimed that Facebook was financially supporting activists who were advocating for the censorship of their opponents. The claim is in stark contrast to Zuckerberg’s assertion that Facebook lets independent fact-checkers work and that it welcomes all viewpoints without interfering in elections.
Elon Musk, in his tweet, pointed out that Facebook seems to be manipulating people on a large scale. This also explains why Meta, the company behind Facebook, won’t release their algorithm as open source, Musk wittily added.
Facebook Owner Meta Breaks Privacy Rules, Norway Regulator Tells Court
Meta Platforms (META.O) is breaking European data privacy rules in Norway, the country’s data regulator told a court on Wednesday, in a case that could have wider European implications.
Meta has been fined one million crowns ($94,145) per day since Aug. 14 for breaching users’ privacy by harvesting user data and using it to target advertising at them. So-called behavioral advertising is a business model common to Big Tech.
The owner of Facebook and Instagram is seeking a temporary injunction against the order, which imposes a daily fine for the next three months.
The fine is valid as Meta is not respecting the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), said Hanne Inger Bjurstroem Jahren, a lawyer representing the regulator, Datatilsynet.
Rutgers Will Still Require COVID Vaccine, Masks + More
Rutgers Will Still Require COVID Vaccine, Masks
While nearly all universities and colleges across the country have dropped the strictest guidelines stemming from the pandemic, a few holdouts remain.
More than 100 schools still require students to be vaccinated in order to attend classes in person, according to No College Mandates, a group that tracks COVID-19 policies in higher education. A smaller number of schools, including Rutgers and Georgetown, still require indoor masking.
Rutgers said incoming students must abide by a COVID-19 vaccine mandate, according to the school website. The mandate says there will be no exceptions, though it also says evaluation of exception requests will be made on a case-by-case basis. Even if students are hypothetically granted an exemption to the vaccination rule, on-campus attendance is not guaranteed, and students will be required to undergo testing.
New Jersey State Sen. Declan O’Scanlon (R) told NewsNation that he is ready to stand with any student who may be disenrolled from the university over their vaccination status, going so far as to call Rutgers administrators cowards.
Major Movie Studio Brings Back Mask Mandate Amid Spike in COVID Cases
Major Hollywood studio Lionsgate has brought back mask mandates to nearly half its employees amid a spike in COVID-19 cases. Sommer McElroy, response manager for Lionsgate/Starz, announced the new policy in an internal memo obtained by Deadline after several employees tested positive.
The mandate will be in effect until further notice for the third and fifth floors of the five-story building at the company’s flagship office in Santa Monica, according to the email cited by Deadline.
Every employee also is required to perform a self-screening before arriving at work every day and must notify McElroy and remain at home if they exhibit any symptoms or have traveled internationally in the prior 10 days.
Morris Brown College in Atlanta, Georgia, also announced a mask mandate for everyone on campus, citing “reports of positive cases among students in the Atlanta University Center” as the reason, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Gates Foundation Pushes National Digital ID Tech
The digital era, with its myriad of innovations, has ushered in a wave of conveniences — but at what cost? The recent advocacy by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for the Modular Open-Source Identification Platform (MOSIP) will now be under scrutiny by privacy advocates, questioning the broader implications of such a global digital identification system.
The Seattle-based Gates Foundation, guided by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, has actively endorsed MOSIP’s undertakings with a sizable $10 million pledge.
The Foundation’s aim seems to focus on propelling a universal digital identification framework, especially targeting low to middle-income economies. But as history has shown, with such advancements often come potential pitfalls, particularly regarding personal privacy.
The MOSIP initiative, although modeled after India’s controversial state digital ID (Aadhaar) system initiated in 2009, prompts a plethora of concerns.
The Feds Asked TikTok for Lots of Domestic Spying Features
U.S. government regulators reportedly tried to come to an agreement with TikTok to prevent banning the app that would have granted the federal government vast powers over the app. That’s according to a draft of a deal between TikTok and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) obtained by Forbes, a contract that would have given multiple U.S. agencies unprecedented access to the app’s records and operations.
Many of the concessions the government asked of TikTok look eerily similar to the surveillance tactics critics have accused Chinese officials of abusing. To allay fears the short-form video app could be used as a Chinese surveillance tool, the federal government nearly transformed it into an American one instead.
CDC Weighs Lower Infection Safety Precautions for Healthcare Workers
While seemingly esoteric and of little impact to health workers and the public, a little-known group called HICPAC is creating a firestorm in the public health community.
HICPAC, the Healthcare Infection Control Advisory Committee, advises the CDC on guidelines for infection control in healthcare settings. They met in June and published slides summarizing their draft guidelines. This is where the controversy began.
The planned HICPAC revisions will water down infection control protections, particularly for aerosol transmission and MDRO (multiply drug-resistant organisms). Most immediately worrisome is their conclusion that plain surgical masks (aka “baggy blues”) are equivalent to N95s and provide adequate protection to healthcare workers and patients. There is abundant evidence to the contrary. It is clear that N95s offer far better protection against aerosols, such as COVID-19, and other inhaled pathogens. Why are they ignoring this?
The CDC responded to this letter only now, a month later, and just before the Aug 22 meeting. They offered no substantive or specific rebuttal, but gave platitudes about their dedication to “improving healthcare quality,” and commitment to “transparency, communication, and stakeholder engagement.” They also claim that they meet the guidelines for transparency required by the Federal Advisory Committees Act (FACA).
Elon Musk’s X Is Testing User Verification That Requires Government ID
X (the social media site formerly known as Twitter) is in the process of launching a new identity verification feature that could prove controversial. The feature, which is currently only offered to/forced on premium “Blue” subscribers, asks users to fork over a selfie and a picture of a government-issued ID to verify that they are who they say they are.
The new feature was originally noted by app researcher Nima Owji, who posted screenshots of X’s announcement to his profile last week. “Verify your account by providing a government-issued ID. This usually takes about 5 minutes,” a screenshot shared by Owji reads. The notice includes a consent form that users must agree to that allows X to store the user’s data, including biometric data, for up to 30 data for the purposes of “safety and security, including preventing impersonation.”
While the details surrounding X’s new verification process are scant, the system seems reminiscent of other web verification efforts that have popped up in recent years. Most notably, X’s system brings to mind the ID.me biometric verification process that the IRS piloted for its website last year. Like X’s new feature, that system also involved submitting biometric data and government-issued documentation to a third-party contractor to verify a user’s identity.
Kids’ Mental Health Worsened With Pandemic-Related German School Closures
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, German school closures were likely linked to a surge in mental health crises among 11- to 17-year-old adolescents, according to a new analysis of a national survey and crisis helpline data. The study, published last week in Science Advances, also suggests regions with the longest school closures saw the worst mental health outcomes among youth.
The study included an analysis of nationwide mental health survey data collected from May to June 2020 from 907 adolescents and their parents, and compared answers given among a cohort of teens from August 2015 to November 2017. Also included were high-frequency data from the largest German crisis helpline from January 2019 until December 2020.
The authors of the study said German school closures were a natural experiment for assessing student mental health; all 16 German federal governments mandated statewide school closures between March 16 and 18, 2020, and schools reopened on different dates beginning as early as April 20, 2020.
Each additional week of school closures was associated with an increase in psychosomatic symptoms of depression, behavioral and emotional health problems, and depressive symptoms. When paired with nationwide survey data, school closures were linked with a significant decrease in health-related quality of life (HRQoL). The effects were seen most strongly in boys, younger children (age 11), and adolescents in homes with limited space, the authors said.
The Internet Is Turning Into a Data Black Box. An ‘Inspectability API’ Could Crack It Open
In today’s digital world, injustice lurks in the shadows of the Facebook post that’s delivered to certain groups of people at the exclusion of others, the hidden algorithm used to profile candidates during job interviews, and the risk-assessment algorithms used for criminal sentencing and welfare fraud detention. As algorithmic systems are integrated into every aspect of society, regulatory mechanisms struggle to keep up.
Over the past decade, researchers and journalists have found ways to unveil and scrutinize these discriminatory systems, developing their own data collection tools. As the internet has moved from browsers to mobile apps, however, this crucial transparency is quickly disappearing.
I have put these tools to use as a data journalist to show how a marketing company logged users’ personal data even before they clicked “submit” on a form and, more recently, how the Meta Pixel tool (formerly the Facebook Pixel tool) tracks users without their explicit knowledge in sensitive places such as hospital websites, federal student loan applications, and the websites of tax-filing tools.
In addition to exposing surveillance, browser inspection tools provide a powerful way to crowdsource data to study discrimination, the spread of misinformation, and other types of harms tech companies cause or facilitate. But in spite of these tools’ powerful capabilities, their reach is limited. In 2023, Kepios reported that 92% of global users accessed the internet through their smartphones, whereas only 65% of global users did so using a desktop or laptop computer.
Don’t Let China and Russia Export Digital Censorship
From Nicaragua’s adoption of Russia’s oppressive foreign agent law to Huawei’s provision of surveillance technology to Uganda, the Kremlin and the People’s Republic of China have been reliable exporters of authoritarian tactics and innovators in surveillance and repression. Thanks in large part to China and Russia, new research indicates that digital censorship is on the rise.
The foremost innovator in this area is China, which oversees a vast censorship ecosystem. Through internet infrastructure, advanced legislation and regulatory mechanisms and its “Great Firewall,” the Chinese government can control all aspects of digital information within its borders.
While Russia trails China in terms of technical sophistication, its censorship regime is catching up and remains potent. For example, Russia’s notorious Foreign Agents Law is used to censor individuals and organizations that criticize the Putin regime and block websites and social media accounts of “unregistered” entities, while government-controlled telecommunications regulatory bodies have further tightened the noose on free expression.
The impact of this rising tide of digital censorship is evident across multiple countries, and it poses a severe threat to free speech, human rights and the principles of an open society.
Phillies to Start Letting in Fans via Facial Recognition + More
Phillies to Start Letting in Fans via Facial Recognition
Philadelphia will soon become the first city to allow fans entry into a stadium with facial recognition technology, according to the MLB.
The new technology, MLB’s Go-Ahead Entry, will launch Monday, Aug. 21 at Citizens Bank Park, home to the Philadelphia Phillies, according to multiple media reports. The program uses a camera that recognizes any fan who has registered as they walk into the ballpark. Once identified, the tickets automatically scan.
“No need to stop or even get a phone out,” MLB officials said in a statement. “Fans can now enjoy the ultimate hands-free, free-flow experience entering the ballpark with their eyes up.”
Enrollment in Go-Ahead Entry is voluntary, the organization said, noting that the cameras will users’ faces to “create a unique numerical token.” The facial scans will be immediately deleted afterward and only the unique numerical token will be stored and associated with the user’s MLB account, officials said. Those 18 and younger can only enter through the Go-Ahead entry lanes with a registered parent or legal guardian who is consenting on their behalf, according to the organization.
Social Media Is Parents’ Top Concern as Kids Head Back to School: Poll
U.S. News & World Report reported:
When U.S. parents express their concerns about their school-aged children, social media use and the internet are at the top of the list. Mental health issues are another top worry, according to the University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health.
Two-thirds of parents surveyed reported that they are worried about children’s increased time on devices, including overall screen time and use of social media. Those were the No.1 and No.2 concerns on the list this year.
The majority of parents view depression, suicide, stress, anxiety, and related topics like bullying as big problems, the poll showed.
Some of the lowest-ranking concerns on the list were vaccine safety at 16%, parents doing too much at 13% and COVID at 12%. Parents were surveyed in February. The results were released on Aug. 21.
Jordan Requests Interviews With Former Twitter Safety Chief, DHS Official in Censorship Probe
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) sent letters Friday to the former Twitter safety chief and the Department of Homeland Security’s former cybersecurity director, requesting interviews with the two as the House Judiciary Committee continues its investigation into alleged social media censorship by the federal government.
Jordan said the Biden administration “participated in efforts to unconstitutionally monitor and censor Americans’ speech on social media platforms.”
The committee work is parallel to a federal lawsuit from the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana against the administration which resulted in a near-total ban on communicating with social media platforms such as X, formerly known as Twitter, and Facebook in July.
Jordan is seeking interviews with former Twitter Head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth, who left that role in 2022, as well as the former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Chris Krebs, who led the agency during the Trump administration.
House GOP Subpoenas Citibank Over Alleged Jan. 6 ‘Back-Channel’ Cooperation With the FBI
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan has issued a subpoena to Citibank as part of a hunt for information on whether banks shared private customer data with the FBI after the January 6 insurrection.
In a Thursday letter to Citibank, Jordan said Citi declined to voluntarily provide information to lawmakers and its lawyers indicated they would only comply with a subpoena.
Lawmakers had requested information from seven banks: PNC, Citibank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan, Truist and U.S. Bank. Among those seven banks, Citibank was the only one that hadn’t voluntarily complied with the request, a person familiar with the matter told CNN.
The subpoena compels Citibank to produce requested documents sought by the House Judiciary Committee and Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, according to Jordan.
Your Biometrics May Not Be as Safe as You Think
Using your biometric data, such as your fingerprint, to login and authenticate your identity may not be as secure as you think.
This is according to NordVPN, whose researchers claim to have found 81,000 stolen fingerprints across dark web forums. The VPN provider also added that since users can’t change their fingerprints — as they can a compromised password — they are at risk of being permanently compromised.
While acknowledging that biometrics are generally a very safe method of authentication, Adrianus Warmenhoven, a cybersecurity expert at NordVPN, said that “all recorded data is hackable … biometric information a valuable target for cybercriminals, and hacking of this type of data becomes a popular way of identity theft.”
NordVPN identified 20 different types of biometric data that can be used, with the most popular being fingerprints, face, and voice. It further claims that all are vulnerable to compromise in different ways.
White House Science Adviser Calls for More Safeguards Against Artificial Intelligence Risks
When President Joe Biden has questions about artificial intelligence, one expert he turns to is his science adviser Arati Prabhakar, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Prabhakar is helping to guide the U.S. approach to safeguarding AI technology, relying in part on cooperation from big American tech firms like Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta.
The India-born, Texas-raised engineer and applied physicist is coming at the problem from a career bridging work in government — including leading the Defense Department’s advanced technology research arm — and the private sector as a former Silicon Valley executive and venture capitalist.
“Some of the things we see are big and obvious. If you break the guardrails of a chatbot, which people do routinely, and coax it to tell you how to build a weapon, well, clearly that’s concerning. Some of the harms are much more subtle,” says Prabhakar.
“When these systems are trained off human data, they sometimes distill the bias that’s in that data. There’s now a fairly substantial, distressing history of facial recognition systems being used inappropriately and leading to wrongful arrests of Black people. And then privacy concerns. All of our data that’s out in the world, each individual piece may not reveal much about us, but when you put it all together it tells you rather a lot about each of us.”
Ad Firm Plans to Use People’s Data in a Maneuver to Sink Data Privacy Bill
One of the world’s largest advertising firms is crafting a campaign to thwart a California bill intended to enhance people’s control over the data that companies collect on them.
According to emails obtained by POLITICO, the Interpublic Group is coordinating an effort against a bill that would make it easier for people to request that data brokers — firms that collect and sell personal information — delete their dossiers.
SB 362, known as the Delete Act, would require companies to delete all data on individuals upon request — including data purchased or acquired from third parties. This would shrink the trove of personal information they hold, such as browsing history, birthdates and past purchases. Data brokers compile this information to build profiles of people, which can be used to craft advertisements tailored to an individual’s preferences. But that also grants them access to some of people’s most sensitive details, such as whether they are pregnant or suffering from mental illness.
The IPG emails reveal how an advertising company could use that same personal data and targeting capabilities to undermine a public policy proposal that threatens its bottom line.
Montana AG Asks Court to Reject TikTok Challenge to State Ban
Montana’s attorney general asked a U.S. judge to uphold a first-of-its-kind state ban on the use of short video-sharing app TikTok before it takes effect on Jan. 1.
TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, sued in May seeking to block the first-of-its-kind U.S. state ban on several grounds, arguing that it violates the First Amendment free speech rights of the company and users. A separate lawsuit has been filed by TikTok users in Montana.
Attorney General Austin Knudsen, a Republican, said Monday that the state legislature and governor “did the right thing in prohibiting TikTok from operating in Montana as long as it is under the control of a foreign adversary.”
Knudsen said in a legal filing that Montana can ban harmful products, saying it does not violate free speech rights.
A hearing on TikTok’s request for a preliminary injunction is set for Oct. 12.