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The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’ + More
The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’
Imagine, for a moment, the near future Amazon dreams of.
It would be a bit glib — and more than a little clichéd — to call this some kind of technological dystopia. Actually, dystopia wouldn’t be right, exactly: Dystopian fiction is generally speculative, whereas all of these items and services are real.
At the end of September, Amazon announced a suite of tech products in its move toward “ambient intelligence,” which Amazon’s hardware chief, Dave Limp, described as technology and devices that slip into the background but are “always there,” collecting information and taking action against it.
This intense devotion to tracking and quantifying all aspects of our waking and non-waking hours is nothing new — see the Apple Watch, the Fitbit, social media writ large and the smartphone in your pocket — but Amazon has been unusually explicit about its plans.
The Everything Store is becoming an Everything Tracker, collecting and leveraging large amounts of personal data related to entertainment, fitness, health and, it claims, security. It’s surveillance that millions of customers are opting into.
New Kids’ Privacy App Teaches Digital Privacy While Blocking Trackers
There’s a law in the United States that says companies aren’t supposed to track young children, but they do it anyway. More than two-thirds of the most popular kids’ iPhone apps collect and share personal information, according to a recent study from Pixalate. By some estimates, digital ad firms have collected an average of 72 million data points about every kid by the time they turn 13, the age legal data collection is supposed to start.
A new app from the security firm Disconnect aims to do something about it. Do Not Track Kids, which launched in the Apple App Store last week, blocks trackers across your entire device while teaching kids about privacy along the way.
“The point of all this data collection is to influence your behavior, whether it’s getting you to buy a product, promoting compulsive behavior or even pushing an ideology,” Casey Oppenheim, CEO of Disconnect, told Gizmodo. “When you put that in the context of kids, there’s something about it that’s really sinister.”
Apps, websites and even emails are littered with hidden trackers that vacuum up details about you in the background. Apple makes a big deal about how its privacy settings protect you from all of that, but the company may get more credit than it deserves. Your iPhone’s settings can make a difference, but tech companies are still spying on you and your family on a near-constant basis.
Fauci Says School Closures Led to ‘Deleterious Collateral Consequences,’ but He Had ‘Nothing to Do’ With It
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the face of the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic over the last two-and-a-half years, deflected responsibility for school closures in an interview on Sunday while admitting to some negative effects for children.
The head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who is stepping down in December after five decades in the role, was asked by ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl whether it was a “mistake” for schools to be closed down as long as they were.
“I don’t want to use the word ‘mistake,’ Jon, because if I do, it gets taken out of the context that you’re asking me the question on,” Fauci said. “We should realize, and have realized, that there will be deleterious collateral consequences when you do something like that.” Fauci went on to say the virus has killed nearly 1,500 children, but that he always emphasized health officials must do “everything we can to keep the schools open.”
“No one plays that clip. They always say ‘Fauci was responsible for closing schools.’ I had nothing to do [with it]. I mean, let’s get down to the facts,” Fauci told ABC News.
COVID Mask, Vaccine Rules Loosened for Illinois Healthcare Facility Workers
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Monday announced some loosening of COVID-19 requirements for most healthcare facilities. The new guidelines remove the weekly testing requirements for unvaccinated healthcare and long-term care facility workers. It also drops the state vaccine mandate for such workers.
But a federal rule under which workers must be vaccinated at Medicare/Medicaid-certified facilities remains in effect and is not changed by the revision of the state guidelines.
The amended order also drops the requirement for masks in healthcare facilities — though masks are still recommended in healthcare facilities located in high-transmission areas.
Governor to End California Coronavirus Emergency in February
California’s coronavirus emergency will officially end in February, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday, nearly three years after the state’s first confirmed death from the disease prompted a raft of restrictions that upended public life.
The decision will have little practical impact on most people’s lives, as most of the nearly 600 pandemic-related orders Newsom has issued since the start of the pandemic have already been lifted. And it won’t affect public health orders — including a pending statewide vaccine mandate for schoolchildren that could take effect next summer.
But it does signal a symbolic end for some of the most restrictive elements of the pandemic, as it will dissolve Newsom’s authority to alter or change laws to make it easier for the government to quickly respond to the public health crisis.
Seneca College Announces It Will Drop COVID Vaccine Mandate in 2023
Seneca College says it will drop its mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy in January. President David Agnew called the decision regretful but necessary in a statement posted to the college’s website Monday.
Seneca, which has campuses across the Greater Toronto Area, was one of the last post-secondary institutions in Canada with a campus-wide COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
People on campus will no longer be required to show proof of vaccination on Jan. 1, but the college says it is keeping its mask mandate until further notice.
Meanwhile, Western University — which remains one of the last places in the country with a vaccine mandate — announced Monday it was extending its masking requirement until the end of the fall term.
Nouriel Roubini: Why AI Poses a Threat to Millions of Workers
Business sectors ranging from agriculture and manufacturing to automotive and financial services are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence as a means to automate large swaths of their organizations — and, along the way, save enormous sums through improved efficiencies.
But, says ‘Megathreats’ Author and NYU Stern School of Business professor Nouriel Roubini, the rise of AI will also have a massively negative impact on workers throughout the economy.
AI has helped revolutionize everything from the smartphones in our pockets to our grocery stores, which use the technology to better predict which items customers want to see on shelves. However, Roubini, whose prediction of the 2008 financial crisis earned him the moniker “Dr. Doom,” says AI poses a threat to millions of workers.
“The downside is that while AI, machine learning, robotics, automation increases the economic pie, potentially, it also leads to losses of jobs and labor income,” Roubini said during an interview at Yahoo Finance’s All Markets Summit.
Social Media Loses Ground on Abortion Misinformation
Big Tech platforms are blocking abortion-pill distribution information and permitting false narratives about abortion to spread, more than 100 days after the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning a constitutional right to abortion.
Why it matters: Social media firms were caught flat-footed by that sudden change in the legal and informational landscape at a time when there’s an overwhelming, sudden need for solid information and access to healthcare services online.
The big picture: Abortion rights advocates say that misinformation around reproductive health online has gotten worse since the Dobbs decision in June striking down Roe v. Wade.
Per new research from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a nonprofit focused on extremism and disinformation, TikTok, YouTube and Meta have allowed dis- and misinformation about abortion to spread and be monetized in the months since the court’s decision.
DuckDuckGo’s New Web Browser Will Protect Your Privacy While You Watch YouTube
DuckDuckGo launched a web browser for macOS in beta today, offering privacy-minded web surfers a new way to browse. The browser uses a variety of techniques to protect your information from snooping websites and even includes some innovative tools, including Duck Player, which is supposed to let you watch YouTube with fewer ads and less data collection. You can download DuckDuckGo for Mac here.
If you’re like most people on earth, you’re cruising around the web using Google Chrome, which sends so much data back to company servers that some privacy advocates call the browser spyware. There are a number of more private options, including FireFox, Brave and even Apple’s Safari. DuckDuckGo already has a browser for mobile devices, but this marks the company’s first foray into desktop browsing.
It Was the Mandates, Not the Fine Print: Fact Checkers Miss Point in Rush to Defend Pfizer + More
It Was the Mandates, Not the Fine Print: Fact Checkers Miss Point in Rush to Defend Pfizer
Fact-checkers swung into action after a Pfizer executive acknowledged this week that the company never tested its COVID vaccine against transmission, but they seem to have missed the critics’ point in their rush to defend the pharmaceutical giant.
Janine Small, Pfizer’s president of international developed markets, answered no Monday when asked by European Union Member of Parliament Rob Roos if the company tested its mRNA vaccine on stopping transmission before rolling it out. The Dutch lawmaker later called it “scandalous” given that vaccine passports and mandates were pushed globally on the implication that they would stop transmission.
The “scandalous” parties Roos referred to were global governments, not Pfizer. While there is no evidence Pfizer ever claimed its vaccine was tested for transmission, the notion that the vaccines offered such protection against the spread of COVID was seized upon by governments to compel people to get vaccinated. The distinction between individuals contracting and transmitting COVID was lost as governments sought to stop the virus from spreading.
“You’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations,” President Joe Biden said in July 2021. Two months earlier, White House Chief Medical Adviser Anthony Fauci said that vaccinated people become “dead ends” for the virus, and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in March 2021 that data from the CDC suggested that “vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don’t get sick.”
Roos said that his point after Monday’s testimony was that compelling young, healthy people who were not afraid of contracting the virus themselves to nonetheless get the jab in order to ensure they did not spread it was built on a myth.
PayPal and America’s Pending Social Credit System
Do Americans wish to live in a world where dissenters from prevailing elite orthodoxy face discrimination in every public domain? The recent fracas over PayPal’s user policy raises the specter of such a dystopia: a de-banked future — driven by de facto social credit scoring — that is quickly becoming our present.
The payment processing company, one of the largest nonbank lenders in the world with some $75 billion in assets, recently modified its user agreement, threatening to fine those who use PayPal “for activities that…involve the sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials that, in PayPal’s sole discretion…promote misinformation” up to $2,500 per violation.
The backlash was large and swift — and rightly so. PayPal patrons canceled their accounts en masse or at least threatened to do so as hashtags indicating it trended across social media. The stock tanked. Then PayPal backtracked. A spokesman said the updated policy had gone “out in error that included incorrect information. PayPal is not fining people for misinformation and this language was never intended to be inserted in our policy.”
But no one should be confused. While the company might have accidentally released the policy, it still drafted it. That means it considered transforming itself from a financial services company to an arbiter of truth — policing Wrongthink and punishing the perps by pilfering their accounts.
Biden Administration Touts ‘Big Update’ to COVID Vaccines in New Ads for Boosters
The Biden administration is launching a new ad campaign to promote the updated bivalent COVID-19 vaccines, in hopes of accelerating a booster campaign that has begun to stall nationwide.
“It’s a new day because COVID vaccines just got a big update,” a narrator says at the start of one of the spots, titled “Just in Time.” Federal health authorities have shelled out to air the ads on television, starting with commercial breaks during the ABC shows “Good Morning America” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” A radio spot on the “Big Update” will also air starting Oct. 17.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) did not respond to a request for comment on how much the television spots would cost. Dr. Cameron Webb, a White House COVID-19 official, said HHS had been able to “shuffle around some dollars” to put together a campaign for the fall.
Print ads targeted to Native American and rural communities will also be appearing in newspapers in 18 cities, ranging from Albuquerque in New Mexico to Bangor in Maine.
Students, Staffers and Parents Protest Fordham University COVID Vaccine Mandate
A protest was held Friday at Fordham University over the school’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. All students and staff must be up to date on their boosters by Nov. 1 in order to be allowed on campus.
There were honks of support for the demonstrators standing outside the main entrance to the Bronx campus. Dozens of students, staffers and parents made their voices heard against the school’s vaccine mandate.
“I have read some reports about myocarditis and other side effects and it seems like there’s a lot of conflicting data,” senior Kyle Sofhauser said. “It should be an individual choice.”
Political science professor Nicholas Tampio is just one staffer pushing back. “For me, it’s just, if the vaccine doesn’t stop transmission, there’s no justification to mandate it for other people,” Tampio said.
Biden Admin Still Pushing COVID Vaccine Mandate for Military: It’s Unlawful and Hurts National Security
On national television, Biden administration spokesperson John Kirby mounted a feeble attempt to explain the president’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for the military. Kirby, a retired Navy admiral, had no acceptable answers when pressed about the administration’s “folly” and the perilous impact the mandate is already having on our national security.
Remarkably, Kirby perpetuated the narrative that the military’s mandate must remain in place while admitting with a straight face that he was quarantined for 10 days due to his current bout with COVID-19, despite being vaccinated and double boosted.
The unrelenting push to remove thousands of religious service members from the military for their sincerely held objections to taking the COVID-19 vaccine should be classified as a clear dereliction of duty by the Biden administration. The president himself declared “the pandemic is over.”
While service members of faith are being denied accommodations and are presently prevented from doing their jobs and maintaining their careers, the Air Force willingly accommodates service members who are unvaccinated for COVID-19 for medical reasons. To any reasonable person, the hypocrisy and unlawfulness are clear.
Uganda Locks Down 2 Districts in Bid to Stem Spread of Ebola
Ugandan authorities on Saturday imposed a travel lockdown on two Ebola-hit districts as part of efforts to stop the spread of the contagious disease.
The measures announced by President Yoweri Museveni mean residents of the central Ugandan districts of Mubende and Kassanda can’t travel into or out of those areas by private or public means. Cargo vehicles and others transiting from Kampala, the capital, to southwestern Uganda are still allowed to operate, he said.
All entertainment places, including bars, as well as places of worship, are ordered closed, and all burials in those districts must be supervised by health officials, he said. A nighttime curfew also has been imposed. The restrictions will last at least 21 days.
South Australia Court Sets Date for Deni Varnhagen’s Appeal of COVID Vaccine Mandate Challenge Dismissal
Inactive AFLW player and nurse Deni Varnhagen has had a small win in her legal challenge against South Australia’s healthcare worker vaccine mandate, with the Court of Appeal granting her request for an urgent appeal.
Last month, the Supreme Court dismissed her case on the basis it “ceased to have utility” given the emergency declarations she was challenging had been removed and replaced by legislation.
Her legal team is appealing that ruling and last week asked for an urgent, expedited hearing as the directions are due to expire on Nov. 23.
Today, the Court of Appeal said it could hear the appeal on Nov. 11 — 12 days before the expiry date. It is unclear whether the state government will extend the mandate.
The Quarantine of Healthy Populations
When the COVID-19 pandemic began, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya turned his attention to the epidemiology of the virus and the effects of lockdown policies. He was one of three co-authors — along with Martin Kulldorff of Stanford and Sunetra Gupta of Oxford — of the Great Barrington Declaration.
Many more lives would have been saved, and much misery avoided, had we followed the time-tested public health principles laid out in this document. Jay is a professor of health policy at Stanford and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He earned his M.D. and Ph.D. in economics at Stanford.
From the lepers in the Old Testament to the Plague of Justinian in Ancient Rome to the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, COVID represents the first time ever in the history of managing pandemics that we quarantined healthy populations.
While the ancients did not understand the mechanisms of infectious disease — they knew nothing of viruses and bacteria — they nevertheless figured out many ways to mitigate the spread of contagion during epidemics. These time-tested measures ranged from isolating the symptomatic to enlisting those with natural immunity, who had recovered from the illness, to care for the sick.
I Fear My Children Are Overexposed to Technology. Experts Say I’m Right to Worry
Last month, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services granted $10 million to the American Academy of Pediatrics to establish a National Center of Excellence on Social Media and Mental Wellness. It is part of the Biden administration’s strategy to address an alarming national mental health crisis and has a mandate, according to the press release, to “develop and disseminate information, guidance and training on the impact — including risk and benefits — that social media use has on children and young people, especially the risks to their mental health.”
We adults, responding to soaring inflation and the collective trauma of years of COVID, have been driven to a breaking point. So, too, have our children, with over 40% of teenagers saying, heartbreakingly, that they have persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness.
In 2021, in the midst of a roiling pandemic, the U.S. surgeon general’s office issued a 53-page advisory calling out tech platforms as being particularly culpable when it came to our children’s weakening mental health, in effect replacing one public health crisis with another.
The Hunt for Wikipedia’s Disinformation Moles
As social platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have struggled with the onslaught of fake news, disinformation and bots, Wikipedia has transformed itself into a source of trusted information — not just for its readers but also for other tech platforms. The challenge now is to keep it that way.
Some researchers believe that Wikipedia could be an overlooked venue for information warfare, and they have been developing technologies and methods similar to the ones used on Facebook and Twitter to uncover it.
A team from the U.K.-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue (IDS) and the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media (CASM) published a paper today exploring how to uncover disinformation on Wikipedia. They also believe that the data mapping may have uncovered a strategy that states could use to introduce disinformation. The trick, they say, is playing the long and subtle game.
Governments have good reasons to influence Wikipedia: 1.8 billion unique devices are used to visit Wikimedia Foundation sites each month, and its pages are regularly among the top results for Google searches. Rising distrust in institutions and mainstream media has made sources of reliable information all the more coveted.
Apple XR Headset Might Have ‘Face ID’ Tech for Paying With Your Eyes
Apple is reportedly one-upping Meta in the mixed reality competition by offering iris-scanning technology.
According to a report from The Information, the tech giant‘s forthcoming XR device will include sensors that work like Face ID in iPhones and iPads. The technology, called “Iris ID,” would enable users to log in to their accounts and make payments biometrically. The headset also reportedly has more than 10 cameras and might have the same M2 chip as the one powering the latest MacBook Air. Apple’s XR headset has been highly-anticipated for years and is expected to be released sometime in 2023.
But all of this innovation won’t come cheap. It’s rumored that it will cost between $2,000 and $3,000, which is significantly more than the Quest Pro, the most premium version of Meta‘s VR headset lineup to date. Your move, Meta.
DC Council Could Delay Coronavirus Vaccine Mandate for Kids + More
DC Council Could Delay Coronavirus Vaccine Mandate for Kids
A year after introducing a law that requires DC students over 12 to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, DC Council member Christina Henderson will put forward emergency and temporary legislation to delay the plan by another school year. The delayed deadline will go up for a vote on Nov. 1, Henderson (I-At Large) told The Washington Post.
The earlier law was introduced in October 2021 and passed two months later. It was set to be enforced at the beginning of this school year, but to give more time for schools to prepare and students to get vaccinated, city officials extended the deadline until Jan. 3.
In the year since that law was introduced, much has changed about the way public health officials understand the coronavirus, Henderson said. Guidance around masking and social distancing has been relaxed. Universities and school districts have abandoned consideration of vaccine mandates. Nationwide, COVID-related deaths have fallen considerably.
Henderson said she wants to delay the city’s coronavirus vaccine mandate so that it takes effect during the 2023-2024 school year and, in the meantime, revisit the measure — which could include conversations over whether it should exist at all.
When Algorithms Promote Self-Harm, Who Is Held Responsible?
When 14-year-old Molly Russell died in 2017, her cell phone contained graphic images of self-harm, an email roundup of “depression pins you might like” and advice on concealing mental illness from loved ones. Investigators initially ruled the British teen’s death a suicide.
But almost five years later, a British coroner’s court has reversed the findings. Now, they claim that Russell died “from an act of self-harm while suffering from depression and the negative effects of online content” — and the algorithms themselves are on notice. This isn’t the first time that technology and suicide have collided in high-profile cases that push the boundaries of both science and law. And it certainly won’t be the last.
A growing body of research suggests that social media platforms play a role in depression, body image issues, and other mental health challenges among users. While most cases to date have focused on the individuals who use platforms to cyberbully others, the inquiry into Russell’s death marked “perhaps the first time anywhere that internet companies have been legally blamed for a suicide,” according to The New York Times.
Yet the British ruling does not necessarily mean that social media companies are being held accountable. For one, a coroner’s court cannot exact punishment; Meta and Pinterest executives were compelled to testify, but no one is paying up, let alone going to prison. More importantly, the available research linking mental health problems and social media platforms mostly hinge on associations — X and Y both changed, but whether one caused the other is hard to say. Attributing definitive responsibility for social media-linked suicides remains meaningfully out of reach.
Thousands Urge U.K. Government to Rehire Care Workers Sacked Over COVID Vaccine Mandate
Tens of thousands of people have urged the U.K. government to apologize, reinstate and compensate care workers who were forced out of their jobs by a COVID-19 vaccine mandate, according to campaign group Together.
By Friday, more than 23,000 people had signed a petition published by the group on Monday, calling on Prime Minister Liz Truss and Health Secretary Thérèse Coffey to reconcile with the approximately 40,000 social care workers who lost their jobs after refusing to take the jabs.
The civil liberty group, which started in 2021 as a campaign against COVID-19 restrictions and vaccine mandates, published a letter on the same day when Janine Small, Pfizer’s president of international developed markets, told the European Parliament that the company’s COVID-19 vaccine had not been tested for its effectiveness on stopping transmission before it entered the market.
Mathematician on AI Dystopia and Human Superiority Over Machines
As computing technology rapidly advances, there has been much discussion of the potential threats posed by artificial intelligence. But the author of a book that explores the nature of machine versus human intelligence has said some of these debates over the future of AI have been overhyped and may be distracting from more pressing issues.
Junaid Mubeen, a research mathematician turned educator and author of Mathematical Intelligence: A Story of Human Superiority Over Machines, which will be published November 1, told Newsweek one of the reasons he wrote the book was that AI has generated significant amounts of publicity recently.
“Some of it may be justified because there are exciting developments coming through, but much of it, I think, is overhyped,” Mubeen said. “And I think there’s a real risk that we’re going to rush to judgment, exaggerate the capabilities of AI in the process and undermine our own human intelligence.
Mubeen pointed to prominent figures from Silicon Valley and beyond, who discuss potential threats that are perhaps a few years or decades away while not paying the same attention to the potential harms of artificial intelligence technologies today. Some examples of these potential harms include the use of AI in mass surveillance programs or how some algorithms reinforce social biases based on the data they have been trained on.
COVID Vaccine Mandate Dropped for Most Military Members: Defense Chief
The Canadian Armed Forces plans to press ahead with the forced expulsion of dozens of unvaccinated troops despite a new order from defense chief Gen. Wayne Eyre on Friday ending the military’s blanket COVID-19 vaccine requirement.
In an interview with The Canadian Press, Eyre said that is because service members are expected to follow legal orders — and that a refusal by some troops to get their shots “raises questions about your suitability to serve in uniform.”
The comments came as Eyre released a highly anticipated new vaccine policy that effectively suspends his previous requirement for all Armed Forces members to be fully vaccinated or face disciplinary action.
Vaccines will no longer be required for all those serving in uniform, including as a prerequisite for joining the military, but will instead be based on the roles and responsibilities of individual service members. The defense chief’s new order includes a list of those who will still need two doses of a Health Canada-approved vaccine, with an emphasis on quick-response units such as special forces and the disaster assistance response team.
German Health Minister Urges Stepped-up COVID Measures
Germany’s health minister on Friday urged the country’s 16 states to consider stepping up their measures against the coronavirus amid a rise in new cases.
Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said he favors requiring mask-wearing indoors, a measure that has largely faded in Germany except on public transport, in medical facilities and in care homes.
“The direction we’re going in isn’t a good one,” Lauterbach told reporters in Berlin. He added that it would be better for states to impose limited restrictions now than stricter ones later. “The sooner we step on the brake the better it will be,” he said.
Misinformation Most Amplified on TikTok, Twitter: Report
Posts spreading misinformation are most amplified on Twitter and TikTok, according to a new report that looked at the spread of false narratives online. The Integrity Institute, an advocacy group, found that Twitter and TikTok have the highest “Misinformation Amplification Factor,” a figure the report’s authors used to track the spread of misinformation.
Twitter and TikTok’s high levels of the Misinformation Amplification Factor are based on the mechanisms for “virality” on the platforms, the report found.
On TikTok, most content is public and views are generated by recommendations dependent on machine learning models that predict engagement, meaning misinformation can spread “far beyond the followers of the account that created it,” the report stated.
The report identified the highest number of misinformation posts on Facebook, based on the sample analyzed. But posts with misinformation are amplified to a lesser degree on Facebook than on Twitter and TikTok because Facebook’s sharing option has what the report called a higher level of “friction.”
Targeted Billboard Ads Are a Privacy Nightmare
Advertisers are using insights gleaned from targeted digital advertising and applying them to create physical billboards capable of serving up tailored advertisements catered to the types of people viewing them. If that concept sounds eerily familiar that’s because it’s precisely the type of physical targeted advertising vision Tom Cruise encounters when walking through a shopping center in Steven Spielberg’s 2002 sci-fi hit, The Minority Report.
These targeted billboard ads, which have existed for several years but are growing in popularity, are the subject of a new report from the U.K.-backed civil liberties group Big Brother Watch. The report aptly called “The Streets are Watching,” provides a deep dive into ways a handful of companies use facial recognition-enabled billboards to analyze the world around them and then use that data to serve up pedestrians personalized ads.
Though advertisers favor the practice for its efficiency, the report argues the mass collection of users’ data poses an inherent privacy concern with high-stakes risks. If normalized, the authors warn that targeted billboard ads threaten to potentially do away with the idea of anonymously passing through a crowd.
Meta’s VR Headset Harvests Personal Data Right off Your Face + More
Meta’s VR Headset Harvests Personal Data Right off Your Face
In November 2021, Facebook announced it would delete face recognition data extracted from images of more than 1 billion people and stop offering to automatically tag people in photos and videos.
Luke Stark, an assistant professor at Western University, in Canada, told WIRED at the time that he considered the policy change a PR tactic because the company’s VR push would likely lead to the expanded collection of physiological data and raise new privacy concerns.
This week, Stark’s prediction proved right. Meta, as the company that built Facebook is now called, introduced its latest VR headset, the Quest Pro. The new model adds a set of five inward-facing cameras that watch a person’s face to track eye movements and facial expressions, allowing an avatar to reflect their expressions, smiling, winking or raising an eyebrow in real-time. The headset also has five exterior cameras that will in the future help give avatars legs that copy a person’s movements in the real world.
After Meta’s presentation, Stark said the outcome was predictable. And he suspects that the default “off” setting for face tracking won’t last long. “It’s been clear for some years that animated avatars are acting as privacy loss leaders,” he said. “This data is far more granular and far more personal than an image of a face in the photograph.”
Federal Appeals Court Pauses Texas Social Media Law’s Enforcement Amid Looming Supreme Court Petition
A federal appeals court has agreed to suspend enforcement of Texas’ social media law restricting content moderation, in the face of a looming request by tech industry groups for the Supreme Court to review the case. In an order on Wednesday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay of its earlier mandate that had paved the way for the Texas law, known as HB 20, to take effect.
HB 20 aims to expose social media platforms including Meta, YouTube and Twitter to new private lawsuits, as well as suits by the state’s attorney general, over the companies’ decisions to remove or reduce the visibility of user content they deem objectionable. The law is viewed as a challenge to decades of First Amendment precedent, which holds the government may not compel private entities to host speech.
In a filing leading up to Wednesday’s order, the technology groups challenging the Texas law said they planned to ask for the Supreme Court to rule on HB 20 and that Texas did not oppose the motion for a stay.
The Supreme Court has already indicated it is open to regulating social media platforms, agreeing this month to hear two cases that could indirectly narrow the scope of the tech industry’s all-important liability shield, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
King County Judge Rejects Injunction for Seattle Firefighters Terminated Over Vaccine Mandate
A King County judge rejected an injunction filed by Seattle firefighters terminated for not getting the COVID vaccine.
Judge Matthew Williams denied a motion for an injunction, which would have protected the firefighters from being fired for refusing to get vaccinated. According to the judge, the firefighters failed to prove irreparable injury from their termination and argued that “public interest” is greater than their desire for injunctive relief.
Seattle‘s COVID-19 Civil Emergency Proclamation ends Oct. 31, with several pandemic safety policies rolling back at the start of November. However, the city’s vaccine mandate remains in effect until further notice.
Sen. Lankford Calls for End to Vaccine Mandates for Federal Employees, Military
Oklahoma Senator James Lankford has introduced a resolution in the Senate to end federal vaccine mandates. The resolution is in response to a statement from President Biden on Sept. 18 in which he said the pandemic is over.
“Biden has declared that the pandemic is over — so his overreaching vaccine mandate on federal workers, service members and government contractors should be over as well,” said Lankford. “Each individual American should be able to make their own health decisions and not fear they will lose their job if they do not agree with the President’s vaccine mandate.”
In the resolution, Lankford called for all “vaccine, testing, masking and social distancing requirements to be removed” for federal employees, contractors and service members.
It also calls for all members of the Armed Forces who chose not to receive the COVID vaccine and were discharged or relieved to be reinstated and allowed back to their previous duties.
Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to NYC’s Vaccine Mandate for City Workers … Again
The U.S. Supreme Court decided on Tuesday to deny an emergency challenge to New York City’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for municipal employees.
The case centers around NYPD Detective Anthony Marciano, whose legal team requested in late August that the nation’s highest court intervene on his behalf and that of any other city employee who has refused the requirement. This mandate is nearly a year old and was issued during the final months of the de Blasio administration.
Marciano’s initial petition to the Supreme Court stated he would be put on paid leave by Sept. 7 and potentially terminated without the emergency injunction. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a Bronx native, individually denied the application, meaning the case wouldn’t be considered by the court. But less than a month later, Marciano’s lawyer refiled with Justice Clarence Thomas, who opted to move the request before the full court. That hearing happened last Friday.
Attorney Patricia Finn, who is representing Marciano in the case, said via email on Tuesday that she assumed the Supreme Court denied the injunction due to a similar lawsuit that is now moving through New York courts.
The Police Benevolent Association, a union representing rank-and-file officers, won a temporary motion two weeks ago from a state Supreme Court that reinstated members who had been fired or put on leave for refusing the vaccine mandate. A full decision on that case is still pending.
Babies Born During the Pandemic May Have Delayed Communication Skills
Babies born into COVID-related lockdowns have taken longer to reach certain developmental milestones than babies born pre-pandemic, a study found. Before COVID hit, parents commonly observed infants pointing at objects by 9 months old. By 1 year, many babies were saying their first words.
But the new study, published Tuesday by researchers at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin, Ireland, found that Irish infants born from March to May 2020 had a harder time communicating at one year of age than those born between 2008 and 2011.
For most of the time between March 2020 and April 2021, Ireland had a strict lockdown that required people to stay home except for essential activities. Residents weren’t allowed to dine inside restaurants, and people who could work at home were told to do so. Those who did not follow the rules could be fined.
Dr. Susan Byrne, the study’s author, and a pediatric neurologist at the Royal College of Surgeons said one-quarter of the babies in her study had never met another child their own age by their first birthday. When the babies were 6 months old, their families were only seeing four other people outside the home, on average, and each infant had only been kissed by three adults, including their parents.
ACT College Admission Test Scores Drop to 30-Year Low as Effects of COVID-Era Online Learning Play out
High school students’ ACT college admission test scores fell to a three-decade low in 2022, according to a new report released Wednesday, falling for the fifth straight year as educators grapple with ongoing learning loss made worse by remote classes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Students in the graduating high school class of 2022 averaged a score of 19.8 out of 36, the lowest score since 1991 on the admissions test, which colleges use to gauge students’ English, reading, math and science skills.
ACT CEO Janet Godwin said the decline can’t be blamed exclusively on learning disruptions from online learning and missed classes when schools were shuttered during the COVID-19 pandemic but by “longtime systemic failures” that were “exacerbated by the pandemic.”
Boris Johnson’s COVID Laws Took Away Our Rights With Flick of a Pen. Don’t Let That Happen Again
It is almost three years since the first case of a novel coronavirus was identified in Wuhan, China. It’s just over two and a half years since Boris Johnson gave us a “very simple instruction,” that we “must stay at home,” followed — three days later — by a law that for the first time in our history would impose a 24-hour curfew on almost the entire population.
The years, months, weeks and days since have been so relentless — and at times almost beyond belief — that it is difficult to begin to process them. Many of us have experienced personal bereavement, and everyone has been touched in some way. But as tempting as it is to move on, to focus on other important issues vexing our society, there are some aspects of the past three years we must face up to.
There are a hundred lenses through which to view this important period in modern history, but as a barrister, I have looked at the more than 100 laws that placed England in lockdown, imposed hotel quarantine, international travel restrictions, self-isolation, face coverings and business closures.
These were probably the strangest and most extraordinary laws in England’s history, imposing previously unimaginable restrictions on our social lives, bringing into the realm of the criminal law areas of life — where we could worship, when we could leave home, even who we could hug — that had previously been purely a matter of personal choice.
‘Make DMs Safe’ Campaign Pressing Tech Giants on Encryption Grows Post-Roe
Over 50 abortion rights and privacy groups are upping the pressure on tech companies to make their messaging services more secure, citing growing concern that users’ private communications could be used to prosecute abortions post-Roe v. Wade.
The “Make DMs Safe” campaign calls on Facebook, Twitter, Google and other companies that control popular messaging apps to offer full encryption automatically to consumers, among other protections.
Activist group Fight for the Future first launched the push in September but unveiled dozens of new backers Thursday. Much of the coalition has long urged Silicon Valley giants to boost privacy protections for consumers, but they say the Supreme Court decision revoking the federal right to abortion has raised the stakes for millions, particularly when it comes to safeguarding private and direct messages, or DMs.
In an open letter and online petition, the groups call out a slew of major tech companies for declining to partially or fully offer encryption by default and demand they do so by the end of the year.
Incognito Mode’s Name Is Wrong, and Even Google Employees Know It
Even Google employees know that Chrome’s Incognito Mode isn’t as private as the name implies. The Google Chrome feature allows users to hide their browsing history from other people using the same device, however, it doesn’t hide their data from the websites they visit or Google itself.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that Incognito Mode is more private than it really is though; the company is facing a $5 billion lawsuit over the confusion, and even its own Marketing Chief knew the flaws of the name it has been revealed.
Other documents that have been revealed as part of the court filings show Google employees criticizing the name back in 2018 as well as the use of the “Spy Guy” icon. The same employee linked to a study that showed 56.3% of 460 participants believed that their information was being kept private if they were using Incognito Mode.
If you’re looking for something that will do what many people think Incognito Mode can, you need to use one of the best VPN services out there.
JBS, Tyson Foods Invest in Smartwatch App That Monitors Workers
Two of America’s largest meat companies — JBS and Tyson Foods — have invested in a smartwatch application that allows managers to monitor workers’ movements.
The startup behind the application, Mentore, claims to improve worker productivity while reducing injuries. The repetitive, fast and taxing work of cutting and packing protein makes meat processing plants some of the most dangerous workplaces in the country. Despite workers’ pleas, meat companies have fought to increase the pace of work.
The investments signal that the big meat companies could follow in the footsteps of other industries that have increased surveillance in an attempt to improve worker productivity. Amazon, in particular, has come under fire for using tracking technology to speed production so much so that, in at least some cases, its delivery drivers have not had time for bathroom breaks.
Experts said the use of digital technologies and artificial intelligence to manage workers can have negative effects, such as increased stress and injuries, particularly when companies use the technology to make disciplinary decisions.