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Federal Regulators Fine Amazon $25 Million Over Child Privacy Issues
Federal regulators on Wednesday announced Amazon would pay $25 million to settle allegations that its voice assistant Alexa violated a federal law protecting children’s privacy — a sign of Washington’s mounting scrutiny of the e-commerce giant’s sprawling businesses.
Regulators said Wednesday that Amazon failed to delete children’s recordings and location information, in some cases before mid-2019 retaining transcripts parents specifically directed Alexa to erase.
More than 800,000 children under the age of 13 have their own Alexa profiles, according to the lawsuit filed by the Justice Department on behalf of the Federal Trade Commission. The voice assistant is especially popular with young children who can’t read but can access information and entertainment by talking to the device.
By recording children and using transcripts of those recordings to improve its product even after deletion requests, the U.S. government alleges that Amazon has violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, a law that has recently been enforced against other popular tech companies including Fortnite-maker Epic Games and YouTube.
The commission is also fining the company over Ring, Amazon’s home surveillance company best known for its doorbell camera. Regulators say the company illegally allowed employees and contractors to view private videos of customers’ homes and are fining the company an additional $5.8 million.
Kids Safety Advocates Take Social Media Fight to the Boardroom
British baroness Beeban Kidron, a driving force behind a campaign to pass new digital guardrails for children at the state level, spoke in favor of a proposal to force Meta to vet its children’s safety initiatives at its annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday — the first time her group has directly weighed in on the internal measures.
“Year after year resolutions to protect children come to the board that you block,” said Kidron, founder of the 5Rights Foundation nonprofit. “The choice you are making is to put your commercial interest above the needs of children, even when it costs them their lives.”
The move was unsuccessful, with shareholders following Meta’s recommendation and rejecting the proposal. But the attempt shows that children’s safety advocates are turning to new strategies to up the pressure on tech companies, as efforts to enshrine safeguards for kids face roadblocks at the state and federal levels.
The proposal, led by shareholder Proxy Impact, would have required the tech giant to conduct and release an annual report including metrics “assessing whether Meta has improved its performance globally regarding child safety impacts and actual harm reduction to children.”
A NJ Hospital Mandated Flu Shots. Workers Charged Discrimination. The Hospital Will Pay
New Jersey’s Inspira Medical Centers, Inc. has agreed to pay $100,000 after six employees charged that a mandatory flu vaccination policy discriminated against their religious beliefs, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced Wednesday.
No lawsuit was filed by the federal agency. However, five employees covered by a conciliation agreement would receive compensatory damages, the EEOC announced. The sixth employee was not included in this agreement, according to an EEOC spokesperson.
Companies must provide “reasonable” accommodations for religious beliefs, wrote the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, citing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
As part of the agreement, the company was required to change its policies to “explicitly provide employees an exemption to the policy because of an employee’s sincerely held religious beliefs.” Inspira must also inform all employees of this change, and grant reasonable religious accommodations to its vaccination policies unless this would impose an “undue burden” on the company.
COVID Lockdowns Really Did Mess With Our Memories
The psychological toll of COVID lockdowns could lead some people to misremember the timing of recent events, according to a new study published by the University of Aberdeen researchers. The lapses were similar to distorted time perception observed among some prisoners, said the study, conducted in 2022 and published in the open-access journal Plus One on Wednesday.
While it’s not unusual for people to mix up the timing of events that took place in the distant past, the researchers found that people who’d lived under pandemic-era lockdowns exhibited similar levels of error on events that happened just a year ago. It was especially pronounced among those who felt stressed, depressed and anxious living under the measures.
Countries across the world saw lockdowns that lasted for weeks and even months as authorities scrambled to contain COVID, with people in cities as far-flung as London, Beijing and Melbourne forced to stay home or in close radius for extended periods of time. There have long been concerns about the impact of such stringent isolation measures on mental health, and the Aberdeen study is one of the first to shed scientific light on the consequences.
New York Health System Invites Back Employees Fired Over COVID Vaccine Mandate
Becker’s Hospital Review reported:
Syracuse, N.Y.-based St. Joseph’s Health is inviting back employees who were terminated for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine, WSTM reported May 31.
That decision comes one week after the New York State Department of Health began repealing its COVID-19 vaccine requirement for workers in regulated healthcare facilities, originally implemented in August 2021.
St. Joseph’s Health eliminated 2.04% of its workforce who chose not to get the vaccine. Now the health system is reaching out to those workers and asking them to come back, its chief medical officer, Philip Falcone, MD, told the news station in a statement.
Gov. Inslee, WSU AD Dismissed From Nick Rolovich Lawsuit
A federal judge tossed out parts of a lawsuit involving former Washington State University (WSU) football coach Nick Rolovich, who claimed he was wrongfully terminated for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine. As a result, the judge said that Governor Jay Inslee and WSU Athletic Director Pat Chun have been removed as defendants in the lawsuit.
WSU fired Rolovich in November 2021 for refusing to comply with the state’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for state employees.
Rolovich said his request for a religious exemption as a “devout Catholic,” and his appeal were both denied, so he sued the university and the state for $25 million.
According to the decision obtained by The Spokesman-Review, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas O. Rice ruled that enforcing vaccine mandates do not count as religious discrimination.
New Government Free-Speech Tsar Warns ‘Democracy Is at Stake’
A new government-backed freedom of speech champion for universities has warned that “democracy is at stake.” The appointment of Cambridge lecturer Professor Arif Ahmed as the Office for Students (OfS) director for freedom of speech and academic freedom comes in the wake of heated student protests over feminist Kathleen Stock’s talk at Oxford University.
The Department for Education described Ahmed’s new role — announced weeks after the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act became law — as a “huge step forward” in protecting free speech in British universities.
The historic legislation will establish a new complaints system, while also strengthening the legal duties on higher education providers in England to “protect and promote” freedom of speech on campuses, for students, staff and visiting speakers.
Writing in the Times of London, the Cambridge academic warned of the dangers currently threatening freedom of speech in higher educational institutions. “We settle disputes by discussion, not censorship or violence,” he wrote. “Today that idea is fading.
Ex-Staffer at Japan Fire Dept Forced to Work Alone in Hallway as ‘Vaccine Refuser’
A fire department headquarters employee here who wasn’t vaccinated against the coronavirus was forced to work alone in the corridor in 2021, allegedly to prevent the spread of the infection, the Mainichi Shimbun has learned.
The former Koka Wide-Area Administrative Kumiai Fire Department Headquarters worker in their 30s had been restricted from contact with other workers as a “vaccine refuser,” and the entire staff was notified of this in writing. The ex-employee said they had no choice but to resign after that, and told the Mainichi, “I think it was to set an example to other unvaccinated workers, and I was discriminated against.”
When the former employee was working in the department’s fire defense division in April 2021, they were informed of the inoculation dates for staff. They told their boss about not wanting a vaccine as they had experienced adverse side effects from a flu shot. Though they were told it “wasn’t mandatory” to get the coronavirus vaccine, they apparently felt pressured every day to do so, such as being told the next vaccination dates.
The ex-employee was asked by the fire department to work at a desk in the meeting space by the corridor on the same floor as the fire defense division from May 1, 2021. They were also restricted from using the changing rooms and had to work in plain clothes except when dispatched to scenes. They say they were also required to submit a record of their movements within the workplace.
