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An Investigation Exposes Data Brokers Using Ads to Help Track Almost Any Phone
An investigation conducted by a data privacy group has revealed a vast tracking network that can follow the movements of a person’s phone, according to reports from 404 Media and Krebs on Security. The people-tracking service, called Locate X, reportedly lets users follow a device using its mobile advertising identifier, a unique number assigned to phones.
The New Jersey-based Atlas Data Privacy Corp, which aims to help people remove their personal information from data brokers, found that the software is capable of showing the whereabouts of mobile phones on a map, allowing anyone with access to track someone’s precise location across state lines, according to 404 Media. The information could then be used to figure out a specific phone owner’s identity.
US Government Shares New Pandemic Plan
U.S. government officials, together with counterparts in Canada and Mexico, have unveiled their latest plans to strengthen regional health security and pandemic preparedness. The initiative aims to prevent, mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from pandemics and other serious health threats, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports.
The collaboration, called the North American Preparedness for Animal and Human Pandemics Initiative, or NAPAHPI, has been described as a “flexible, scalable, cross-sectoral” platform which aims to strengthen regional capacities for disease control, built on lessons learned from COVID-19 and other healthy security events.
“Diseases know no borders and can spread rapidly in today’s globalized world,” the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Global Affairs, Loyce Pace, said in a statement.
“The new NAPAHPI recognizes the interconnected nature of people and animal health and the effect it has on the prosperity and security of the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Strengthening health security can only be achieved through continued collaboration.”
The initiative is based on a One Health approach, a collaborative, multisectoral, and transdisciplinary system of healthcare that recognized the interconnected nature of people, animals, plants, and our shared environment, and their respective contributions to human health. “Cross-sectoral and regionally collaborative approaches like the North American Preparedness for Animal and Human Pandemics Initiative are critical to preparing our three countries for future health challenges and protecting our collective health security,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, said in a statement.
The Surprising Source of Kids’ Stress Lurking on Parents’ Phones
I’ve been reporting on kids’ mental health for more than a year now, and one concern keeps coming up in my interviews with parents and experts: school apps. Blackboard, Schoology, ClassDojo, the list goes on — these apps help teachers communicate with families, and parents and other caregivers keep track of their kids’ learning. Good, right? Kind of.
The tools started to appear in the early 2010s but really took off in the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, when millions of schoolchildren were forced to adapt to learning from home, said Leah Plunkett, author of Sharenthood: Why We Should Think Before We Talk About Our Kids Online and a faculty member at Harvard Law School.
Some, like Blackboard or Google Classroom, function as “open grade books,” where parents and kids can see each assignment grade as a teacher enters it. Others, like ClassDojo, allow families to keep track of kids’ behavior at school. Still others can be used to send messages or manage extracurriculars like band or sports.
But the apps have raised privacy concerns, with some experts fearing that sensitive data about children could fall into the hands of cybercriminals or be used to limit kids’ opportunities later on.
Others fear that by encouraging parents to monitor every fluctuation in their children’s grades, the tools are fueling an achievement-obsessed culture that can lead to stress and burnout among kids. “It can feel like you’re always plugged in,” St-Esprit said. “It can feel a little bit like hustle culture.”
Meta revives facial recognition to combat scams and enhance account security
Meta is reintroducing facial recognition technology on Facebook and Instagram to combat rising scams and assist users who are locked out of their accounts.
This new system, currently being tested and gradually rolled out, marks Meta’s first major use of facial recognition since the company discontinued its previous system in 2021 due to privacy concerns. However, the system won’t be available everywhere, and Meta’s past legal troubles loom large over the effort.
The primary goal is twofold: enhancing security for account recovery and addressing a surge in fraudulent ads using images generated by artificial intelligence of celebrities to scam users. According to Monika Bickert, Meta’s VP of content policy, “This is a real-time process. It’s faster and more accurate than manual review.”
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Human Rights Groups Want Tighter US Export Controls for Facial Recognition
Human rights organizations are expressing support for the U.S. government’s plans to introduce new export controls on facial recognition systems and recommending additional controls on remote biometric identification. The recommendations were submitted this week by ten groups, including Freedom House, Access Now, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
In July, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Security and Industry proposed amendments introducing two new item controls for facial recognition to the Commerce Control List. The new rules would create controls for facial recognition systems that are designed for mass surveillance and crowd scanning and give foreign governments the ability to monitor, track or detain people unlawfully.
In their comments to the government agency, the human rights groups note that the proposed rules are “significant for their ability to better protect human rights around the world.” The U.S. government, however, should go beyond these controls and limit technologies that track individuals using their eyes, gait, voice, personal appearance, or any other biometric identifier that can be used for mass surveillance.
Character.AI and Google Sued After Chatbot-Obsessed Teen’s Death
A lawsuit has been filed against Character.AI, its founders Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, and Google in the wake of a teenager’s death, alleging wrongful death, negligence, deceptive trade practices, and product liability. Filed by the teen’s mother, Megan Garcia, it claims the platform for custom AI chatbots was “unreasonably dangerous” and lacked safety guardrails while being marketed to children.
As outlined in the lawsuit, 14-year-old Sewell Setzer III began using Character.AI last year, interacting with chatbots modeled after characters from The Game of Thrones, including Daenerys Targaryen. Setzer, who chatted with the bots continuously in the months before his death, died by suicide on February 28th, 2024, “seconds” after his last interaction with the bot.
Accusations include the site “anthropomorphizing” AI characters and that the platform’s chatbots offer “psychotherapy without a license.” Character.AI houses mental health-focused chatbots like “Therapist” and “Are You Feeling Lonely,” which Setzer interacted with.
Roblox Is Making Changes for Pre-Teen Users After Reports That It Failed to Protect Children
Roblox is making some potentially major changes that will limit what pre-teens can access and give parents more control over what their kids do on the platform, according to an email sent by the company and shared with The Verge. The changes follow recent reports highlighting how Roblox has failed to protect children.
In July, for example, Bloomberg published a big report about predators on the platform. Turkey blocked access to Roblox in August, saying it was a necessary measure to protect its children. (Roblox said this week that it would open an office in the country if access was restored.)
Earlier this month, a popular financial newsletter accused Roblox of enabling child abuse and the investment firm Hindenburg Research alleged that its “in-game research revealed an X-rated pedophile hellscape. As part of the changes, which Bloomberg initially reported on, users younger than 13 will have to get parent permission to access “certain chat features” while users that are younger than 9 will need their parents’ permission to play experiences that have a “moderate” content label. (That label means the experience may contain things like moderate violence or crude humor.)
The company had already announced that it will be switching from “experience guidelines,” which rates experiences for specific ages, over to the new content label system this fall.
