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IRS Will Require Facial Recognition Scans to Access Your Taxes Online

Gizmodo reported:

Online tax filers in the United States will soon be required to submit a selfie to a third-party identity verification company using facial recognition tech in order to file their taxes or make IRS payments online.

Starting this summer, users with an IRS.gov account will no longer be able to log in with a simple username and password. Instead, they will need to provide a government identification document, a selfie, and copies of their bills to Virginian-based identity verification firm ID.me to confirm their identity.

In a statement to Gizmodo, an IRS spokesperson said users can still receive basic information from the IRS website without logging in, but added they would need to sign in through ID.me to make and view payments, access tax records, view or create payment plans, manage communications preference, or view tax professional authorizations.

Austrian Lawmakers Pass Europe’s Strictest COVID Vaccine Mandate

CNN reported:

Austria’s parliament has approved the European Union’s strictest COVID-19 vaccine mandate, making it compulsory for the country’s residents over the age of 18 to get the shot.

The law goes into effect Feb. 1, however Austrian officials will only begin conducting checks to see if the mandate is being adhered to from Mar. 15. Starting then, those without a vaccine certificate or an exemption could be fined as much as $685 (600 euro).

According to the Austrian Health Ministry’s website, pregnant people and those who cannot be vaccinated without endangering their health are exempt from the law. People who are recovering from a COVID-19 infection are also exempt for 180 days from the date they received their first positive PCR COVID-19 test.

GOP and Democratic Governors Reinstate COVID Emergency Orders to Combat Omicron Surge

CNBC reported:

As COVID-19 cases surge across the nation, Republican and Democratic governors alike are issuing new or reinstated emergency health orders in an effort to slow the spread of the Omicron variant and alleviate the strain on hospitals.

Officials from Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, Kansas and California have all announced executive measures — some of which are renewals of emergency orders that are expiring or have been lifted — since the start of the month.

Instead of ordering lockdowns and business closures, which devastated the economy at the beginning of the pandemic, the fresh round of orders is designed to free up resources so state and local agencies can prepare for the onslaught of cases and potentially overwhelmed hospitals.

Security Scanners Across Europe Tied to China Government, Military

Associated Press reported:

At some of the world’s most sensitive spots, authorities have installed security screening devices made by a single Chinese company with deep ties to China’s military and the highest levels of the ruling Communist Party.

The World Economic Forum in Davos. Europe’s largest ports. Airports from Amsterdam to Athens. NATO’s borders with Russia. All depend on equipment manufactured by Nuctech, which has quickly become the world’s leading company, by revenue, for cargo and vehicle scanners.

A growing number of Western security officials and policymakers fear that China could exploit Nuctech equipment to sabotage key transit points or get illicit access to government, industrial or personal data from the items that pass through its devices.

Scoop: White House Eyes Vaccine Mandate for Migrants

Axios reported:

The White House is considering requiring migrants aged 5 and older to receive a coronavirus vaccination as a condition for crossing the U.S.-Mexico border to await court hearings, Axios has learned.

The Biden administration has been offering the COVID-19 vaccine to people in immigration detention centers or shelters but hasn’t yet offered it to other migrants who’ve crossed the border — much less required it.

If the proposal is green-lighted, contractors would begin providing vaccines to migrants attempting to cross the border illegally — or through legal ports of entry — before they’re allowed into the U.S.

AirTag Stalking: New Apple Device Involved in Suspicious Tracking Incidents Across the Country

Fox Business reported:

A handful of unsettling, individual stories are pointing to a larger problem with a relatively new Apple product called the AirTag.

Released in April 2021, the AirTag is a quarter-sized device that Apple describes on its website as “a super-easy way to keep track of your stuff.”

But AirTags have made headlines recently for another reason: Police departments across the country are warning their communities that criminal suspects may be using the devices to track other people — or their vehicles — in a trend dubbed “AirTag stalking.”

Coronavirus: Artificial Intelligence-Based X-Rays May Replace PCR Tests for Detecting COVID Infection

Times of India reported:

Scottish researchers have developed new Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology based X-rays that can likely replace currently used PCR tests for detecting COVID-19 infections.

The technology developed by experts at the University of the West of Scotland (UWS), is capable of accurately diagnosing COVID-19 in just a few minutes — far more quickly than a PCR test, which typically takes around 2 hours — and with 98% accuracy.

China Residents Rebel Against COVID Lockdown, Take to the Streets in Video

Newsweek reported:

Residents in northwest China succeeded in ending their month-long lockdown after a rare neighborhood protest forced a change in policy.

Now deleted footage that emerged on China’s main social media service, Weibo, showed dozens of people demonstrating inside a residential area in Xi’an’s Yanta district in Shaanxi province.

The indefinite lockdown was causing distress and affecting their livelihoods, the neighbors shouted. The protesters appeared to come to blows after police officers arrived to manage the crowd, with a number of residents apparently pinned to the ground.

Australia Wouldn’t Let Novak Djokovic in, but Backpackers Are Accepted With Open Arms

CNBC reported:

Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Wednesday announced Australia will refund visa fees for vaccinated backpackers who arrive within the next three months.

The country — whose tight, pandemic border policies locked out its citizens, and more recently, one of tennis’s biggest stars — is encouraging backpackers to visit.

And it’s doing so because it wants to reduce labor shortages that have been made worse by COVID-19.

The Senate Will Get Its Best Shot at Regulating Big Tech, and Apple, Google and Amazon Are Already Playing Defense

CNBC reported:

One of lawmakers’ best shots at passing transformative antitrust legislation on Big Tech will be within reach on Thursday.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to deliberate on the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, which some experts consider to have the most realistic chance of becoming law out of a broad slate of reforms, while creating major change in the industry. The committee schedule also lists a markup of the Open App Markets Act, another bipartisan competition bill.

Both bills would prevent certain dominant tech platforms from favoring their own products or services over others that rely on their marketplaces to do business.

Meta Researchers Build an Artificial Intelligence That Learns Equally Well From Visual, Written or Spoken Materials

TechCrunch reported:

Meta (AKA Facebook) researchers are working on something a little more versatile: an artificial intelligence (AI) that can learn capably on its own whether it does so in spoken, written, or visual materials.

The idea for Facebook/Meta’s latest research, the catchily named data2vec, was to build an AI framework that would learn in a more abstract way, meaning that starting from scratch, you could give it books to read or images to scan or speech to sound out, and after a bit of training it would learn any of those things.