Opt Out: How to Protect Your Baby’s Photos on the Internet
You’ve got the cutest baby ever, and you want the world to know it. But you’re also worried about what might happen to your baby’s picture once you release it into the nebulous world of the internet.
Should you post it?
“Everyone has had parents share embarrassing baby photos with friends. It’s a cringe-inducing rite of passage, but it’s different when that cringe is felt around the world and can never be deleted,” said Albert Fox Cahn, director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project.
I’ve described my own concerns about my newborn’s privacy in the past. Tech companies are not transparent about what they do with our data and our pictures.
They might use the photos to train their latest AI models. That’s enough for me to try to err on the safe side of the do-I-post-pictures-of-my-child spectrum. I only share pictures of him via text or with his face turned away. Other parents might be more concerned with, for example, online predators.
I reached out to a few experts to help you figure out what the best move might be for you, depending on what you’re most concerned about. They all said that the most powerful protection is, of course, abstinence. Just don’t post or digitally store your kids’ pictures, and you’re golden. Is that realistic on a day-to-day basis?
The experts agreed: no. We all have to reach a happy medium.
Resistance to Public Health, No Longer Fringe, Gains Foothold in G.O.P. Politics
Resistance to public health, relegated to the fringes of the American right and left before COVID-19 vaccine mandates became a cultural flashpoint and a symbol of government overreach, now has a firm foothold in Republican politics — and a chance to wield real power in Washington.
The merger of the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Donald J. Trump presidential campaigns has put the movement’s most prominent leader within reach of a White House job or federal health position.
Around the country, nearly 1,000 candidates, nearly all Republican, are seeking office with the backing of Stand for Health Freedom, a Florida nonprofit.
The movement even has a Trump-inspired slogan: Make America Healthy Again.
Is Childproofing the Internet Constitutional? A Tech Law Expert Draws out the Issues
Mounting pressure to regulate children’s use of technology in the U.S. raises the question:
Is childproofing the internet constitutional?
In response to significant political pressure stemming from alarming revelations about youth experience with digital technologies, a wave of state laws have recently passed across the U.S. They address a variety of online harms affecting children, ranging from exposure to pornography and risky content to manipulative design and social media access.
Most of the newly passed state laws have already been challenged, and those challenges are working their way up through the appeals process of the court system.
US Federal Government Websites Now Offering Face Recognition to Login
Login.gov, a secure sign-in and identity verification service for U.S. government services, has announced the rollout of facial recognition services to streamline access.
After months of testing and a delay in 2023, users will now be able to verify their identity using a “proven facial matching technology” approved by the General Services Administration, which will follow the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and will rely on “best-in-class facial matching algorithms.”
“Proving your identity is a critical step in receiving many government benefits and services, and we want to ensure we are making that as easy and secure as possible for members of the public, while protecting against identity theft and fraud,” said GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan.
Veridas Teases Major Facial Access Deployment at Major American Stadium
Spain’s Veridas is expanding in Europe and beyond, with movements in the biometric access control space and voice biometrics.
Recent LinkedIn posts from the company note that it provided access control for the recent SportsPro AI event at London Stadium using its Veridas Flow facial access system, and tease a deployment of 300 units of Flow at “one of the largest football stadiums in America.”
Veridas CEO Eduardo Azanza says the stadium “will be the world’s first venue to feature a complete facial access solution, transforming the fan experience forever.” (He does not specify if the football in question is American or European football.)
Veridas says its Flow technology can process 60 facial access entries per minute and has facilitated over 50 million access transactions in 2024 alone.
Its current European expansion has seen the appointments of Marco Gouw and Arianna Valente to focus on its customers in the BENELUX (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg), DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) and Italian markets.
DOJ Reveals Its Plan for Breaking up Google’s Search Monopoly
The Department of Justice has laid out its broad-strokes plan for ending Google’s monopoly over internet search after winning its antitrust case against the company in August.
The sweeping changes could end Google’s position as the default search engine on billions of devices and require the company to share key information about its search algorithms with competitors.
The regulators’ proposals, laid out Tuesday in a filing with the D.C. federal court where the antitrust case was heard, are aimed not only at rectifying Google’s past anti-competitive practices but also at preventing it from unfairly dominating emerging technologies, particularly internet searches enabled by generative AI tools.
ChatGPT Can Recognize ‘Facial Identities,’ Perform Age Estimation: Research
The large language model (LLM) ChatGPT “recognizes facial identities and differentiates between two facial images with considerable accuracy,” according to a newly released study exploring the potential in applying LLMs to “biometric tasks.”
The paper, “Chatgpt and Biometrics: an Assessment of Face Recognition, Gender Detection, and Age Estimation Capabilities” delivers on its title.
“While the applications of LLMs, such as ChatGPT, have been studied for different tasks, their capabilities for biometrics have not been explored,” it reads.
The research team of academics from Idiap Research Institute, Mizani Research Institute and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) says ChatGPT “avoids answering questions regarding sensitive information (e.g., privacy-related) because of safeguards.
Along the same lines and since biometric data are considered as privacy-sensitive information, ChatGPT does not provide direct answers to prompts regarding biometric information.”
Europe Outlines Plans for EU Digital Travel App as Concerns Over EES Rise
The era of digital passports may be drawing closer in the European Union.
The bloc has proposed a new EU Digital Travel app and a common framework for the use of digital travel credentials, which are set to speed up border controls for everyone traveling in the Schengen area.
European authorities are hoping that the EU Digital Travel app could help alleviate some of the concerns over the introduction of the EU’s Entry-Exit System (EES).
The digital travel scheme is scheduled to launch in November.
However, widespread worries over long queues at borders and lack of preparation have prompted some European states to ask for a delay.
With the EU Digital Travel app, third-country nationals will be able to create a digital passport, pre-register some of their information and check their travel documents before arriving at the border.
The EES will require non-EU citizens to submit biographic information, fingerprint and face biometrics on their first crossing of Schengen borders.
The European Commission is yet to publish the timeline for the launch of the digital document.
