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Roe v. Wade Overturned: Here’s How Tech Companies and Internet Users Can Protect Privacy
The Supreme Court’s decision on Friday to roll back the right to receive an abortion raises new questions about whether and how tech companies should protect the information of users seeking reproductive healthcare.
Tech companies may have to contend with issues about user privacy related to such healthcare whether they want to or not. That could be the case if they are ordered by a court to hand over certain types of data, like location information of users at an abortion clinic, search histories or text messages.
The official decision puts online platforms in a tricky spot. Though major tech companies have spoken out on political issues that align with their values, including advocating for certain types of privacy laws and for immigration reforms that would protect their workforce, wading into an issue as controversial as abortion rights can come with significant backlash from both sides of the debate.
Former Employees Suing Mayo Clinic Over COVID Vaccine Mandate Terminations
More than two dozen former employees have brought lawsuits against Mayo Clinic and related entities alleging they were wrongly terminated after the clinic did not grant them religious exemptions to a policy mandating COVID-19 vaccination.
Nine lawsuits against Mayo, listing a total of 27 plaintiffs, have been filed in the U.S. District Court of Minnesota in May and June.
Former workers say the clinic failed to undertake an individual and interactive process for evaluating their requests for religious exemptions.
The clinic “put itself in the position of deciding the sincerity of the religious belief of the plaintiffs and whether a belief was ‘religious’ or not,” says the first of the lawsuits, which was filed by Sherry Ihde, a supervisor in the bacteriology lab who worked at Mayo for 23 years.
Twitter Suspends Doctor for Sharing Study That Shows Pfizer Vaccine Impacts Semen
Twitter has suspended a doctor for sharing the study that shows men who received Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine had lower levels of semen and a loss in motile sperm count.
Dr. Andrew Bostom, with the Brown University Center For Primary Care and Prevention, shared the peer-reviewed study on June 19.
Twitter informed Bostom that the missive violated its policy against “spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19, according to a message reviewed by The Epoch Times. It suspended Bostom’s account over the post.
Bostom’s post included a link to the Israeli study, which analyzed semen and sperm in men who received two doses, or a primary series, of Pfizer’s vaccine.
Special Olympics to Apologize to Athletes for COVID Vaccine Mandate, DeSantis Says
The Florida Department of Health has dropped its threatened $27.5 million fine against Special Olympics International over the charity’s “unlawful” vaccine mandate for the recent USA Games in Orlando, although Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday the organization will apologize to athletes who missed out because of the rule and pay for their lodging and travel to a Special Olympics Florida event in the fall.
After receiving notice of the fine, the international organization rescinded its mandate three days before its USA Games opening ceremony on June 5. But the reversal came too late for some eligible athletes to attend.
The governor’s announcement said Special Olympics International will “financially sponsor” an unknown number of affected athletes by covering uniforms, lodging and travel to October’s All-Star Champions Showcase and 50th Anniversary Games, hosted by Special Olympics Florida.
Doctors’ Group Urges Biden Administration to End Quarantine, Vaccine Recommendations for Children
A group of doctors is urging top government officials to quickly reverse recommendations that have left children in isolation for days and advice that virtually every child get a COVID-19 vaccine.
“We strongly urge you to revise the CDC’s COVID-19 guidelines with regards to testing, isolation and vaccine recommendations for children to ensure that public health policies are not doing more harm than good,” the group, Urgency of Normal, wrote in a June 21 open letter to Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House’s COVID-19 response coordinator, and Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The doctors noted that many European countries, U.S. states and other areas have updated COVID-19 policies to greatly reduce periods of quarantine, COVID-19 testing frequency and forced vaccination.
The CDC should also change its vaccine recommendations, which have led to vaccination mandates at colleges and even some lower-level schools, to state that children getting a vaccine should be discussed between the individual and their doctor.
State Dept. to Pay 6-Figure Sums to Havana Syndrome Victims
The State Department is preparing to compensate victims of mysterious brain injuries colloquially known as “Havana Syndrome” with six-figure payments, according to officials and a congressional aide.
Current and former State Department staff and their families who suffered from “qualifying injuries” since cases were first reported among U.S. embassy personnel in Cuba in 2016 will receive payments of between roughly $100,000 and $200,000 each, the officials and an aide said.
Despite nearly six years of investigation, scientists, physicians and government officials have been unable to determine the cause of the injuries, which some have speculated are the result of microwave or other types of attack from a foreign power. Russia is most often accused of being behind the alleged attacks, although there has been no evidence to back up such claims.
The mysterious injuries first began to be reported among U.S. embassy staff in Havana, Cuba, in late 2016 and have since spread to nearly 70 countries on all continents except Antarctica. The number of reports has tapered off dramatically since the beginning of this year.
Queensland Drops COVID Vaccine Mandates for Teachers, With NSW to Follow
Queensland has joined Victoria in removing COVID vaccine mandates for public school teachers for term three, with New South Wales on track to do the same.
On Friday, Queensland’s premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, revealed that from next Thursday, residents of the state would no longer require COVID vaccinations to work in schools, childcare, prisons and airports or to visit jails, aged care and disability facilities.
However, Palaszczuk said individual employers would still be allowed to continue mandates in schools, daycare, prisons and airports.
She said mandates would remain in force for workers in healthcare, hospital, aged care and disability care facilities. Under the proposed policy, schools would be able to re-engage unvaccinated casuals, and unvaccinated staff who resigned or were dismissed can apply for advertised positions.
Pentagon Unveils Plan to Make ‘Responsible Military AI’ More Than Just a Buzzword
The Pentagon’s marching forward with AI weapons of war… responsibly.
This week, the Department of Defense released a lengthy 47-page document outlining the military’s plan to implement its responsible artificial intelligence principles, which basically seeks to integrate AI in the military without turning the world into a Terminator-Esque hellscape.
Though the DoD first outlined its ethical AI goals in 2020, this week’s Responsible Pathway to AI Development and Acceleration document details systematic ways the department plans to realize those claims and elevate them beyond mere wishful thinking.
In the document, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks defended the military’s pursuit of AI technology, claiming U.S. adversaries have increased their AI investment in ways that “threaten global security, peace and stability.” The Pentagon wants to respond to that “threat” by ramping up investment at home.
Apple and Android Phones Hacked by Italian Spyware, Says Google
An Italian company’s hacking tools were used to spy on Apple and Android smartphones in Italy and Kazakhstan, Alphabet Inc.’s Google said in a new report.
Milan-based RCS Lab, whose website claims European law enforcement agencies as clients, developed tools to spy on private messages and contacts of the targeted devices, the report said.
European and American regulators have been weighing potential new rules over the sale and import of spyware.
“These vendors are enabling the proliferation of dangerous hacking tools and arming governments that would not be able to develop these capabilities in-house,” Google said.
Exclusive: Privacy Experts Warn the End of Cookie Consent Pop-Ups Will Come at a Cost
Multiple data privacy advocates have criticized plans in the U.K. to replace cookie consent pop-ups with an “opt-out model”, which they believe will do more damage than good.
In an email exchange with TechRadar Pro, Jon Callas of the Electronic Frontier Foundation described the plans as inherently flawed. “A good privacy regime needs to revolve around opting-in, rather than opting out,” he said. “The responsible thing is to ask, to get permission from someone before they are surveilled.”
These concerns were echoed by a spokesperson from privacy software company Brave, who acknowledged that the current system needs reform, but warned the new proposals will remove an important safety net. “This may lead to users being opted-in to privacy-eroding practices. We believe the proposals are likely to lead to more tracking and privacy harms, not less,” they told us.
Of Course, T-Mobile Is Being Shady With Your App Downloads and Browsing History
In yet another example of T-Mobile being The Worst with its customer’s data, the company announced a new money-making scheme this week: selling its customers’ app download data and web browsing history to advertisers.
According to AdExchanger, which first reported news of the announcement from the Cannes Festival, the new product will let marketers track and target T-Mobile customers based on the apps they’ve downloaded and their “engagement patterns” — meaning when or how often they open and close particular apps.
These same “patterns” also include the types of domains a person visits in their mobile web browser. All of this data gets bundled up into what the company calls “personas,” which let marketers micro target someone by their phone habits.
