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The TSA Plans Big Digital ID Push in 2024
The U.S.’s leading transportation security organization, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), is taking significant steps toward a more digital future. And, of course, that means more surveillance and tracking. The plan is that, by the end of 2024, many of their operational objectives will encompass a digital identity component, a move that suggests an enduring commitment towards streamlining traveler experiences with technology, even though it undermines privacy.
In a four-part action plan released by the TSA, the agency plans to extend its mobile driver’s license initiative and more widely utilize facial recognition technology in airports. This includes up-scaling their current pilot program testing digital identities and mobile licenses — used at TSA checkpoints — to at least nine states. It follows a previous announcement in May that disclosed the TSA’s examination of the potential for digital license and ID implementations across 25 domestic airports.
Parallel with these digital ID efforts, the TSA also commits to amplifying the utilization of facial identification systems under their PreCheck service, a program aimed at preemptively assessing threats and facilitating a quicker airport security process for enrolled travelers. The service is somewhat controversial as it allows the agency deeper access to data and information about an individual and their lives — some of which go beyond what travelers believe they have access to.
The aim is to double the number of airports equipped with this technology, slated to increase from five in the past year to ten by the end of this year. Similarly, the number of airlines engaging with PreCheck is set to grow from two to three.
‘The Tide Has Turned’: Why Parents Are Suing U.S. Social Media Firms After Their Children’s Death
The night of June 23, 2020, passed by like any other for 16-year-old Carson Bride. The teen had just gotten a new job at a pizza restaurant, his mother, Kristin Bride, said, and the family had been celebrating at home in Lake Oswego, Oregon. He wrote his future work schedule on the kitchen calendar after dinner, said goodnight, and went to his room for bed. But the next morning, Kristin says, the family woke to “complete shock and horror”: Carson had died by suicide.
Kristin soon discovered that in the days leading up to his death, her son had received hundreds of harassing messages on Yolo — a third-party app that at the time was integrated into Snapchat and allowed users to communicate anonymously. Search history on Carson’s phone revealed some of his final hours online were spent desperately researching how to find who was behind the harassment and how to put an end to it.
After Carson’s death and the harassment Kristen says contributed to it, the mother tried to take action to prevent such tragedy from striking again — but found herself running into walls. She says she contacted Yolo four times only to be ignored until receiving a single automated response email. She filed charges against Snapchat and the two anonymous messaging apps it hosted in May 2021, in a suit that is partially ongoing. Days after the suit was filed, Snapchat removed Yolo and LMK, the other app, from the platform, and a year later the company banned all apps with anonymous messaging features.
Kristin Bride’s lawsuit is one of hundreds filed in the U.S. against social media firms in the past two years by family members of children who have been affected by online harms. Lawyers and experts expect that number to increase in the coming year as legal strategies to fight the companies evolve and cases gain momentum.
States Get Serious About Limiting Kids’ Social Media Exposure
An increasing number of states are moving to require social media companies to create child-safe versions of their sites as Washington struggles with how to shield kids.
The states are moving because they believe social media is contributing to increasing rates of mental illness among children, and because Congress hasn’t. There’s bipartisan support on Capitol Hill to do more, but lawmakers there can’t agree on whether a national privacy standard should override state laws.
Pressure to act is rising. In 2021, more than 40 percent of high school students felt so sad or hopeless over a two-week period that they stopped keeping up with their regular pastimes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent Youth Risk Behavior Survey. The survey also said that 30% of teen girls seriously considered suicide, up from 19 percent 10 years ago.
Experts are concerned that social media companies are contributing to the problem — and profiting from it.
Rand Paul Says Fauci Should ‘Go to Prison’ Over COVID ‘Dishonesty’
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said that the former U.S. chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, should “go to prison” over his “dishonesty” in handling the COVID-19 pandemic and lying to Congress.
“For his dishonesty, frankly, he should go to prison,” Paul said during a Sunday interview with radio host John Catsimatidis on “The Cats Roundtable” on WABC 770 AM. “If you lie to Congress, and you’re dishonest, and you won’t accept responsibility. For his mistake in judgment, he should just be pilloried. He should never be accepted.”
He added, “History should judge him as a deficient person who made one of the worst decisions in public health history — in the entire history of the world.”
The Kentucky Republican, who believes the virus came from a lab in China, accused Fauci of directly contributing to the deaths of “somewhere between 10 and 20 million” with his decision to “fund dangerous research — gain-of-function research, where you allow viruses to be combined.”
A Facial-Recognition Tour of New York
We’re being watched. But when, and by whom? Kashmir Hill, the author of the new book “Your Face Belongs to Us,” took a walk around midtown the other day, to check out a few businesses that routinely capture visitors’ biometric data. She wore a red coat and white boots, and her hair was a faded purple.
First up: Macy’s Herald Square. “Let’s see if Macy’s is still collecting face-recognition data,” she said. Businesses that do so are required by city law to post signs alerting visitors. She’d noticed, earlier, that the store’s signs were “very affixed to their walls.” One in an entrance vestibule, below an inflatable reindeer, stated that Macy’s “collects, retains, converts, stores, or shares customers’ biometric identifier information.”
Macy’s has used Clearview AI, one of the subjects of Hill’s book. (Popular Google searches involving the firm include “Is Clearview AI banned in the U.S.?,” “Does Clearview AI have my photo?” “Does the F.B.I. use Clearview AI?”) A 2020 data breach at Clearview, which was founded, in 2017, by two men who met at the Manhattan Institute, helped reveal that Madison Square Garden and thousands of law-enforcement agencies had used the technology, too.
Hill’s next stop was the Moynihan Train Hall, in Penn Station. On the way, she noticed an N.Y.P.D. security camera on a street-light pole. “There are some things we allow businesses and companies to do that we’re pretty uncomfortable seeing government actors do,” she said. “If the government scraped all our photos and created this massive face-recognition database, we’d probably say that seems unconstitutional. But a private company does it and the government just buys from them.”
Meta’s Latest Attempt to Spy on Your Online Behaviors
Meta‘s newest tool makes it very easy for the company to track you. The social media giant recently introduced a new feature called Link History to the Facebook app for iPhone and Android. Facebook’s parent company claims the setting is a tool for users to keep all of their browser history in one spot. However, is there more than meets the eye? Facebook’s latest feature raises plenty of privacy concerns and worries about Meta’s information collection.
Link History is a list of websites you’ve visited on Facebook Mobile Browser within the last 30 days. Meta’s Link History setting collects the links you’ve clicked on within the Facebook app. This is limited to links you accessed within Facebook’s browser, which automatically pops up when you click on a link within the Facebook app. You can then view all the links you’ve clicked on and then revisit those links, which will reopen in Facebook’s browser.
Mark Zuckerberg’s $47 Billion Metaverse Bet Will Take at Least a Decade to Be ‘Fully Realized,’ Says Meta Exec
Meta is still investing “significantly” in the metaverse despite losses of nearly $50 billion, according to an executive.
The head of Meta‘s global business group, Nicola Mendelsohn, said it will take a “good decade” to reach the company’s “fully realized vision.”
She made the comments in a panel session at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday, adding that Meta was investing in both AI, as well as hardware, for the metaverse.
The tech giant has lost a cumulative $47 billion in its Reality Labs division since 2019, a previous Business Insider analysis of regulatory filings found. The division contains Meta’s VR and metaverse operations.
COVID Mask Mandate Reinstated at National Park
A mask mandate has been reinstated at Sandy Hook National Park following an uptick in COVID hospitalizations in the area.
Visitors will be required to wear a mask inside buildings at the New Jersey national park. Masks are mandatory in the Sandy Hook Visitors Center as well as any other building where events or tours are held.
The decision to reinstate the mask mandate was made after the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported that COVID hospital admissions were considered high in Monmouth County, where the park is located, and neighboring Ocean County. According to CDC data from the week ending January 6, Monmouth County and Ocean County have each seen 250 new hospital admissions of confirmed COVID cases.
As COVID cases rise, some New Jersey locations are requiring people to wear masks again. Besides Sandy Hook National Park, major hospitals in the state have reinstated mask mandates as respiratory illnesses, including COVID, the flu, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are on the rise.
Transportation Department’s Vaccine Mandates Were ‘Unique, Aggressive’
A 2021 memo obtained by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms says Canada’s Transportation Department called its own vaccination mandate “aggressive” and “unique in the world,” reports Blacklock’s Reporter. This goes against the department’s public claims that the mandate just “followed the recommendations of public health experts.”
At the time, the cabinet claimed its mandate was recommended by scientists, but Canada’s Public Health Agency never recommended vaccine mandates.
The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms called the mandates unlawful but the Federal Court of Appeal on Nov. 9, 2023, dismissed the challenge since the mandates expired in 2022.
However, the Centre said in a statement: “The federal government can impose these same travel restrictions on Canadians again without notice.”
