Apparently,
every state is already doing this. (Note to students: You can get
SAS software FREE.)
Joe
Cadillic excerpts reports by Government
Technology and MtAiryNews:
The Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) is using data
analysis to identify children and families most at risk, and thus
inform how time and money is allocated. When the DCF started this
project two years ago, the goal was to see fewer dead children —
and that’s what the department says is happening while spying
on children & families.
The SAS report
helped DCF identify what the highest-risk children looked like on
paper, creating a detailed profile. “We needed to understand a lot
more of the common factors
in those cases,” Carroll said, “and we needed to be able to take
that information and refine what we were doing from a case practice
standpoint to see if we couldn’t intervene in a more effective way
to prevent some of those child deaths.”
Florida is one of 50 states
[So, all of
them? Bob] conducting the Behavioral
Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) with financial and
technical assistance from the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC).
Read
more on MassPrivateI..
(Related)
Did anyone ask why they started doing this? Was anyone in charge?
Anyone?
It’s
been an issue in Minnesota for years, but now WTHR alerts the public
that Indiana also stores newborns’ blood and DNA without parental
consent. Bob Segall reports:
As word of an Eyewitness News investigation spreads through Holliday
Park, parents admit they are surprised.
“You’re kidding, right? I had no idea,” said Ramon Moore,
playing catch with his 7-year-old son, Xavier.
“I didn’t know that at all,” agreed Holly Ruth, holding her
3-month old son, Lincoln.
“Nobody ever told me,” echoed Mallory Ervin, chasing her
4-year-old son, Theo, on the playground.
Xavier, Lincoln, Theo and millions of other Indiana children all have
something in common: the state of Indiana is storing their blood and
DNA in an undisclosed state warehouse.
“I’m curious why they didn’t share that,” said Ervin. “It
now makes me think ‘what are they hiding?’ As a parent, I’d
absolutely like to know.”
13 Investigates has discovered the Indiana State Department of Health
is holding the blood samples of more than 2.25 million Hoosier
children – without their parents’ permission. If your children
were born in Indiana since 1991, chances are their blood and DNA is
among the state’s massive collection.
Following WTHR’s investigation, state
health officials are now seeking input on what to do with the blood
samples after admitting they don’t have the consent needed to use
them for anything.
Read
more on WTHR.
(Related)
When your hammer is substance abuse, every patient looks like a
nail? If the doctors tell you they need this information to treat
your broken leg, would you be in a position to refuse to answer?
CBS
reports:
Massachusetts General Hospital plans to begin questioning all
patients about their use of alcohol and illegal drugs starting this
fall, even if they are at
MGH for a totally unrelated issue.
Dr. Sarah Wakeman, director
of substance abuse disorders at Mass. General, told WBZ
NewsRadio 1030’s Carl Stevens the
purpose is to make substance abuse treatment part of mainstream
medical care.
Read
more on CBS.
Students:
Should we start a Surveillance degree or just a specialization under
Criminal Justice and Homeland Security?
From
Public Intelligence:
The following presentation was produced by an Ohio-based company
called Persistent Surveillance Systems that produces systems for wide
area surveillance of large sections of a city for law enforcement
purposes. The company has been the focus of numerous media reports
over the last few months, including a long
profile in the Washington Post and a recent
video piece produced by PBS and the Center for Investigative
Reporting. Despite several pieces about the company, no outlet
has provided the public with access to the promotional materials that
the company is providing to journalists.
Public
Intelligence has made the materials available for download
on their site (pdf).
(Related)
I wonder what happens if you refuse?
Jon
Cassidy reports:
The Texas Department of Public Safety has quietly embarked on a
project to take
the fingerprints of every Texan old enough to drive over the next
12 years, and add them to a statewide criminal history database.
Not only has the department made that momentous decision on its own,
it doesn’t even have clear
legal authority to do so.
Read
more on Watchdog.org.
[From
the Dallas News article:
Quietly,
earlier this year, the Texas Department of Public Safety began
requiring full sets of fingerprints from everyone who obtains a new
driver’s license or photo identification card. This applies to
those who come in as required for periodic renewals, but
it doesn’t apply to mail-in renewals.
…
Previously, DPS took only a thumbprint.
“We
know where you are, we know what you search for, we know what you
buy. What makes you think we don't know everything?”
Erin
McCann writes:
Sure, HIPAA adds a layer of privacy protection for certain health
data — if organizations actually comply with it — but there
remains myriad avenues of mining health data and selling to the
highest bidder that do not fall under the purview of HIPAA’s
privacy and security rules. And they may surprise you.
Anything from what health
data one Googles, to what medical products you purchase through
online retailers are fair game for data brokers. What’s
more, these companies are not liable under HIPAA and are able,
without an individual’s consent, to track and collect health data
for various purposes, says a new July report from the California
Healthcare Foundation.
Often unknown by consumers, data elements including Googling for
health data; using medical-related social networks; purchasing health
products through online retailers; entering retail store preferences
and locations into smartphones; or even buying any item related to
health like fast food and cigarettes, can all be tracked.
Read
more on HealthcareITNews.
I'm
shocked, shocked I tell you!
Global
Survey: Widespread Opposition to US Communications Surveillance,
Drones
by
Sabrina I.
Pacifici on Jul 16, 2014
“A
new
survey from Pew Research finds
overwhelming opposition to the US monitoring of emails and phone
calls. There appears to be little variation by region or culture,
with high levels of opposition found in countries in Europe, South
America, Asia, and the Middle East. According to the survey “Global
Opinions of U.S. Surveillance,” the four countries that believe US
surveillance is acceptable are the United States, the Philippines,
India, and Nigeria. A related
Pew Survey found widespread
opposition to drone strikes. For more information, see EPIC:
Public Opinion on Privacy.”
Not
sure it's “excellent,” but may be worth looking at.
Parker
Higgins and Katitza Rodriguez write:
The UN High Commissioner on Human Rights has released an excellent
report today on the
right to privacy in the digital age, blasting the digital mass
surveillance that has been taking place, unchecked, by the U.S., the
U.K, and other world governments. The report is issued in response
to a resolution passed with
unanimous approval by the United Nations General Assembly in
November 2013. That resolution was introduced by Brazil and Germany
and sponsored by more than 50 member states.
Read
more on EFF.
Another
case of poor reporting? The “double-blind” reported here must be
missing something. Unless Nielsen has access to the mobile devices
Facebook will have to pull the name of the show and assign it a
number on their servers. If Nielsen has access to the mobile
devices, why do they need Facebook?
Facebook,
Nielsen will soon track your TV habits on tablets, smartphones
Attempting
to get a better grasp on how many television shows consumers are
watching on mobile
devices, the Nielsen company is partnering up with Facebook in order
to track television viewing habits of U.S. consumers. According to
representatives of the social network, if you have logged into
Facebook on a mobile device, Facebook
has the ability to pull data about what the user is watching on the
device assuming the user hasn’t specially opted out of
tracking. Detailed by the Los
Angeles Times, the tracking collaboration
should kick off as the Fall 2014 television season goes into full
swing.
While
privacy advocates aren’t thrilled at this collaboration, the two
companies are keeping the data anonymous be using a double-blind
study. Basically, Nielsen
assigns numbers to the names of television shows
and supplies those to Facebook. Facebook isn’t aware of which
numbers correspond to which shows. In return, Facebook returns an
aggregate of the age and gender of all Facebook users that watched a
specific television show.
“Ready!
Fire! Aim!” Perhaps they didn't think this through.
EU
Invites Google, Microsoft to Discuss 'Right to Be Forgotten'
European
Union privacy watchdogs plan to raise concerns about the
implementation by Google
Inc. of the bloc's new "right to be forgotten" rule at a
meeting with search engines next week, EU privacy officials said
Thursday, raising the specter of a conflict over the implementation
of the controversial court decision.
The
main body grouping and the EU's 28 national privacy regulators have
invited Google, Microsoft
Corp. and Yahoo Inc. to a
meeting next Thursday in Brussels to discuss the surprise
May ruling that gives individuals the right to request the
removal of information about them from search results, the officials
said.
Microsoft
confirmed that it plans to attend the meeting. Google and Yahoo have
said they plan to cooperate with privacy officials, but declined
Thursday to comment on any specific meetings.
The
ruling has already become a battleground in the war over where to
draw the line between freedom of speech and the right to online
privacy in an era of instant access to data.
…
One flash point is Google's
refusal to remove name-search results from its main Google.com search
engine. It prefers to make a narrower
removal of name searches in the European versions of its search
engine, such as google.fr or google.co.uk. That position has
already raised hackles with regulators in Germany and elsewhere,
privacy officials have said.
The
value of “Big Data” comes only with analysis.
Pratt
& Whitney Taps IBM to Capture Value of Big Data to Improve
Aircraft Engine Performance
…
"Today's aircraft engines can generate up
to a half terabyte of data per flight. This data deluge
can be made into a critical resource if coupled with predictive
analytics, creating a valuable asset for early warning or fault
detection and improved visibility in to the overall health of
aircraft engines," said Alistair Rennie, general manager,
Business Analytics, IBM. "By applying real time analytics to
structured and unstructured data streams generated by aircraft
engines, we can find insights and enable proactive communication and
guidance to Pratt & Whitney's services network and customers."
This
could be cool.
Amazon
appears to be testing an unlimited Kindle ebook subscription
Amazon.com
appears to be testing a new subscription model that would give
members all-you-can-read access to more than 600,000 ebooks for $9.99
a month.
The
Kindle Unlimited program was first spotted by eagle-eyed users over
at a Kindle forum.
Most details have since been removed from Amazon's website, although
a cached version can be viewed here.
…
The bulk of titles appeared to be from smaller publishers.
…
The program also appears to include access to thousands of
audiobooks.
…
Kindle Unlimited would compete with similar offerings from digital
libraries Oyster and Scribd. Oyster offers unlimited access to more
than 500,000 books for $9.95 a month. Scribd users, meanwhile, can
read unlimited books for $8.99 a month.
For
my iStudents...
The
Best iPhone OCR Apps Tested
For
those of us dedicated to going
paperless, the ability to scan documents and have the text
recognized and converted to text is an essential time saver.
There
are many iOS
apps that scan and manage documents, but apps with optical
character recognition (OCR) are a little more difficult discern for
their features and effectiveness.
CamScanner+
($4.99, free
version)
PDFpen
Scan+ ($6.99)
Pixter
Scanner OCR ($2.99)
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