Wednesday, November 18, 2020

Security fines like GDPR fines? Fine by me!

https://www.databreaches.net/trudeau-privacy-law-to-level-stiff-fines-for-digital-breaches/

Trudeau Privacy Law to Level Stiff Fines for Digital Breaches

Kait Bolongaro reports:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government unveiled a remake of Canadian privacy laws to strengthen user rights in the digital world.
Under legislation introduced Tuesday in Ottawa, companies that commit the most serious offenses would be hit with fines worth as much as 5% of revenue or C$25 million ($19 million), whichever is higher. The government said these penalties would be the strongest among the Group of Seven.

Read more on Bloomberg.





How important are good backups? Consider...

https://www.databreaches.net/nc-alamance-skin-center-breach-left-patient-data-totally-unrecoverable/

NC: Alamance Skin Center breach left patient data totally unrecoverable

Alamance Skin Center recently reported a HIPAA breach to HHS as being a “Loss” incident with data in EMR. But previous media coverage provided an even more dire understanding of the incident.

On November 4, Triad Business Journal reported that the medical practice, part of Cone Health, had been the victim of a ransomware attack. The attackers reportedly gained a foothold via a phishing attack. The type of ransomware was not reported.

According to Cone Health, “a thorough forensic investigation concluded that no patient information was taken in the attack. However, patient data at the practice is unrecoverable.”

Alamance notified HHS that 100,000 patients were impacted by the incident.

Alamance’s notification  on their web site follows, in part. It explains that the ransomware attack was in late July, but it was on October 21 that they discovered that data were unrecoverable. They do not mention whether they had any backup or if so, how recent it might be.

Read more on their web site.





Can I scrape the Internet for articles I point to from my blog?

https://slate.com/technology/2020/11/clearview-ai-first-amendment-illinois-lawsuit.html

Clearview AI’s First Amendment Theory Threatens Privacy—and Free Speech, Too

What could be one of the most consequential First Amendment cases of the digital age is pending before a court in Illinois and will likely be argued before the end of the year. The case concerns Clearview AI, the technology company that surreptitiously scraped 3 billion images from the internet to feed a facial recognition app it sold to law enforcement agencies. Now confronting multiple lawsuits based on an Illinois privacy law, the company has retained Floyd Abrams, the prominent First Amendment litigator, to argue that its business activities are constitutionally protected. Landing Abrams was a coup for Clearview, but whether anyone else should be celebrating is less clear. A First Amendment that shielded Clearview and other technology companies from reasonable privacy regulation would be bad for privacy, obviously, but it would be bad for free speech, too.

The people who’ve sued Clearview contend that the company is violating an Illinois privacy law that regulates the collection, use, and dissemination of biometric information. The company argues in defense that its business practices involve the kinds of activities that the First Amendment has been held to protect in the past—collecting publicly available information, analyzing it, and sharing the conclusions of that analysis. In a brief filed in October, it likened its app to a search engine and contended that its judgment about “what information will be most useful to users” is an “editorial” judgment akin to those made by newspapers.



(Related)

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/briannasacks/lapd-banned-commercial-facial-recognition-clearview?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4

Los Angeles Police Just Banned The Use Of Commercial Facial Recognition

The LAPD, the third-largest police department in the United States, issued a moratorium on the use of third-party facial recognition software on Nov. 13, after it was told that documents seen by BuzzFeed News showed more than 25 LAPD employees had performed nearly 475 searches using Clearview AI as of earlier this year. Department officials have made conflicting statements in the past about their use of facial recognition technology, including claims that they deploy it sparingly.





Perspective.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mind-brain-and-value/202011/how-should-we-think-about-the-ethics-artificial-intelligence

How Should We Think about the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence?

Fiona McEvoy on the role of regulation, ethics, and consumer vigilance.

New and emerging tech products are now embedded in almost every industry, so the ethical challenges of technologies like AI aren’t limited to the sector that develops them. They should concern “user industries” too. Fundamentally, it’s this incredible penetration of tech that has given rise to concerns about ethics and societal consequences.





More ‘virtual tours’ for the self-isolating.

https://www.makeuseof.com/visit-cultural-sites-search-google/

Google Now Lets You Virtually Visit 100 Cultural Sites in Search

The company announced on The Keyword that it is adding a new feature coming to search that makes it so you can virtually explore over 100 important cultural sites worldwide without hopping on a plane.

To get access to this feature, you must search in English for information about one of the supported locations. While browsing the wealth of information offered by Google, you can click on the "About" section to see a link to the virtual tour.

Google announced that it has more than 100 cultural locations you can visit through Search. Unfortunately, the company didn't release a full list of places, so you'll have to do some experimenting to see if the places you're curious about are supported.

The company's blog post did announce and link to some locations you can visit, though. For example, you can get tours of the Palace of Versailles in France, the Palace Museum in China, Sicily's Valley of the Temples, Mount Haguro in Japan, the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in the US, and Brazil's Museu Nacional de Belas Artes.



(Related) If you need a reason to stay home...

https://thenextweb.com/plugged/2020/11/18/google-maps-will-now-display-number-of-covid-19-cases-in-an-area/

Google Maps will now display number of COVID-19 cases in an area

Google Maps is rolling out new information related to COVID-19 in a particular area. The app will now display the total number of cases and deaths till now and a 7-day trend indicating if the numbers are going up or down. Plus, you’ll also get to access local guidelines, restrictions, and information related to testing centers.

rolling out to Android and iOS Maps users globally in the coming weeks.



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