Have you been near a crime scene at the time the crime occurred? Were you smart enough to use someone else’s smartphone?
https://www.bespacific.com/google-says-geofence-warrants-make-up-one-quarter-of-all-us-demands/
Google says geofence warrants make up one-quarter of all US demands
TechCrunch: “For the first time, Google has published the number of geofence warrants it’s historically received from U.S. authorities, providing a rare glimpse into how frequently these controversial warrants are issued. The figures, published Thursday [August 19, 2021], reveal that Google has received thousands of geofence warrants each quarter since 2018, and at times accounted for about one-quarter of all U.S. warrants that Google receives. The data shows that the vast majority of geofence warrants are obtained by local and state authorities, with federal law enforcement accounting for just 4% of all geofence warrants served on the technology giant. According to the data, Google received 982 geofence warrants in 2018, 8,396 in 2019 and 11,554 in 2020. But the figures only provide a small glimpse into the volume of warrants received and did not break down how often it pushes back on overly broad requests. When reached, Google spokesperson Alex Krasov said in a statement: “We vigorously protect the privacy of our users while supporting the important work of law enforcement. We developed a process specifically for these requests that is designed to honor our legal obligations while narrowing the scope of data disclosed.” Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), which led efforts by dozens of civil rights groups to lobby for the release of these numbers, commended Google for releasing the numbers. “Geofence warrants are unconstitutionally broad and invasive, and we look forward to the day they are outlawed completely.” said Cahn…”
Things seems to move faster when you don’t need to worry about politicians arguing…
China passes new personal data privacy law, to take effect Nov. 1
China's National People's Congress on Friday passed a law designed to protect online user data privacy and will implement the policy from Nov. 1, according to state media outlet Xinhua.
The law's passage completes another pillar in the country's efforts to regulate cyberspace and is expected to add more compliance requirements for companies in the country.
… The law states that handling of personal information must have clear and reasonable purpose and shall be limited to the "minimum scope necessary to achieve the goals of handling" data.
… The Personal Information Protection Law, along with the Data Security Law, mark two major regulations set to govern China's internet in the future.
The Data Security law, to be implemented on Sept. 1, sets a framework for companies to classify data based on its economic value and relevance to China's national security.
Anti-social media?
Facebook unveils tools to help Afghan people fearful of Taliban violence
Facebook said Thursday it is rolling out new user controls for people in Afghanistan who are rushing to delete their digital footprints for fears that their phones or computers may be seized by the Taliban and reveal links to people from Western nations, international civil society groups, the Afghan military or the recently collapsed Afghan government.
WhatsApp, a popular messaging app in Afghanistan that the Taliban have used in recent days to spread the word of their siege of Kabul on Sunday, is also owned by Facebook.
Among the new security features Facebook has released for Afghan users is a one-click tool that allows people to quickly lock their accounts, which prevents people who aren’t already friends with the users from downloading their profile picture or seeing their posts, according to several posts on Twitter by Nathaniel Gleicher, the head of security at Facebook. On Instagram, which Facebook also owns, the company is offering new popup messages to alert users of ways to secure their accounts.
Perspective.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.07258
On the Opportunities and Risks of Foundation Models
AI is undergoing a paradigm shift with the rise of models (e.g., BERT, DALL-E, GPT-3) that are trained on broad data at scale and are adaptable to a wide range of downstream tasks. We call these models foundation models to underscore their critically central yet incomplete character. This report provides a thorough account of the opportunities and risks of foundation models, ranging from their capabilities (e.g., language, vision, robotics, reasoning, human interaction) and technical principles (e.g., model architectures, training procedures, data, systems, security, evaluation, theory) to their applications (e.g., law, healthcare, education) and societal impact (e.g., inequity, misuse, economic and environmental impact, legal and ethical considerations). Though foundation models are based on standard deep learning and transfer learning, their scale results in new emergent capabilities, and their effectiveness across so many tasks incentivizes homogenization. Homogenization provides powerful leverage but demands caution, as the defects of the foundation model are inherited by all the adapted models downstream. Despite the impending widespread deployment of foundation models, we currently lack a clear understanding of how they work, when they fail, and what they are even capable of due to their emergent properties. To tackle these questions, we believe much of the critical research on foundation models will require deep interdisciplinary collaboration commensurate with their fundamentally sociotechnical nature.
Perspective. You are too. Am not. Are too. Am not.
FTC says Facebook has been a monopoly ‘since at least 2011’ in amended antitrust complaint
FTC chair Lina Khan will not recuse herself from the case
The Federal Trade Commission has filed an amended antitrust complaint against Facebook, alleging that the company violated federal antitrust laws with its acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp. The new complaint is a more detailed version of a charge dismissed by the court in June for insufficient evidence.
“Facebook has today, and has maintained since 2011, a dominant share of the relevant market for US personal social networking services,” the complaint alleges, citing time spent and active-user metrics on the daily and monthly scale. “Individually and collectively, these metrics provide significant evidence of Facebook’s durable monopoly power in social networking services.”
Facebook has until October 4th to issue a legal response to the complaint. In a post on Twitter, Facebook’s corporate account called the FTC’s latest complaint “meritless,” writing, “There was no valid claim that Facebook was a monopolist — and that has not changed.”
Tech tools for teaching.
The 2021-22 Practical Ed Tech Handbook
Earlier this week subscribers to my Practical Ed Tech Newsletter received their free copies of the 2021-22 edition of The Practical Ed Tech Handbook. It's a 75 page PDF that features my favorite tools, tips, and strategies for using a wide variety of educational technology tools in your classroom. If you're not subscribed to my newsletter, you can now get your copy of The Practical Ed Tech Handbook right here.
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