No privacy here.

https://www.pogowasright.org/law-firm-wins-fired-lawyers-suit-over-analyzing-cell-phone-data/

Law Firm Wins Fired Lawyer’s Suit Over Analyzing Cell Phone Data

Brian Flood reports:

The law firm Zukowski, Rogers, Flood & McArdle didn’t violate the Stored Communications Act by having data extracted from a fired attorney’s smart phone, because only the phone’s internal storage was accessed and copied, a federal court in Illinois said Thursday.

ZRFM paid for attorney David Loughnane’s cell phone and its associated bills. The firm had no written policies on attorneys’ use of their firm-funded phones, and Loughnane used his for both work and personal purposes.

Read more on Bloomberg. The case is Loughnane v. Zukowski Rogers Flood & McArdle, N.D. Ill., No. 1:19-cv-00086, 3/18/21.

[From the article:

An individual’s smartphone or personal computer doesn’t fall within the ambit of the Stored Communications Act when only the data on its local storage drive is accessed, and the device isn’t used to access any data stored on an external Internet-based account or server, the court said.

“While the Seventh Circuit has yet to address this issue, nearly every court to have done so has agreed with this view,” the federal court said. In enacting the law, “Congress was particularly concerned about data stored in the hands of electronic service providers, and did not set out to protect data stored in a personal computer,” the court added.

What do you do when management mucks it up? Send in the AIuditors? (An article worth reading)

https://hbr.org/sponsored/2021/03/is-your-privacy-governance-ready-for-ai

Is Your Privacy Governance Ready for AI?

… Effective oversight requires complex structures most organizations do not have—not just for developers, like data-science teams, but also across teams that may procure AI solutions, such as operations and HR, and core teams, like privacy, that traditionally perform a governance function.

Inadequate governance exposes organizations to unnecessary risks, especially when teams are unaware of which data is restricted under which law. This risk was recently demonstrated when several organizations were sued for violating the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) after sharing data with a third-party fraud-profiling tool. While the CCPA protects the use of data for fraud-detection and security purposes, it does not protect the voluntary transfer of data to a third party.

… AI applications require significant quantities of data to make robust decisions, and often require a balancing of benefits and risks given AI’s impact on stakeholders. By embedding ethics into privacy and data-protection practices, some organizations are putting increased responsibility on the privacy teams to oversee AI. This change requires privacy groups to have a basic understanding of how models are developed and tested so they can evaluate development practices such as bias mitigation.

(Related)

https://theconversation.com/ai-developers-often-ignore-safety-in-the-pursuit-of-a-breakthrough-so-how-do-we-regulate-them-without-blocking-progress-155825

AI developers often ignore safety in the pursuit of a breakthrough – so how do we regulate them without blocking progress?

… Our recent research, carried out alongside our colleague Francisco C. Santos, sought to determine which AI races should be regulated for safety reasons, and which should be left unregulated to avoid stifling innovation. We did this using a game theory simulation.

The regulation of AI must consider the harms and the benefits of the technology. Harms that regulation might seek to legislate against include the potential for AI to discriminate against disadvantaged communities and the development of autonomous weapons. But the benefits of AI, like better cancer diagnosis and smart climate modelling. might not exist if AI regulation were too heavy-handed. Sensible AI regulation would maximise its benefits and mitigate its harms.

Just the “leading edge” of government AI usage?

https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/fears-of-digital-dictatorship-as-myanmar-deploys-ai-662449

Fears of 'digital dictatorship' as Myanmar deploys AI

Protesters in Myanmar fear they are being tracked with Chinese facial recognition technology, as spiraling violence and street surveillance spark fears of a "digital dictatorship" to replace ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

… Security forces have focused on stamping out dissent in cities including the capital Naypyidaw, Yangon and Mandalay, where hundreds of CCTV cameras had been installed as part of a drive to improve governance and curb crime.

(Related)

https://www.protocol.com/china/china-facial-recognition?utm_campaign=post-teaser&utm_content=2gqzffnb

China sours on facial recognition tech

State media and new regulations are going after dodgy company practices. Government still gets a free pass.

(Related) When doing business is more important than doing right?

https://www.wired.com/story/apple-russia-iphone-apps-law/

Apple Bent the Rules for Russia—and Other Countries Will Take Note

Russian iPhone buyers will soon be prompted to install software developed in that country, setting a precedent that other authoritarian governments may follow.

Harmless deep fake? Let’s see what the hackers can do with it.

https://www.marketingdive.com/news/lays-sends-soccer-fans-personalized-messages-from-star-messi-using-ai/596910/

Lay's sends soccer fans personalized messages from star Messi using AI

People can visit a Messi Messages website to generate a custom video, following a series of text prompts to guide what Messi says. The site's technology manipulates the movements of the star athlete's lips and then syncs the movements with voiceover audio in real time to make it appear as though Messi is actually speaking.

Lay's Messi Messages draw on a few different pieces of emerging tech, leveraging AI, lip-syncing and facial mapping to provide soccer fans with a synthetic piece of messaging from one of the most popular players in the world. The service summons comparisons to deepfakes, an application of AI that manipulates existing footage or images of people's faces to make it appear as though they're saying things. Deepfakes have raised serious ethical concerns, but also steadily leaked into advertising as brands experiment with new production methods during the pandemic.

The synthetic videos from Messi are informed by a series of text prompts that ask the user to share their name, a friend's name, an activity they want to do with their friend — such as watching a match — and when they should do that activity (i.e. "tonight" or "tomorrow"). After the site generates the video in seconds, users have the option to download the message and share it with others. An infomercial-like spot explains how the technology works and shows Messi saying "It's incredible" in several languages.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwWtxF7wKvQ&t=26s

Perspective.

https://www.efinancialcareers.com/news/2021/03/jpmorgan-ai-lab-jobs

JPMorgan now has 50 people working in its rarefied AI labs

If you want an artificial intelligence job in an investment bank that combines elements of working in academia, you probably want to work in one of the "labs" that leading banks have set up to push the boundaries of AI applications in finance.

JPMorgan has one such lab, which it founded in 2018. It's led by Manuela Veloso, who's also the head of machine learning research at Carnegie Mellon University. In the past year, it's been adding staff to a new lab in London.

… Cohen said the team is working on a visualizations project that looks at the way traders ingest data on their screens and attempts to derive actionable outcomes from the information it contains.

This sounds very similar to the 'Mondrian' project discussed by Veloso at a conference in 2019. By analyzing traders' gaze patterns with respect to trading time series images, Veloso said her team had been able to design a neural net that could decide whether to buy or sell a stock with a 95% accuracy rate.

Two years later, the AI research team seems to have swelled considerably, but it doesn't seem that Mondrian is actually operational yet.

Perspective.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/18/nfl-media-rights-deal-2023-2033-amazon-gets-exclusive-thursday-night.html

NFL finalizes new 11-year media rights deal, Amazon gets exclusive Thursday Night rights

The National Football League has finalized its new 11-year media rights agreement with a pact that will run through 2033 and could be worth over $100 billion.

The league announced Thursday it’s renewing TV rights with all of its existing broadcast partners and adding Amazon Prime Video as an exclusive partner for its Thursday Night Football package. It’s the first time a streaming service will carry a full package of games exclusively. Amazon is paying about $1 billion per year, according to people familiar with the matter. Amazon’s deal runs 10 years and begins in 2023.

Tools. There is a free version.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/quillbots-new-grammar-checker-uses-cutting-edge-ai-to-perfect-your-writing-301250410.html

QuillBot's New Grammar Checker Uses Cutting-Edge AI to Perfect Your Writing

QuillBot announced the release of its highly anticipated grammar checker today. QuillBot's AI-based writing platform now hosts a variety of time-saving tools that help make writing painless for 5 million global monthly active users. This new tool combines spelling, grammar, and punctuation correction tactics backed by powerful AI models, flagging errors and suggesting edits.

For more information, visit www.quillbot.com.

Proving fake data?

https://dilbert.com/strip/2021-03-19

For my Forensic and Security students.

https://www.bespacific.com/fbi-releases-the-internet-crime-complaint-center-2020-internet-crime-report/

FBI releases the Internet Crime Complaint Center 2020 Internet Crime Report

“The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center has released its annual report. The 2020 Internet Crime Report includes information from 791,790 complaints of suspected internet crime—an increase of more than 300,000 complaints from 2019—and reported losses exceeding $4.2 billion. State-specific statistics have also been released and can be found within the 2020 Internet Crime Report and in the accompanying 2020 State Reports.…”

Improving surveillance every day.

https://gizmodo.com/this-surveillance-company-claims-it-can-track-nearly-an-1846494534

This Surveillance Company Claims It Can Track Nearly Any Car in Real-Time

A defense contractor that claims to have access to motor vehicle location data on a global scale says it wants to use that data to help U.S. federal agencies conduct more efficient spying and military operations.

The Ulysses Group, which offers “cutting edge operational and intelligence services, support, and equipment” to government clients, says it can “access over 15 billion vehicle locations” worldwide every month. This data, which can be viewed “historically” or in real-time, should be used operationally by U.S. agencies, the company says.

A document obtained by the office of Sen. Ron Wyden, which was first reported by Motherboard and shared with Gizmodo, shows Ulysses claims to be able to “remotely geolocate” cars in “nearly any country,” with the exceptions of Cuba and North Korea.

… It’s been well-known for some time that as cars have become increasingly connected to the internet, they have also generated an ever-larger amount of data (this can include location, usage rates, internal media and communications preferences, external road conditions, and so on): Often, this data is being shared continuously with the automaker, with car-parts manufacturers, and sometimes with third parties

… Maybe the worst thing about this whole story is that it’s not entirely clear where a company like Ulysses gets all its data from. Andrea Amico, the founder of Privacy4Cars told Vice that, due to the convoluted nature of vehicle data collection, there are a whole variety of sources where locations might be procured from: “the company that provides the map itself, for instance, would have access to it; the company that provides the infotainment system may have access to it; the company that provides the traffic data may have access to it; the company that provides the parking data may have access to it. Right there and then you’ve got five companies that are getting your location.”

This suggests that they have a technology that can identify pornography (and a clear legal definition) and who can see it.

https://www.makeuseof.com/utah-considering-blocking-pornography-all-new-phones/

Utah Is Considering Blocking Pornography on All New Phones

… Utah lawmakers' official proposal reads that newly-purchased smartphones and tablets would "automatically enable a filter capable of blocking material that is harmful to minors," and that would include pornography. It also states that certain users [Lawmakers? Bob] would be able to disable the filter "for specific content."

A report by the Associated Press reveals that Cox "will carefully consider this bill during the bill signing period." March 25, 2021, is his deadline to sign or veto the bill. Even if Cox does sign it, the bill won't go into effect unless five other states enact similar restrictions.

Some opponents of the bill argue that the filter would be a violation of free speech. On the other hand, supporters cite that this bill is necessary to keep children away from pornography while using mobile devices.

In the eyes of Utah lawmakers, parental controls just aren't enough. Passing this bill would essentially enable parental controls on new devices automatically, erasing the struggle that some parents may have when turning on these filters.

Forced to disclose…

https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/google-to-reveals-what-personal-data.html

Google Reveals What Personal Data Chrome and Its Apps Collect On You

Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo called out rival Google for "spying" on users after the search giant updated its flagship app to spell out the exact kinds of information it collects for personalization and marketing purposes.

"After months of stalling, Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome and the Google app. No wonder they wanted to hide it," the company said in a tweet. "Spying on users has nothing to do with building a great web browser or search engine."

The "privacy nutrition labels” are part of a new policy that went into effect on December 8, 2020, mandating app developers to disclose their data collection practices and help users understand how their personal information is put to use.

The insinuation from DuckDuckGo comes as Google has been steadily adding app privacy labels to its iOS apps over the course of the last several weeks in accordance with Apple's App Store rules, but not before a three-month-long delay that caused most of its apps to go without being updated, lending credence to theories that the company had halted iOS app updates as a consequence of Apple's enforcement.

Not sure I understand this idea. Why not just give everyone $10 Million and then we’d all be rich? (My AI says it has a better use for the money.)

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/17/openais-altman-ai-will-make-wealth-to-pay-all-adults-13500-a-year.html

OpenAI’s Sam Altman: Artificial Intelligence will generate enough wealth to pay each adult $13,500 a year

Artificial intelligence will create so much wealth that every adult in the United States could be paid $13,500 per year from its windfall as soon as 10 years from now.

So says Sam Altman, co-founder and president of San Francisco-headquartered, artificial intelligence-focused nonprofit OpenAI.

Perspective. Harder to accommodate than Privacy laws?

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/17/att-will-count-hbo-max-toward-data-caps-blames-net-neutrality-law.html

AT&T will start counting HBO Max against data limits, blames California net neutrality law

AT&T will no longer exempt viewership of its HBO Max streaming service from data caps after a federal court upheld California’s net neutrality law, the company said in a statement Wednesday.

The company informed customers that it would no longer offer “Data Free TV” on its video apps beginning March 25, according to a copy of the customer notice obtained by CNBC. That means customers must be connected to WiFi to avoid having their streaming count toward their total data caps. The change will extend beyond California, since, AT&T said, “the Internet does not recognize state borders.”

Perspective.

https://www.ft.com/content/9bfda026-df9d-42e4-8679-c26a072e0522

How Stripe became Silicon Valley’s most prized asset

Even the co-founder of Stripe admitted there is nothing obviously attractive or exciting about the digital payments technology that is the focus of his company.

“It’s low-margin . . . It’s very competitive,” said John Collison, who launched Stripe in 2010 with his brother Patrick, in an interview with the Financial Times last week. Stripe’s staff are “the strange and weird woodland creatures who are payments fanatics”, he added.

Silicon Valley’s most prominent start-ups are normally consumer internet ventures such as Facebook and Uber — aggressive, fast-growing companies on a relentless drive for global domination and the huge brand awareness that goes with it. Yet it is Stripe — a name unfamiliar to most outside the tech industry — that now sits atop the list of Silicon Valley’s most prized private companies after investors valued it at $95bn this week.

Stripe’s software makes it simple for any website or app to accept payments, without having to obtain their own licences or strike deals with the many different banks and card operators that the company has already integrated.

… With the internet economy shifting away from advertising and towards ecommerce and payments, Benedict Evans, a tech industry analyst, described Stripe’s opportunity another way: “They are a 3 per cent tax on the future of the internet.”

One of Stripe’s key competitive advantages is doing more with less. It has about 3,000 staff, a third less than Facebook had in 2012 when it went public at a similar valuation. Its online tools are designed to be easy for businesses to adopt without needing a large sales force or support team.

Diversions for shut-ins.

https://www.businessinsider.com/duke-free-online-courses

14 Duke University classes you can take online for free, from machine learning to dog psychology

… On top of Duke's lower-cost online offerings, the school also has a plethora of online courses that are completely free, from introductory courses in machine learning and English composition to highly specialized courses such as behavioral finance and the science behind dogs' emotions. You can access video lectures, readings, and forums without a fee, or pay a one-time $49 fee for a certificate of completion to add to your resume or LinkedIn.

Every election, every reader of social media, looking for people who can be fooled at least some of the time. (Because it’s just too cheap and simple not to do it.)

https://www.bespacific.com/odni-releases-intelligence-community-assessment-of-foreign-threats-to-the-2020-u-s-elections/

ODNI Releases Intelligence Community Assessment of Foreign Threats to the 2020 U.S. Elections

“The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) today released the declassified Intelligence Community (IC) assessment of foreign threats to the 2020 U.S. federal elections. The document is a declassified version of a classified report that the IC provided to the President, senior Executive Branch officials, and Congressional leadership and intelligence oversight committees on January 7, 2021. “Foreign malign influence is an enduring challenge facing our country,” said Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines. “These efforts by U.S. adversaries seek to exacerbate divisions and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions. Addressing this ongoing challenge requires a whole-of-government approach grounded in an accurate understanding of the problem, which the Intelligence Community, through assessments such as this one, endeavors to provide.” Coordinated across the IC, the assessment addresses the intentions and efforts of key foreign actors to influence or interfere with the 2020 U.S. elections and undermine public confidence in the U.S. election process. The assessment builds on the analysis the IC provided to the public and policymakers throughout the 2020 election cycle. Additionally, pursuant to Executive Order 13848(1)(b), the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security today issued an unclassified summary that evaluates the impact of foreign influence or interference efforts on the security and integrity of U.S. election infrastructure. View the full IC Assessment here.”

Would the same level of surveillance of individuals be acceptable?

https://fortune.com/2021/03/16/not-all-a-i-surveillance-is-a-bad-thing/

Not all A.I. surveillance is a bad thing

People are rightfully concerned about A.I.’s role in surveillance and the impact the technology may have on fundamental personal liberties. But there are some places that could use a bit more surveillance. The world’s oceans, for instance.

Even today, once a ship sails beyond the horizon, it enters a world of “radical freedom,” as the author William Langewiesche termed it in his 2005 book The Outlaw Sea. But the freedom that comes with being out of sight is easily abused: for smuggling, human trafficking, overfishing, piracy, and the dumping of garbage and toxic waste.

An example of that lack of accountability washed up on the beaches of Tel Aviv, Israel, last month: globs of tar, the remnants of large crude oil spill from a tanker. It was the worst environmental disaster to hit the country in years. But where had the oil come from? Which of the dozens of ships cruising the Eastern Mediterranean was responsible?

The Israeli government soon named a culprit: a Panamanian-flagged ship called The Emerald that was taking oil from Iran to Syria, in violation of international sanctions. How did the Israeli government single out The Emerald? In part, thanks to its use of an A.I.-enabled software platform created by an Israeli startup called Windward.

Windward’s software tracks every large vessel at sea across the planet and pairs that information with databases on ship ownership, vessel registrations and past journeys, all run through machine-learning models. The software can suss out suspicious behavior as well as identify ships with poor safety and maintenance records.

Talking with the IT world...

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/gartner-top-10-data-and-analytics-technology-trends-for-2021/

Gartner: Top 10 data and analytics technology trends for 2021

While much of the loudest buzz surrounding the impact of COVID-19 was focused on the dramatic shift from on premises to remote work, the pandemic further affected every aspect of the enterprise, which includes data and analytics technology.

… Gartner has now identified 10 trends as "mission-critical investments that accelerate capabilities to anticipate, shift and respond." It recommended that D&A leaders review these trends and consider and apply as necessary. Following is a summary from Gartner of the trends:

Diversions for shut-ins.

https://www.makeuseof.com/free-movie-streaming-sites-no-sign-up/

9 Free Movie Streaming Sites With No Sign Up Requirements

Want to watch a movie without the hassle? Use these sites which are free, legal, and require no registration.

Not quite a “rob me, I’m rich” signal, but something like that.

https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/15/smart_locks_attract_burglars_business_premises/

Smart doorbells on business premises make your property more attractive to burglars, warns researcher

Installing a smart doorbell on your abode could actually increase your home's attractiveness to burglars, researchers from Britain's Cranfield University have said.

The defence 'n' security-focused institution's findings fly in the face of heavy marketing from companies such as Amazon's Ring, whose video-enabled doorbell product has been touted around the world as a security-enhancing gadget.

It's an 'affluence' clue...

Worse, for vendors, Cranfield University's Dr Duncan Hodges reckoned the presence of a smart doorbell was "unlikely" to have "any significant effect on residential burglary" rates. Instead, he said in a summary of a research paper published on the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats' website, smart doorbells and smart locks could actually make things worse.

"These are devices that are particularly noticeable due to their deployment on the exterior of properties and can thus increase the salience of affluence cues – experienced burglars use these cues to identify properties with potentially more high-value items, during the target selection phase," he wrote.

What if it is only a tool anyone can buy? If you were the CEO of the next best encryption device, how would you identify the drug smugglers you shouldn’t sell to?

https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/15/sky_global_indicted/

US govt indicted me because I make privacy tools, says crypto-chat app CEO accused of helping drug smugglers

The CEO of Sky Global – which sold encryption chat software with customized smartphones – has come out fighting after Uncle Sam charged him with knowingly assisting the international drug smuggling trade.

“The indictment against me personally in the United States is an example of the police and the government trying to vilify anyone who takes a stance against unwarranted surveillance,” Jean-François Eap, of Canadian-based Sky Global, said in a statement following the indictment announced on Friday.

“It seems that it is simply not enough that you have not done anything illegal,” Eap continued. “There is no question that I have been targeted, as Sky Global has been targeted, only because we build tools to protect the fundamental right to privacy. The unfounded allegations of involvement in criminal activity by me and our company are entirely false.”

Eliminating competition?

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56404038

Mother 'used deepfake to frame cheerleading rivals'

A mother allegedly used explicit deepfake photos and videos to try to get her teenage daughter's cheerleading rivals kicked off the team.

Raffaela Spone from Pennsylvania, US, reportedly sent the content - which showed members of the Victory Vipers team "naked, drinking and smoking" - to the coach.

… Mrs Spone has been charged with multiple counts of harassment.

She is also accused of sending abusive messages to the team, their parents and owners of the cheerleading gym, using fake phone numbers.

… Mrs Spone is believed to have used the girls' social media accounts to generate the deepfake images.

This should be interesting.

https://gizmodo.com/california-passes-new-regulation-banning-dark-patterns-1846482961

California Passes New Regulation Banning 'Dark Patterns' Under Landmark Privacy Law

New regulations were approved under California’s Consumer Privacy Act on Monday that will prohibit the use of so-called dark patterns — tricks deployed by websites or apps that seek to frustrate or bamboozle users into doing things they wouldn’t normally do.

… Imagine you’re navigating a website or watching an in-app ad when you’re suddenly redirected to a subscription page, even though you have no interest in whatever product is being marketed at you. Such tactics are what’s known as “dark patterns” — underhanded strategies that rely on “confusing language or unnecessary steps such as forced clicking or scrolling through multiple screens or listening to why you shouldn’t opt out of their data sale,” according to an infographic provided by the California AG’s office. The tactics are more widespread than you’d imagine, and banning them under the CCPA is a step towards ensuring that consumers are protected from deceptive business practices.

Drawing the line? Probably not to narrowly.

https://venturebeat.com/2021/03/14/the-data-privacy-cold-war-is-here-which-side-are-you-on/

The data privacy Cold War is here. Which side are you on?

Apple and Facebook have entered an all-out Cold War in the name of consumer data privacy.

The battle started when Apple announced it will soon require users to opt in to personal data tracking. Facebook, which makes money from that tracking, took out full-page ads in major newspapers condemning the move. Apple CEO Tim Cook fired back in a recent speech,rebuking companies that gather as much data as possible and warning of dangerous consequences.

… All of this means time is up for the companies that have sat on the sidelines of this debate until now. Every tech company has access to user data, and each one now must decide which side of the data privacy war they’re on: the one that collects and exploits consumer data, or the one that respects and protects data and the users it belongs to. Prioritizing consumer data privacy doesn’t always mean a company must overhaul its policies. Rather, it’s about communicating those policies to consumers in a way they can understand and holding internal teams accountable to them.

Talk is cheap. Unless it’s fake news?

https://www.bespacific.com/aba-legal-fact-check-explores-social-media-platforms-and-freedom-of-speech/

ABA Legal Fact Check explores social media platforms and freedom of speech

“A new ABA Legal Fact Check released today examines the case and statutory law allowing social media companies and their sites to ban or suspend individuals for promoting falsehoods of hatred. In recent weeks, those who have found themselves kicked off social media platforms have included then-President Donald J. Trump and several of his allies, in addition to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for posting anti-vaccine assertions. The new fact check looks at recent court decisions addressing these issues, as well as federal communications law that provides additional protections to social media sites to restrict access to others and to avoid liability for false and hateful posts. ABA Legal Fact Check seeks to help the media and public find dependable answers and explanations to sometimes confusing legal questions and issues. Recently, the web portal for ABA Legal Fact Check added a search button for its content, which is grouped by legal topics in nine different categories, including COVID-19 legal issues, presidential authority, election law, and police and security.”

Now my AI wants to go to law school.

https://www.bespacific.com/aba-issues-cautionary-ethics-guidance-on-virtual-law-practices/

ABA Issues Cautionary Ethics Guidance On Virtual Law Practices

LawSites: “The American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility today issued a formal ethics opinion providing guidance on virtual law practices. The opinion (Formal Opinion 498 ) makes clear that the Model Rules of Professional Conduct permit lawyers to conduct their practices virtually, but it urges caution, competence and diligence with regard to the use of technology in order to guard against inadvertent or unauthorized disclosures of client information. It also emphasizes the importance of appropriately supervising remote staff and outside vendors, and of adhering to state variances in trust accounting rules…”

Even if only used as tripwires this would be worth while.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/14/us/politics/us-hacks-china-russia.html

White House Weighs New Cybersecurity Approach After Failure to Detect Hacks

(Related) Does Congress know that Covid is not a computer virus?

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-microsoft-exclusive-idUSKBN2B713L

Exclusive: Microsoft could reap more than $150 million in new U.S. cyber spending, upsetting some lawmakers

Microsoft stands to receive nearly a quarter of Covid relief funds destined for U.S. cybersecurity defenders, sources told Reuters, angering some lawmakers who don’t want to increase funding for a company whose software was recently at the heart of two big hacks.

Congress allocated the funds at issue in the COVID relief bill signed on Thursday after two enormous cyberattacks leveraged weaknesses in Microsoft products to reach into computer networks at federal and local agencies and tens of thousands of companies.

Privacy? What privacy?

https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/15/22327854/match-group-garbo-tinder-background-check-update?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4

Tinder will soon let you run a background check on a potential date

Only a last name or phone number needed

Tinder and other Match Group-owned apps are going to let their users run background checks on possible dates. The company announced an investment in Garbo, a nonprofit that looks to allow people to run background checks with only their first name and phone number or full name. The investment, of which Match didn’t disclose the amount, will help make the group’s tech available to Match’s users, starting with the company’s most popular app: Tinder.

This means Tinder users will be able to vet their dates with details like their arrest record or history of violence.

Are these auditors saying it takes an AI to audit AI?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/deloitte-ai-institute-teams-chatterbox-123000280.html

Deloitte AI Institute Teams With Chatterbox Labs to Ensure Ethical Application of AI

The Deloitte AI Institute, a Center that focuses on applied Artificial Intelligence (AI) research, eminence and innovation across industries, today announced it is collaborating with Chatterbox Labs to develop Model Insights technology for Trustworthy AI, a Deloitte-branded solution that helps organizations address AI ethics by monitoring, updating and validating their AI models.

… Deloitte's recent "State of AI in the Enterprise” third edition study of enterprise AI adopters, found that 95% of respondents expressed concerns around ethical risks for their AI initiatives. To help companies proactively address AI ethics, the Deloitte AI Institute developed its Trustworthy AI™ framework,, which provides a guide for organizations on how to apply AI responsibly within their businesses and manage common risks and challenges related to AI ethics.

Always interesting.

https://venturebeat.com/2021/03/14/gartners-2021-magic-quadrant-cites-glut-of-innovation-in-data-science-and-ml/

Gartner’s 2021 Magic Quadrant cites ‘glut of innovation’ in data science and ML

Gartner’s Magic Quadrant report on data science and machine learning (DSML) platform companies assesses what it says are the top 20 vendors in this fast-growing industry segment.

… Gartner says AI is still “overhyped” but notes that the COVID-19 pandemic has made investments in DSML more practical.

… There remains a “glut of compelling innovations” and visionary roadmaps, Gartner says. This is an adolescent market, where vendors are heavily focused on innovation and differentiation, rather than pure execution. Gartner said key areas of differentiation include UI, augmented DSML (AutoML), MLOps, performance and scalability, hybrid and multicloud support, XAI, and cutting-edge use cases and techniques (such as deep learning, large-scale IoT, and reinforcement learning).

Perhaps I’ll find an article about the benefits of facial recognition.

https://thenextweb.com/neural/2021/03/13/facial-recognition-and-racist-pseudoscience-phrenology-what-in-common-syndication/

What facial recognition and the racist pseudoscience of phrenology have in common

… In recent years, machine-learning algorithms have promised governments and private companies the power to glean all sorts of information from people’s appearance. Several startups now claim to be able to use artificial intelligence (AI) to help employers detect the personality traits of job candidates based on their facial expressions. In China, the government has pioneered the use of surveillance cameras that identify and track ethnic minorities. Meanwhile, reports have emerged of schools installing camera systems that automatically sanction children for not paying attention, based on facial movements and microexpressions such as eyebrow twitches.

Better ethics via AI?

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jonas-Sjoestroem-2/publication/349731092_Digitalization_for_Ethical_Awareness_and_Ethical_Practice/links/603f348992851c077f12ac86/Digitalization-for-Ethical-Awareness-and-Ethical-Practice.pdf

Digitalization for Ethical Awareness and Ethical Practice

Digitalization has the potential to improve life in many ways, and also a tendency to waken worries and raise questions about harmful consequences and ethical implications. Such concerns are reasonable, since artificial intelligence, interconnected systems, large-scale repositories of personal data, and the use of technologies indeed relate to values among different stakeholders. This paper attempts to provide a more balanced view of ethics concerns in digitalization initiatives. We show examples of how digitalization of the public sector has the potential to make already existing ethical issues visible and known. We present three cases, where the process of digitalization reveals unethical activities and ideas hidden in the well-established, 'analog' context. Drawing from the examples, we introduce the Systematic Ethical Reflection (SER) model, a three-dimension model that can guide systematic reflections and a rational discourse about ethical issues in digitalization initiatives. We discuss the SER model's merits as a practical theory – i.e., its usefulness to facilitate discussions about ethical issues in various phases of digitalization initiatives. Such discussions are imperative from a discourse ethical standpoint.

...and by the way, my AI wants the right to vote.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3776481

Autonomous Corporate Personhood

Currently, several states are considering changes to their business organization law to accommodate autonomous businesses—businesses operated entirely through computer code. Several international civil society groups are also actively developing new frameworks and a model law for enabling decentralized, autonomous businesses to achieve a corporate or corporate-like status that bestows legal personhood. Meanwhile, various jurisdictions, including the European Union, have considered whether and to what extent artificial intelligence (AI) more broadly should be endowed with personhood in order to respond to AI’s increasing presence in society. Despite the fairly obvious overlap between the two sets of inquiries, the legal and policy discussions between the two only rarely overlap. As a result of this failure to communicate, both areas of personhood theory fail to account for the important role that socio-technical and socio-legal context plays for law and policy development. This Article fills the gap by investigating the limits of artificial rights at the intersection of corporations and artificial intelligence. Specifically, this Article argues that building a comprehensive legal approach to artificial rights—rights enjoyed by artificial people, whether entity, machine, or otherwise—requires approaching the issue through a systems lens to ensure law’s consideration of the varied socio-technical contexts in which artificial people exist.

How to avoid a terminator? Are we still concerned with that?

https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2816&context=ilj

THE DUTY TO TAKE PRECAUTIONS IN HOSTILITIES, AND THE DISOBEYING OF ORDERS: SHOULD ROBOTS REFUSE?

This Article not only questions whether an embodied artificial intelligence (“EAI”) could give an order to a human combatant, but controversially, examines whether it should also refuse one. A future EAI may be capable of refusing to follow an order, for example, where an order appeared to be manifestly unlawful, was otherwise in breach of International Humanitarian Law (“IHL”), national Rules of Engagement (“ROE”) or, even, where they appeared to be immoral or unethical. Such an argument has traction in the strategic realm in terms of “system of systems”—the premise that more advanced technology can potentially help overcome Clausewitzian “friction” or “fog of war.” An aircraft’s anti-stall mechanism, which takes over, and corrects human error, is seen as nothing less than “positive.”

Interesting. Only an 8 page Word document.

https://opal.latrobe.edu.au/articles/report/Submission_to_the_Department_of_Industry_Innovation_and_Science_regarding_the_Artificial_Intelligence_Australia_s_Ethics_Framework_discussion_paper_/14080175/1

Submission to the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science regarding the 'Artificial Intelligence: Australia’s Ethics Framework' discussion paper.

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