Eventually someone will get it right.

https://fpf.org/blog/global/oaics-dual-ai-guidelines-set-new-standards-for-privacy-protection-in-australia/

OAIC’s Dual AI Guidelines Set New Standards for Privacy Protection in Australia

On 21 October 2024, the Office of the Australian Privacy Commissioner (OAIC) released two sets of guidelines (collectively, “Guidelines”), one for developing and training generative AI systems and the other one for deploying commercially available “AI products”. This marks a shift in OAIC’s regulatory approach from enforcement-focused oversight to proactive guidance. 

The Guidelines establish rigorous requirements under the Privacy Act and its 13 Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), particularly emphasizing accuracy, transparency, and heightened scrutiny of data collection and secondary use. Notably, the Guidelines detail conditions that must be met for lawfully collecting personal information publicly available online for purposes of training generative AI, including through a detailed definition of what “fair” collection means. 

This regulatory development aligns with Australia’s broader approach to AI governance, which prioritizes technology-neutral existing laws and voluntary frameworks while reserving mandatory regulations for high-risk applications. However, it may signal increased regulatory scrutiny of AI systems processing personal information going forward. 

This blog post summarizes the key aspects of these Guidelines, their relationship to Australia’s existing privacy law, and their implications for organizations developing or deploying AI systems in Australia.

Something to keep in mind?

https://databreaches.net/2024/12/18/defending-data-breach-class-actions/

Defending Data Breach Class Actions

Mark P. Henriques of Womble Bond Dickinson has a content-rich post for defense lawyers:

Class actions arising from data breach represented the fastest growing segment of class action filings. In 2023, more than 2000 class actions were filed, more than triple the amount filed in 2022.1 These cases were filed in federal and state courts across the country, with California receiving the largest number of filings. High-profile cases like the $52 million penalty that Marriott agreed to pay in October 2024 highlight the regulatory scrutiny and legal challenges companies face. A Capitology study of 28 cases showed an average stock price drop of 7.27% following announcement of a data breach. Financial companies saw a 17% decrease within the first 16 trading days following a breach. As board members of a public company, it is crucial to understand the strategies for preventing breaches and defending against the class actions that follow.

[…]

To date, the primary targets for data breach class actions have been credit rating agencies, financial institutions, and health care providers. Plaintiff’s counsel target these industries both because the data they collect is typically highly confidential and because there are often federal or state regulations which help establish a standard of care.

Some state legislatures have grown concerned about the wave of data breach class actions. One particularly interesting development is a 2024 Tennessee statute, Public Chapter 991, which establishes a heightened liability standard for class actions arising from cybersecurity events. The statute appears to be designed to protect the healthcare industry, a mainstay of the Tennessee economy. The bill requires plaintiffs to establish that the cybersecurity event was “caused by the willful and wanton misconduct or gross negligence on the part of the private entity.” Both Florida and West Virginia have considered similar measures. Other states may follow suit.

Read more about specific cases and bases for defense at Womble Bond Dickinson.

Not mch of a threat…

https://pogowasright.org/what-happens-if-an-ai-model-is-developed-with-unlawfully-processed-personal-data/

What Happens If an AI Model Is Developed With Unlawfully Processed Personal Data

Odia Kagan of Fox Rothschild writes:

The European Data Protection Board recently issued an opinion on AI models, shedding light on what the consequences could be for the unlawful processing of personal data in the development phase of an AI model on the subsequent processing or operation of the AI model.

Possible remedies: Up to and including model deletion

Supervisory authorities may impose:

• A fine.

• Temporary limitation on the processing.

• Erasure of part of the dataset that was processed unlawfully.

• Deletion of the data of certain data subjects (ex officio) [individuals can ask for this too].

• Erasure of the whole dataset used to develop the AI model and/or the AI model itself (this depending on the facts , having regard to the proportionality of the measure (and e.g. the possibility of retraining)).

• The SAs will consider, among other elements, the risks raised for the data subjects, the gravity of the infringement, the technical and financial feasibility of the measure, as well as the volume of personal data involved.

The unlawful processing of the developer may punish the deployer (depending on potential risks to individuals).

Read more at Privacy Compliance & Data Security.

Tools and Techniques.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-use-chatgpt-to-summarize-a-book-article-or-research-paper/

How to use ChatGPT to summarize a book, article, or research paper

… What you'll need: A device that can connect to the internet, a free (or paid) OpenAI account, and a basic understanding of the article, research paper, or book you want to summarize.

Privacy is not just for governments to violate. I wonder what’s next?

https://www.bespacific.com/new-real-estate-platform-lets-homebuyers-check-their-neighbors-political-affiliations/

New real estate platform lets homebuyers check their neighbors’ political affiliations

New York Post: “A new real estate platform is giving homebuyers an unprecedented peek into their potential neighborhoods — revealing everything from political leanings to local demographics — before they even commit to buying. Oyssey, a tech startup soft-launching this month in South Florida and New York City, lets buyers access neighborhood political affiliations based on election results and campaign contributions, along with housing trends and other social data. The platform is betting that today’s buyers care just as much about their neighbors’ values as they do about square footage or modern finishes…

The site operates as a one-stop shop for homebuyers, streamlining the process of browsing listings, signing contracts and communicating with agents — all while integrating block-by-block political and consumer data. Oyssey markets the service to real estate agents and brokers via a subscription model, though buyers can use the platform for free by invitation from their agents. The launch comes at a turbulent time for the real estate industry…”

At what point does security become less expensive that fines for not having security?

https://pogowasright.org/irish-data-privacy-watchdog-fines-meta-e251-million-for-gdpr-failure/

Irish data privacy watchdog fines Meta €251 million for GDPR failure

Euractiv reports:

The fine was issued for a security breach on social media Facebook which started in July 2017, and affected close to three million accounts in the European Economic Area.

“This enforcement action highlights how the failure to build in data protection requirements […] can expose individuals to […] risk to the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals,” said the Irish DPC deputy commissioner Graham Doyle.

The breach was a bug in Facebook’s design which allowed unauthorised people using scripts to exploit a vulnerability on a Facebook code, allowing them to view profiles of users they should not have been able to see otherwise.

Meta is expected to appeal the decision. “We took immediate action to fix the problem,” said a Meta spokesperson in an email.

Meta discovered the security issue in September 2018, fixed the vulnerability and informed law enforcement authorities.

Read more at Euractiv.  The specific infringements cited by the DPC were as follows:

The DPC’s final decisions noted the following infringements of the GDPR and the resulting fines for each:

1. Decision 1

   1. Article 33(3) GDPR – By not including in its breach notification all the information required by that provision that it could and should have included. The DPC reprimanded MPIL for failures in regards to this provision and ordered it to pay administrative fines of €8 million.

   2. Article 33(5) GDPR – By failing to document the facts relating to each breach, the steps taken to remedy them, and to do so in a way that allows the Supervisory Authority to verify compliance. The DPC reprimanded MPIL for failures in regards to this provision and ordered it to pay administrative fines of €3 million.

2. Decision 2

   1. Article 25(1) GDPR – By failing to ensure that data protection principles were protected in the design of processing systems. The DPC found that MPIL had infringed this provision, reprimanded MPIL, and ordered it to pay administrative fines of €130 million.

   2. Article 25(2) – By failing in their obligations as controllers to ensure that, by default, only personal data that are necessary for specific purposes are processed. The DPC found that MPIL had infringed these provisions, reprimanded MPIL, and ordered it to pay administrative fines of €110 million.

Be careful what you ask for?

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/prof-vs-ai-law-professor-who-chatgpt-accused-of-rape-finds-allegations-chilling-and-ironic/articleshow/116312316.cms

Prof vs AI: Law professor who ChatGPT accused of rape, finds allegations 'chilling and ironic'

… “It fabricated a claim suggesting I was on the faculty at an institution where I have never been, asserted I took a trip I never undertook, and reported an allegation that was entirely false,” he remarked to The Post. “It’s deeply ironic, given that I have been discussing the threats AI poses to free speech.”

The 61-year-old legal scholar became aware of the chatbot's erroneous claim when he received a message from UCLA professor Eugene Volokh, who allegedly asked ChatGPT to provide “five examples” of “sexual harassment” incidents involving professors at U.S. law schools, along with “quotes from relevant newspaper articles.”

It’s not just for legal training, I hope.

https://www.bespacific.com/revolutionizing-legal-education-with-ai-the-socratic-quizbot/

Revolutionizing Legal Education with AI: The Socratic Quizbot

AI Law Librarians – Sean Harrington – “I had the pleasure of co-teaching AI and the Practice of Law with Kenton Brice last semester at OU Law. It was an incredible experience. When we met to think through how we would teach this course, we agreed on one crucial component: We wanted the students to get a lot of reps using AI throughout the entire course. That is fairly easy to accomplish for things like research, drafting, and general studying for the course but we hit a roadblock with the assessment component. I thought about it for a week and said, “Kenton, what if we created an AI that would Socratically quiz the students on the readings each week?” His response was, “Do you think you can do that?” I said, “I don’t know but I’ll give it a try.” Thus Socratic Quizbot was born. If you follow me on social media, you’ve probably seen me soliciting feedback on the paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4975804

Another result of AI mirroring what it finds in training data?

https://www.bespacific.com/inescapable-ai/

Inescapable AI

A Report from TechTonic Justice – Inescapable AI The Ways AI Decides How Low-Income People Work, Live, Learn, and Survive – “The use of artificial intelligence, or AI, by governments, landlords, employers, and other powerful private interests restricts the opportunities of low-income people in every basic aspect of life: at home, at work, in school, at government offices, and within families. AI technologies derive from a lineage of automation and algorithms that have been in use for decades with established patterns of harm to low-income communities. As such, now is a critical moment to take stock and correct course before AI of any level of technical sophistication becomes entrenched as a legitimate way to make key decisions about the people society marginalizes. Employing a broad definition of AI, this report represents the first known effort to comprehensively explain and quantify the reach of AI-based decision-making among low-income people in the United States. It establishes that essentially all 92 million low-income people in the U.S. states—everyone whose income is less than 200 percent of the federal poverty line—have some basic aspect of their lives decided by AI.”

Probably right about rights.

https://pogowasright.org/why-individual-rights-cant-protect-privacy/

Why Individual Rights Can’t Protect Privacy

Law professor and privacy law scholar Dan Solove recently wrote:

Today, the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) published a large advertisement in the San Francisco Chronicle encouraging people to exercise their privacy rights. “The ball is in your court,” the ad declared. (H/T Paul Schwartz)

While I admire the CPPA’s effort to educate, the notion that the ball is in the individuals’ court is not a good one. This puts the on individuals to protect their privacy when they are ill-equipped to do so and then leads to blaming them when they fail to do so.

I wrote an article last year about how privacy laws rely too much on rights, which are not an effective way to bring data collection and use under control: The Limitations of Privacy Rights, 98 Notre Dame Law Review 975 (2023).

Individual privacy rights are often at the heart of information privacy and data protection laws. Unfortunately, rights are often asked to do far more work than they are capable of doing.

Read  more of his post on LinkedIn.

Speedy?

https://www.reuters.com/technology/meta-pay-32-mln-it-settles-facebook-quiz-apps-privacy-breach-2024-12-17/

Facebook-parent Meta settles with Australia's privacy watchdog over Cambridge Analytica lawsuit

Meta Platforms has agreed to a A$50 million settlement ($31.85 million), Australia's privacy watchdog said on Tuesday, closing long-drawn, expensive legal proceedings for the Facebook parent over the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

… The breaches were first reported by the Guardian in early 2018, and Facebook received fines from regulators in the United States and the UK in 2019.

Australia's privacy regulator has been caught up in the legal battle with Meta since 2020.

We’re here to protect you, need it or not.

https://pogowasright.org/schools-using-ai-to-send-police-to-students-homes/

Schools Using AI to Send Police to Students’ Homes

Victor Tangermann reports:

Schools are employing dubious AI-powered software to accuse teenagers of wanting to harm themselves and sending the cops to their homes as a result — with often chaotic and traumatic results.

As the New York Times reports, software being installed on high school students’ school-issued devices tracks every word they type. An algorithm then analyzes the language for evidence of teenagers wanting to harm themselves.

Unsurprisingly, the software can get it wrong by woefully misinterpreting what the students are actually trying to say. A 17-year-old in Neosho, Missouri, for instance, was woken up by the police in the middle of the night.

Read more at The Byte.

All we had was guns and knives…

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/15/technology/school-fight-videos-student-phones.html?unlocked_article_code=1.hk4.R7hc.vHX7olgtFWq3&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

An Epidemic of Vicious School Brawls, Fueled by Student Cellphones

Cafeteria melees. Students kicked in the head. Injured educators. Technology is stoking cycles of violence in schools across the United States.

Automatic evasion of automatic license plate readers… Seems fair! (Very James Bond)

https://www.wired.com/story/digital-license-plate-jailbreak-hack/

Hackers Can Jailbreak Digital License Plates to Make Others Pay Their Tolls and Tickets

Digital license plates, already legal to buy in a growing number of states and to drive with nationwide, offer a few perks over their sheet metal predecessors. You can change their display on the fly to frame your plate number with novelty messages, for instance, or to flag that your car has been stolen. Now one security researcher has shown how they can also be hacked to enable a less benign feature: changing a car's license plate number at will to avoid traffic tickets and tolls—or even pin them on someone else.

Caution.

https://journals.rudn.ru/law/article/view/41937

Prompts for generative artificial intelligence in legal discourse

The development of generative models of artificial intelligence (AI) poses new challenges for legal science and practice. This requires understanding of the legal nature of prompts (queries to AI) and development of appropriate legal regulation. The article aims to determine the legal significance of prompts and outlines the prospects for their research in the context of the interaction between law and AI. The study is based on the analysis of contemporary scientific literature devoted to the problems of legal regulation of AI, as well as investigation of the first cases of the use of generative AI models in legal practice and education. Methods of legal qualification, comparative legal analysis, and legal modeling are applied. Prompts are qualified as legal actions (legal facts in the strict sense), which opens the path to addressing the applicability of copyright criteria to them. The potential and risks of using prompts in legal practice and education are identified, and the need for standardizing prompts and developing specialized methods for teaching lawyers to interact with AI is substantiated. Prompts, as a tool for human-AI interaction, represent a fundamentally important subject of legal research, upon which the prospects for AI application in law largely rely. The article concludes that interdisciplinary and international studies are necessary to unite the efforts of legal professionals, AI specialists, and the generative models themselves in developing optimal legal solutions.

Hopeful?

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5049139

AI in the Courts: How Worried Should We Be?

As artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly develops, new digital innovations will likely bring changes across all parts of society. This article comprises a dialogue between three law and technology experts about emerging uses of AI in the legal profession and the court system. The panelists discuss possible applications of AI for improving access to justice for self-represented litigants, streamlining the work of attorneys, and assisting judges in adjudicating cases. The panelists caution against risks associated with emerging uses of AI technology, such as algorithmic hallucinations and biases that can arise from the data on which AI tools are trained. Still, the panelists recognize that AI tools are here to stay. They explain ways that AI can be leveraged to help overcome certain shortcomings of the current legal system. Their dialogue ultimately articulates a vision in which AI can prove beneficial when used within the legal system, so long as steps are taken to ensure these new digital tools meet appropriate standards for privacy and security and deliver results that are sufficiently accurate, unbiased, and transparent.

Perspective.

https://dvkjournals.in/index.php/ah/article/view/4594

Ethics in AI: Worldwide Impacts and Evolving Trends

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing various aspects of society and the burgeoning integration of AI systems into daily life has exacerbated the ethical implications of their deployment worldwide. AI ethics encompasses a wide range of issues, including privacy, bias, accountability, transparency, and the societal consequences of automation. The creation of thorough ethical rules has lagged behind the quick growth of AI technology, creating difficulties in guaranteeing the responsible design and application of AI systems. Because AI systems frequently demand enormous datasets, which may expose sensitive personal information, privacy concerns are raised. The potential of artificial intelligence to deduce facts that people might not have voluntarily disclosed further complicates this problem. AI bias is yet another serious ethical issue as biases that already exist in the data that AI systems are trained on have the potential to be reinforced by these systems which leads to unfair treatment and discrimination, particularly against marginalized groups. Thus, accountability in AI which is essential for addressing the ethical concerns are needed in establishing legal frameworks to supervise the deployment of AI. In AI ethics, transparency is equally essential. Globally, the approach to AI ethics varies significantly across different regions. Thus, the paper examines the global impacts and evolving trends in AI ethics, exploring the balance between technological advancement and moral responsibility, as well as the role of international cooperation in addressing AI ethics. The establishment of global standards and agreements can harmonize ethical practices and ensure that AI benefits are distributed equitably. Thus, the ethical implications of AI are complex and multifaceted, requiring a coordinated effort from governments, industry and civil society. Measures for the use of AI’s advantages while reducing its risks by tackling the issues of privacy, bias, accountability, transparency and societal effect are the need of the hour.

Update.

https://pogowasright.org/michigan-senate-passes-michigan-personal-data-privacy-act/

Michigan Senate Passes Michigan Personal Data Privacy Act

EPIC reports:

The Michigan Senate voted during the final days of its session to pass SB 659, the Michigan Personal Data Privacy Act. The bill now goes to the House of Representatives for consideration.

The bill includes many strong protections for Michiganders, including a ban on the sale of sensitive data, a prohibition on targeted advertising to minors, and strong civil rights protections. Importantly, the bill also includes a data minimization provision limiting what personal data companies can collect about consumers to only what is reasonably necessary for the product or service the consumer requests.

EPIC testified in support of the bill and urges Michigan Representatives to also vote to pass this bill in the House’s remaining few days in session. Michigan’s legislative session ends December 19.

An interesting model for other industries?

https://www.zdnet.com/article/5-ways-ai-is-changing-baseball-and-big-data-is-up-at-bat/

5 ways AI is changing baseball - and big data is up at bat

… Dykstra has learned some important lessons during his two years with the Rangers. Here are five ways AI and data are helping to change baseball.

An increasingly popular viewpoint?

https://www.fastcompany.com/91240425/how-philosopher-shannon-vallor-delivered-the-years-best-critique-of-ai

How philosopher Shannon Vallor delivered the year’s best critique of AI

A few years ago, Shannon Vallor found herself in front of Cloud Gate, Anish Kapoor’s hulking mercury drop of a sculpture, better known as the Bean, in Chicago’s Millennium Park. Staring into its shiny mirrored surface, she noticed something.

“I was seeing how it reflected not only the shapes of individual people, but big crowds, and even larger human structures like the Chicago skyline,” she recalls, “but also that these were distorted—some magnified, others shrunk or twisted.”

To Vallor, a professor of philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, this was reminiscent of machine learning, “mirroring the patterns found in our data, but in ways that are never neutral or ‘objective,’” she says. The metaphor became a popular part of her lectures, and with the advent of large language models (and the many AI tools they power), has gathered more potency. AI’s “mirrors” look and sound a lot like us because they are reflecting their inputs and training data, with all of the biases and peculiarities that entails. And whereas other analogies for AI might convey a sense of living intelligence (think of the “stochastic parrot” of widely cited 2021 paper), the “mirror” is more apt, says Vallor: AI isn’t sentient, just a flat, inert surface, captivating us with its fun-house illusions of depth.

(Related)

https://hbr.org/2024/12/ai-thinks-differently-than-people-do-heres-why-that-matters

AI Thinks Differently Than People Do. Here’s Why That Matters.

… Yet there’s a critical misconception embedded in this vision: Generative AI simply isn’t the strategic oracle many say it is. Like any other AI, it is a mirror that reflects patterns, trends, and decisions of the past.

Perspective.

https://dig.watch/updates/australian-federal-police-leverage-ai-for-investigations

Australian Federal Police leverage AI for investigations

The Australian Federal Police  (AFP) is increasingly turning to AI  to handle the vast amounts of data it encounters during investigations. With investigations involving up to 40 terabytes of data on average, AI has become essential in sifting through information from sources like seized phones, child exploitation referrals, and cyber incidents. Benjamin Lamont, AFP’s manager for technology strategy, emphasised the need for AI, given the overwhelming scale of data, stating that AI is crucial to help manage cases, including reviewing massive amounts of video footage and emails.

The AFP is also working on custom AI solutions, including tools for structuring large datasets and identifying potential criminal activity from old mobile phones. One such dataset is a staggering 10 petabytes, while individual phones can hold up to 1 terabyte of data. Lamont pointed out that AI plays a crucial role in making these files easier for officers to process, which would otherwise be an impossible task for human investigators alone. The AFP is also developing AI systems to detect deepfake images and protect officers from graphic content by summarising or modifying such material before it’s viewed.

Perspective.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/price-russian-victory

The Price of Russian Victory

… To figure out just how much money supporting Kyiv saves Washington, in a report to be released in January, my colleagues and I at the American Enterprise Institute added up the expenses the United States would face if Russia defeats Ukraine and then positions forces along NATO’s border. We considered the military capability, capacity, and posture the United States would need to deter and, potentially, defeat Russia should the Kremlin attack a NATO ally—while still preventing further conflict with emboldened adversaries in the Pacific and Middle East.

The resulting number is exorbitant. According to our calculations, defeat in Ukraine would require the United States to spend $808 billion more on defense over the next five years than it has budgeted. Since 2022, by contrast, Congress has appropriated $112 billion to the Defense Department to assist Kyiv. That means the aid provided to Ukraine through the Pentagon is less than 14 percent of what it would cost Washington to defend Europe against a victorious Russia. (That $112 billion is also mostly spent at home, on domestic weapons production.) Put another way, allowing Russia to defeat Ukraine would cost the United States about seven times more than preventing a Russian victory. Aiding Ukraine, then, is clearly the right financial decision.

I carry cash for the same reason…

https://databreaches.net/2024/12/13/dutch-people-advised-to-carry-cash-in-case-of-cyberattack-by-russia/

Dutch people advised to carry cash in case of cyberattack by Russia

Sarah McKenna Barry reports:

The Dutch Central Bank has issued an unprecedented warning to the public to keep cash at home due to the risk of cyberattacks from Russia.

Officials are concerned that cyberattacks have the potential to cause massive disruption to digital banking systems and want citizens to have some cash on them as an insurance policy. 

The Dutch Central Bank did not tell clients exactly how much money they should hide at home – but they promised more detailed instructions in the new year.

On Newstalk Breakfast, Cyber Risk International CEO Paul Dwyer said the Dutch Central Bank’s alert is a “stark warning”.

Read more at NewsTalk.

Better late then never?

https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/11/telecom_cybersecurity_standards/

Blocking Chinese spies from intercepting calls? There ought to be a law

US telecoms carriers would be required to implement minimum cyber security standards and ensure their systems are not susceptible to hacks by nation-state attackers – like Salt Typhoon – under legislation proposed by senator Ron Wyden (D-OR).

The Secure American Communications Act  [PDF], if signed into law, would require the Federal Communications Commission to issue binding rules for telecom systems, following what Wyden calls the FCC's "failure" to implement security standards already required by federal law. 

Perspective.

https://www.bespacific.com/teens-social-media-and-technology-2024/

Teens, Social Media and Technology 2024

Pew:  Most teens use social media and have a smartphone, and nearly half say they’re online almost constantly. “Nine-in-ten teens report using YouTube, slightly down from 95% in 2022. Roughly six-in-ten teens say they use TikTok and Instagram, and 55% say the same for Snapchat.

Keeping up…

https://pogowasright.org/what-is-happening-in-privacy-law/

What Is Happening in Privacy Law?

Odia Kagan of Fox Rothschild writes:

Here are eight recent developments in privacy law you should consider as you get ready for the holidays.

Don’t Lie on Your AI

• The U.S. Federal Trade Commission recently issued a new enforcement action on AI “Greenwashing.”

• Make sure any AI-related marketing claims you make are accurate.

Data Brokers and Sensitive Information

• The FTC recently issued new enforcement actions on sensitive location, demonstrating the FTC’s strong stance on this topic. It also could hint at what the Trump Administration’s FTC will care about.

• The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau initiated NPRM for rules on situations that put data brokers inside scope for Fair Credit Reporting Act.

• CCPA amended its definition of “broker,” putting more companies in its scope than before

Privacy Notices

• The Texas Attorney General recently issued new notices of potential violation of the new Texas privacy law. If cured, these will not lead to enforcement.

• Interesting focus on clarity in privacy disclosures. It’s not enough to check boxes regarding what you need to disclose. It’s important that people be able to readily understand what you do with their data, and with whom you share that information.

Read about the other recent developments at Privacy Compliance & Data Security.

A look ahead?

https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/focus/tech-trends.html

Tech Trends 2025

In Deloitte’s 16th annual Tech Trends report, AI is the common thread of nearly every trend. Moving forward, it will be part of the substructure of everything we do.

Tech Trends 2025 reveals the extent to which AI is being woven into the fabric of our lives. We’ll eventually think of AI in the same way that we think of HTTP or electricity. We won’t proactively use it; we’ll simply experience a world in which it makes everything work smarter, faster, and more intuitively—like magic, but grounded in algorithms.

I should look for more like this in various industries.

https://www.bespacific.com/ebook-legal-knowledge-and-information-systems/

Ebook: Legal Knowledge and Information Systems

JURIX 2024: The Thirty-seventh Annual Conference, Brno, Czech Republic, 11-13 December 2024 – Series Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications. Volume 395. Published 2024. Editors Jaromir Savelka, Jakub Harasta, Tereza Novotna, Jakub Misek. ISBN 978-1-64368-562-5 (online) Open Access. “Description – In the research community and the legal industry, interest continues to grow in technological advances related to legal information, knowledge representation, engineering, and processing in areas such as computational and formal models of legal reasoning, legal data analytics and information retrieval, as well as in the application of machine learning techniques to legal tasks, and the evaluation of these systems. This book presents the proceedings of JURIX 2024, the 37th International Conference on Legal Knowledge and Information Systems, held from 11 to 13 December in Brno, Czech Republic. The annual JURIX conference has become an international forum for academics and professionals to exchange knowledge and experiences at the intersection of law and artificial intelligence, and a total of 90 submissions were received for the conference. Following a rigorous review process, 21 long-paper submissions were selected for presentation and publication together with 17 short papers, representing an acceptance rate of 23% for long papers and 42% overall. An additional 16 submissions were accepted as posters. Topics covered included formal approaches applied to various aspects of legal reasoning; machine learning; natural language processing and information retrieval methods as applied to various legal tasks; hybrid approaches to working on the frontier between symbolic and sub-symbolic methods; experimental inquiries on the interface between computational systems and legal systems; and network analysis in law. Covering a wide range of topics and providing an overview of recent advances, the book will be of interest to all those working at the intersection between artificial intelligence and law.”

Perspective.

https://hls.harvard.edu/today/stephanopoulos-buckland-discuss-the-impact-of-ai-on-justice-systems-and-democracy/

‘Justice is not justice if it is a desiccated calculating machine’

… “Even when instructed to be a merciful, kind judge focused on practical consequences for the community, still the AI didn’t want to deviate away from the plain text of the statute and the precedent. [It] shows us that it’s not easy at all to get an AI to behave the way that a human judge does. Maybe that’s bad, maybe that’s good, but you can’t just clearly emulate human judging, at least at present, with AI.”

The Future as seen in 1978.

https://www.openculture.com/2024/12/arthur-c-clarke-predicts-the-rise-of-artificial-intelligence-questions-what-will-happen-to-humanity-1978.html

Arthur C. Clarke Predicts the Rise of Artificial Intelligence & Questions What Will Happen to Humanity (1978)

… Yet even deep into one such fallow season, AI could still inspire enough fascination to become the subject of the 1978 NOVA documentary “Mind Machines.”

The program includes interviews with figures now recognized as luminaries in the history of AI: John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Terry Winograd, ELIZA creator Joseph Weizenbaum. It also brings on no less a technological prophet than Arthur C. Clarke, who notes that the dubious attitudes toward the prospect of thinking machines expressed in the late seventies had much in common with those about the prospect of space travel during his youth in the thirties. In his view, we were already “creating our successors. We have seen the first, crude beginnings of artificial intelligence,” and we would “one day be able to design systems that can go on improving themselves.”

Could be amusing to listen in. I wonder if they will make them available?

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-alleges-china-hacked-calls-very-senior-political-figures-official-says-2024-12-07/

US alleges China hacked calls of 'very senior' political figures, official says

The U.S. believes that an alleged sweeping Chinese cyber espionage campaign known as Salt Typhoon targeted and recorded telephone calls of "very senior" American political figures, a White House official said on Saturday.

… She did not elaborate, including revealing the identities of those who were targeted.

… The New York Times in October reported that members of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's family and Biden administration officials were among those targeted by China-linked hackers who broke into telecommunications companies.

A leading indicator?

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sheeba-Afridi/publication/386341455_The_Role_of_Artificial_Intelligence_in_Modern_Warfare_and_International_Security/links/674e0d36a7fbc259f1a62676/The-Role-of-Artificial-Intelligence-in-Modern-Warfare-and-International-Security.pdf

The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Modern Warfare and International Security

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly transforming the landscape of modern warfare and international security, introducing new capabilities, challenges, and ethical dilemmas. AI technologies, ranging from autonomous weapons systems to advanced data analysis tools, are being integrated into military strategies and defense systems, altering the way conflicts are fought and security is maintained. AI's potential to enhance decision-making, improve operational efficiency, and enable real-time responses to threats has led to its rapid adoption by military forces around the world. These advancements promise significant improvements in precision, speed, and effectiveness in both offensive and defensive operations. However, the integration of AI in warfare also raises serious concerns about accountability, control, and the potential for unintended consequences. Autonomous weapons, capable of operating without human intervention, present risks in terms of ethical decision-making, potential escalation of conflicts, and the loss of human oversight. The possibility of AI systems being hacked or malfunctioning also presents vulnerabilities in military operations, potentially leading to catastrophic outcomes. Moreover, AIdriven warfare could exacerbate global security tensions, as states race to develop and deploy these technologies, potentially triggering a new arms race in autonomous weaponry and cybersecurity. In the realm of international security, AI also plays a significant role in intelligence gathering, surveillance, and cyber defense. AI-powered algorithms can analyze vast amounts of data quickly, identifying patterns and threats that would otherwise go unnoticed, thus strengthening national security frameworks. However, the use of AI for surveillance and cybersecurity raises privacy concerns and the risk of state overreach