The first of many, many, many?
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has
fined Facebook £500,000 for serious breaches of data protection law.
In July, the ICO issued a Notice of Intent to fine
Facebook as part of a wide ranging investigation into the use of data
analytics for political purposes.
After considering representations from the
company, the ICO has issued the fine to Facebook and confirmed that
the amount – the maximum
allowable under the laws which applied at the time the
incidents occurred – will remain unchanged. The
full penalty notice can be read here.
The ICO’s investigation found that between 2007
and 2014, Facebook processed the personal information of users
unfairly by allowing application developers access to their
information without sufficiently clear and informed consent, and
allowing access even if users had not downloaded the app, but were
simply ‘friends’ with people who had.
[…]
… This fine was served under the Data
Protection Act 1998. It was replaced in May by the new Data
Protection Act 2018, alongside the EU’s General
Data Protection Regulation. These provide a range of new
enforcement tools for the ICO, including maximum fines of £17
million or 4% of global turnover.
(Related)
Europe’s
parliament calls for full audit of Facebook in wake of breach scandal
The European
Parliament has called for a full audit of Facebook following a
string of data breach scandals — including the Cambridge
Analytica affair.
… In the resolution,
adopted today, they have also recommended Facebook make additional
changes to combat election interference — asserting the company has
not just breached the trust of European users “but indeed EU law”.
We should soon have a large(er) collection of DRM
hacks!
In
Groundbreaking Decision, Feds Say Hacking DRM to Fix Your Electronics
Is Legal
Motherboard:
“The new exemptions are a major win for the right to repair
movement and give consumers wide latitude to legally repair the
devices they own. The Librarian of Congress and US Copyright Office
just proposed
new rules that will give consumers and independent repair experts
wide latitude to legally hack embedded software on their devices in
order to repair or maintain them. This exemption to copyright law
will apply to smartphones, tractors, cars, smart home appliances, and
many other devices. The move is a landmark win for the “right to
repair” movement; essentially, the federal government has ruled
that consumers and repair
professionals have the right to legally hack the firmware of
“lawfully acquired” devices for the “maintenance” and
“repair” of that device. Previously, it was legal to
hack tractor firmware for the purposes of repair; it is now legal to
hack many consumer electronics. Specifically, it allows breaking
digital rights management (DRM) and embedded software locks for “the
maintenance of a device or system … in order to make it work in
accordance with its original specifications” or for “the repair
of a device or system … to a state of working in accordance with
its original specifications.”…”
For my Architecture students.
Chipotle
CEO: Don't underestimate the power of digital to boost sales
- In the third quarter, digital sales grew 48.3 percent and now account for 11.2 of overall sales, the company said.
- CEO Brian Niccol's goal is to remove friction in all aspects of the ordering and making process, so that food gets to customers faster.
- Since joining Chipotle in March, Niccol has championed upgrades to the company's mobile app, its internal software and in-restaurant technology.
(Related) Could we make these “self-driving?”
Perhaps with robot package handlers?
UPS
launches cargo e-bike delivery in Seattle, returning to bicycle
courier origins a century later
… UPS has partnered with the Seattle
Department of Transportation and University of Washington to make
deliveries using electric-assist cargo bikes in downtown Seattle.
During the year-long pilot, UPS will deliver packages in Pike Place
Market and the surrounding neighborhood using the bikes. If the
pilot is successful, UPS will expand its cargo e-bike delivery
service to other parts of Seattle.
UPS worked with Silver
Eagle Manufacturing to develop the e-bikes, which carry trailers
packed with cargo containers. UPS has tested e-bike delivery in
other cities, but the Seattle pilot is the first in which wagons with
detachable containers will be used. The cargo bikes can hold up to
400 pounds. Couriers will drive on sidewalks and designated bike
lanes to make their deliveries.
An opportunity for my students?
Making
Sufficient Knowledge of Technology Available to Counsel
Chasse, Ken, Making Sufficient Knowledge of
Technology Available to Counsel (September 14, 2018). Available at
SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3249523
or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3249523
(1) lawyers don’t know such evidence-producing
technology sufficiently well so as to be able to challenge its
performance by effective cross-examination and with their own expert
witnesses (if Legal Aid will pay for them).
[…]
(11) defense counsel needs a constitutional right
to a traditional full preliminary inquiry so as to be able to
cross-examine witnesses (or demand that witnesses be made available
for cross-examination) to learn enough about the technology that
produced the evidence to be used by the prosecution at trial;
More specifically the problem is collectively made
up of these individual problems…”
I never asked before, are we (US taxpayers) paying
for President Trump’s Tweets?
Twitter is
now consistently profitable
It took Twitter more than a
decade to become profitable, but now it seems like those profits are
here to stay.
Twitter reported its fourth
straight profitable quarter on Thursday. The company’s net income
was $789 million for the quarter, but a lot of that was attributed to
a massive “one-time release of deferred tax asset valuation
allowance,” which accounted for $683 million. If you take that
out, Twitter’s net income was $106 million on $758 million in
revenue, which was better than expected.
In the past four quarters,
Twitter’s net profit is just over $1 billion. In the four quarters
prior, Twitter lost $367 million.
For my students.
190
universities just launched 600 free online courses. Here’s the full
list.
Quartz
– “If you haven’t heard, universities around the world are
offering their courses online for free (or at least partially
free). These courses are collectively called MOOCs or Massive
Open Online Courses. In the past six years or so, over 800
universities have created more than 10,000 of these MOOCs. And
I’ve been keeping track of these MOOCs the entire time over at
Class
Central, ever since they rose to prominence. In the past four
months alone, 190 universities have announced 600 such free online
courses. I’ve compiled a list of them and categorized them
according to the following subjects: Computer Science, Mathematics,
Programming, Data Science, Humanities, Social Sciences, Education &
Teaching, Health & Medicine, Business, Personal Development,
Engineering, Art & Design, and finally Science. If you have
trouble figuring out how to signup for Coursera courses for free,
don’t worry — here’s an
article on how to do that, too. Many of these are completely
self-paced, so you can start taking them at your convenience…”
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