Private no longer…

https://www.pogowasright.org/these-companies-know-when-youre-pregnant-and-theyre-not-keeping-it-secret/

These Companies Know When You’re Pregnant—And They’re Not Keeping It Secret

Shoshana Wodinsky and Kyle Barr report:

A Gizmodo investigation into some of the nation’s biggest data brokers found more than two dozen promoting access to datasets containing digital information on millions of pregnant and potentially pregnant people across the country. At least one of those companies also offered a large catalogue of people who were using the same sorts of birth control that’s being targeted by more restrictive states right now.

Read more at Gizmodo.

(Related)

https://www.pogowasright.org/usa-offers-foreign-states-access-to-1-1-billion-biometric-encounters-in-return-for-reciprocal-database-access/

USA offers foreign states access to 1.1 billion biometric “encounters” in return for reciprocal database access

Statewatch writes:

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is touting ‘Enhanced Border Security Agreements’, offering access to its vast biometric databanks in exchange for other states reciprocating. Reports suggest the UK is already participating, although there is no official confirmation of this. In the EU the proposals have caused a furore amongst privacy-minded MEPs. A document produced by the DHS, obtained by Statewatch, shows what the USA is offering foreign states.

The document (pdf), entitled ‘DHS International Biometric Information Sharing (IBIS) Program’ and with the sub-heading ‘Enhanced Biometric Security Partnership (EBSP)’ is effectively a sales pitch to potential “foreign partners”.

Read more at Statewatch.

Wikilaw – when you don’t agree with your lawyer, write your own argument.

https://news.mit.edu/2022/study-finds-wikipedia-influences-judicial-behavior-0727

Study finds Wikipedia influences judicial behavior

Using a randomized field experiment, researchers discover that Wikipedia articles affect judges’ legal reasoning.

Mixed appraisals of one of the internet’s major resources, Wikipedia, are reflected in the slightly dystopian article “List of Wikipedia Scandals.” Yet billions of users routinely flock to the online, anonymously editable, encyclopedic knowledge bank for just about everything. How this unauthoritative source influences our discourse and decisions is hard to reliably trace. But a new study attempts to measure how knowledge gleaned from Wikipedia may play out in one specific realm: the courts.

A team of researchers led by Neil Thompson, a research scientist at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), recently came up with a friendly experiment: creating new legal Wikipedia articles to examine how they affect the legal decisions of judges. They set off by developing over 150 new Wikipedia articles on Irish Supreme Court decisions, written by law students. Half of these were randomly chosen to be uploaded online, where they could be used by judges, clerks, lawyers, and so on — the “treatment” group. The other half were kept offline, and this second group of cases provided the counterfactual basis of what would happen to a case absent a Wikipedia article about it (the “control”). They then looked at two measures: whether the cases were more likely to be cited as precedents by subsequent judicial decisions, and whether the argumentation in court judgments echoed the linguistic content of the new Wikipedia pages.

It turned out the published articles tipped the scales: Getting a public Wikipedia article increased a case’s citations by more than 20 percent. The increase was statistically significant, and the effect was particularly strong for cases that supported the argument the citing judge was making in their decision (but not the converse). Unsurprisingly, the increase was bigger for citations by lower courts — the High Court — and mostly absent for citations by appellate courts — the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal. The researchers suspect this is showing that Wikipedia is used more by judges or clerks who have a heavier workload, for whom the convenience of Wikipedia offers a greater attraction.

Tools & Techniques.

https://bgr.com/tech/game-changer-for-excel-free-ai-bot-creates-any-excel-formula-you-need/

Game-changer for Excel: Free AI bot creates any Excel formula you need

… For anyone who’s not a programmer and doesn’t really understand how to craft Microsoft Excel formulas? Simply head over to https://excelformulabot.com and let the AI there do the job for you.