Big Brother News Watch
TSA Testing Facial Recognition Technology at 16 Airports Across U.S. to Enhance Airport Security, Travel + More
TSA Testing Facial Recognition Technology at 16 Airports Across U.S. to Enhance Airport Security, Travel
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is testing the use of facial recognition technology at select airports across the country to enhance security and speed up procedures.
The pilot program is currently in place at some TSA checkpoints at 16 airports in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Orlando, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, San Jose, and Gulfport-Biloxi and Jackson in Mississippi.
TSA says the pilot program is voluntary and accurate, but critics have raised concerns about questions of bias in facial recognition technology and possible repercussions for passengers who want to opt-out.
In a February letter to TSA, five senators — four Democrats and an Independent who is part of the Democratic caucus — demanded the agency stop the program, saying, “Increasing biometric surveillance of Americans by the government represents a risk to civil liberties and privacy rights.”
Online Age Verification Is Coming, and Privacy Is on the Chopping Block
A spate of child safety rules might make going online in a few years very different, and not just for kids. In 2022 and 2023, numerous states and countries are exploring age verification requirements for the Internet, either as an implicit demand or a formal rule. The laws are positioned as a way to protect children on a dangerous internet. But the price of that protection might be high: nothing less than the privacy of, well, everyone.
Government agencies, private companies, and academic researchers have spent years seeking a way to solve the thorny question of how to check internet users’ ages without the risk of revealing intimate information about their online lives. But after all that time, privacy and civil liberties advocates still aren’t convinced the government is ready for the challenge.
In the U.S. and abroad, lawmakers want to limit children’s access to two things: social networks and porn sites. Louisiana, Arkansas, and Utah have all passed laws that set rules for underage users on social media. Meanwhile, multiple U.S. federal bills are on the table, and so are laws in other countries, like the U.K.’s Online Safety Bill. Some of these laws demand specific features from age verification tools. Others simply punish sites for letting anyone underage use them — a more subtle request for verification.
More experimentally, there are solutions that estimate a user’s age without an ID. One potential option, which is already used by Facebook and Instagram, would use a camera and facial recognition to guess whether you’re 18. Another, which is highlighted as a potential age verification solution by France’s National Commission on Informatics and Liberty (CNIL), would “guess” your age based on your online activity.
‘Biden Bucks Stop Here’: DeSantis Touts Florida’s Digital Currency Ban, Warns of ‘Cashless Society’
The team for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Saturday released a new video first obtained by FOX Business that follows the governor signing legislation to ban the use of a central bank digital currency, or CBDC, in the Sunshine State.
One day before the video’s release, DeSantis signed legislation prohibiting a federally adopted CBDC as money within Florida’s Uniform Commercial Code. The new law also implements protections against a central global currency by prohibiting any CBDC by a foreign reserve or sanctioned central bank and calls on other states to join in passing similar legislation.
The Federal Reserve defines CBDC as “a digital form of central bank money widely available to the general public,” meaning the central bank — the Federal Reserve in the case of the U.S. — would be liable for the money rather than a commercial bank.
Proponents argue a CBDC would offer greater convenience and efficiency while ensuring safety and liquidity. According to DeSantis and other critics, however, such a monetary system would give the federal government unprecedented power over consumers and businesses.
Ex-ByteDance Exec Claims CCP ‘Maintained’ Access to U.S. Data
The Chinese Communist Party “maintained supreme access” to data belonging to TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, including data stored in the U.S., a former top executive claimed in a lawsuit Friday. Why it matters: The allegations come as federal officials weigh the fate of the social media giant in the U.S. amid growing concerns over national security and data privacy.
Driving the news: In a wrongful dismissal suit filed in San Francisco Superior Court, Yintao Yu said ByteDance “has served as a useful propaganda tool for the Chinese Communist Party.”
Yu, whose claim says he served as head of engineering for ByteDance’s U.S. offices from August 2017 to November 2018, alleged that inside the Beijing-based company, the CCP “had a special office or unit, which was sometimes referred to as the ‘Committee’.”
The “Committee” didn’t work for ByteDance but “played a significant role,” in part by “gui[ding] how the company advanced core Communist values,” the lawsuit claims. The CCP could also access U.S. user data via a “backdoor channel in the code,” the suit states.
Instagram and Facebook Are Using Fears of a TikTok Ban to Poach Influencers
Meta and other social media firms chasing TikTok’s short-form video success are fanning the flames of ban rhetoric while simultaneously vying to boost the attractiveness of their own TikTok clones with new monetization features. The goal? Steal away as many fearful TikTokers as possible.
Brewing fears of an impending TikTok ban could send some creators packing their digital bags and heading back to Instagram and Facebook, whether they like it or not. Digital marketing experts and content creators speaking with Gizmodo said a scenario where TikTok is made inaccessible in the U.S. would result in diminished competition in the social media landscape broadly and a far less favorable environment for creators.
It could also be a godsend for Meta and other companies racing to keep pace with TikTok’s meteoric ascent. Whether or not a national ban ever actually materializes is almost irrelevant; the fear is enough for their recruitment drive.
The U.K.’s Secretive Web Surveillance Program Is Ramping Up
The U.K. government is quietly expanding and developing a controversial surveillance technology that could be capable of logging and storing the web histories of millions of people.
Official reports and spending documents show that in the past year, U.K. police have deemed the testing of a system that can collect people’s “internet connection records” a success, and have started work to potentially introduce the system nationally. If implemented, it could hand law enforcement a powerful surveillance tool.
Critics say the system is highly intrusive, and that officials have a history of not properly protecting people’s data. Much of the technology and its operation is shrouded in secrecy, with bodies refusing to answer questions about the systems.
Surveillance Contractor Monitored Vaccine Skeptics, Report Says
Flashpoint, a surveillance contractor for the FBI, infiltrated chatrooms of airline industry groups that opposed vaccine mandates, according to a report by investigative journalist Lee Fang.
In the past, Flashpoint infiltrated Islamic terror groups. But it has since focused on vaccine skeptic groups and other domestic political groups.
Fang analyzed a webinar presentation by Flashpoint to clients that was held last year. In the presentation, Flashpoint analyst Vlad Cuiujuclu showed the company’s methods of identifying and infiltrating Telegram chat groups.
Describing the presentation, Fang wrote: “‘In this case, we’re searching for a closed channel of U.S. Freedom Flyers,’ said Cuiujuclu. ‘It’s basically a group that opposed vaccination and masks.’
Fired Teachers Who Refused COVID Vaccine to Get Full Reinstatement and Back Pay
Three Rhode Island teachers who were fired for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine have been offered their jobs back with full back pay after reaching a settlement with the school district.
Teachers Stephanie Hines, Brittany DiOrio, and Kerri Thurber were terminated from their positions in Barrington Public Schools after they had requested a religious exemption after the school-mandated employees get the vaccine.
Last week, their attorney, Greg Piccirilli, and the school district said they had reached a settlement, allowing the teachers to return to their jobs. They are also each entitled to $33,333 in damages along with their back pay. DiOrio will get $150,000, Thurber will get $128,000, and Hines will receive $65,000 under the agreement.
Meanwhile, Barrington Public Schools told the Providence Journal that it reached the settlement because the litigation would likely put a drag on the school’s resources and funding. It attempted to distance itself from its own vaccine mandate by claiming that it was dealing with the spread of COVID-19, although there is a growing body of evidence that shows the vaccines do not prevent the spread of the virus.
Nurse Fired for Refusing COVID Vaccine Reflects as National Emergency Ends: ‘It’s Frustrating to Look Back’
A New York nurse who lost her job, because she refused to take the COVID-19 vaccine due to medical circumstances, says it is “frustrating” looking back at her firing as the Biden administration marks an end to the health emergency.
Jenna Viani-Pascale says she decided to forgo the coronavirus vaccine because she suffered a stroke at 36 years old. She was dismissed from her job after she was unable to get a medical exemption for her condition or take her case to court as lawyers were hesitant to take a stand. Now as President Biden signed a bill Monday to end the national emergency response to COVID-19, the nurse is re-living her ordeal.
Viani-Pascale expressed frustration that medical professionals were not given an opportunity to make their own decision about taking the vaccine.
“I haven’t heard from my old job,” she said. “I haven’t been offered a position back. They’re still requiring it at the hospitals in New York. So, it’s just a very frustrating thing for somebody who really loved her job.”
Musk Draws Backlash for Picking World Economic Forum Leader, Supporter of ‘Content Moderation’ to Run Twitter + More
Musk Draws Backlash for Picking World Economic Forum Leader, Supporter of ‘Content Moderation’ to Run Twitter
Elon Musk selected advertising executive Linda Yaccarino to replace him as chief executive officer of Twitter, drawing concern as users on the platform notice her connections to the World Economic Forum (WEF) and her endorsements of content moderation.
Twitter users started to uncover the connections that Yaccarino holds to entities such as the WEF, for which she chairs the Taskforce on Future of Work and sits on the Media, Entertainment and Culture Industry Governors Steering Committee.
The WEF is a leading proponent of stakeholder capitalism, an approach to investing that encourages executives to consider the needs of employees, communities and other parties in addition to shareholders, and the use of corporate power to advance political agendas.
Musk himself criticized the WEF earlier this year for “trying to be the boss” of the entire planet as business leaders and government officials gathered at the organization’s annual summit in Switzerland.
Yaccarino also served as board chair for the Ad Council, an entity which creates public service announcements for nonprofits and governments. She partnered with the Biden administration to launch a campaign featuring Pope Francis in order to promote COVID-19 vaccines.
IN-DEPTH: Is Your Money Spying on You?
Slowly but steadily, our money is taking on a new role; in addition to its traditional function as a medium of exchange and store of value, money is increasingly becoming a means of surveillance and control.
Financial privacy has become one of the biggest casualties in the world’s relentless march to a digital payments system.
Not only do corporations like your bank, credit card issuer, PayPal and Amazon know your buying habits intimately, this data is routinely passed on to government to be mined in a warrantless search for criminal activity.
Behind this phenomenon is what some call the “war on cash,” with the goal of a cashless society. This transition includes partnerships of banking and tech companies, and the rise of the “fintech” industry.
Google’s New AI Plan to Demolish Journalism Industry
Remember back in 2018, when Google removed “don’t be evil” from its code of conduct?
It’s been living up to that removal lately. At its annual I/O in San Francisco this week, the search giant finally lifted the lid on its vision for AI-integrated search — and that vision, apparently, involves cutting digital publishers off at the knees.
At first glance, the change might seem relatively benign. Often, all folks surfing the web want is a quick-hit summary or snippet of something anyway.
But it’s not unfair to say that Google, which in April, according to data from SimilarWeb, hosted roughly 91% of all search traffic, is somewhat synonymous with, well, the internet. And the internet isn’t just some ethereal, predetermined thing, as natural water or air. The internet is a marketplace, and Google is its kingmaker.
As such, the demo raises an extremely important question for the future of the already-ravaged journalism industry: if Google’s AI is going to mulch up original work and provide a distilled version of it to users at scale, without ever connecting them to the original work, how will publishers continue to monetize their work?
As COVID Emergency Ends, Surveillance Shifts to the Sewers
As the COVID-19 public health emergency expires in the U.S., the coronavirus will not disappear. But many of the data streams that have helped Americans monitor the virus will go dark.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will stop tabulating community levels of COVID-19 and will no longer require certain case information from hospitals or testing data from laboratories.
And as free testing is curtailed, official case counts, which became less reliable as Americans shifted to at-home testing, may drift even further from reality.
But experts who want to keep tabs on the virus will still have one valuable option: sewage.
People who are infected with the coronavirus shed the pathogen in their stool, whether or not they take a COVID-19 test or seek medical care, enabling officials to track levels of the virus in communities over time and to watch for the emergence of new variants.
Lawmakers ‘Cowered’ to Take on Tech Giants Again, Senator Says
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) spoke candidly on Thursday about the impact of failed efforts to pass major antitrust legislation last Congress. The defeat is hurting lawmakers’ attempts to rein in the tech giants, he argued, because some of his colleagues “cowered” in the face of industry “intimidation.”
A massive industry-led lobbying campaign to tank those proposals is still giving lawmakers the jitters, he said during a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting.
Grassley’s blunt remarks illustrate fallout from lawmakers’ antitrust defeat and how it may shape efforts to regulate the tech sector moving ahead, beyond concerns about competition.
‘Secret Campaign’ Used Thousands of New Yorkers’ Identities Without Consent to Influence Federal Policy + More
‘Secret Campaign’ Used Thousands of New Yorkers’ Identities Without Consent to Influence Federal Policy: NY AG
Some of the nation’s largest broadband companies funded a “secret campaign” that used the identities of millions of consumers without their consent to generate fake public comments and ultimately convince the federal government to repeal net neutrality in 2017, the New York Attorney General’s Office said Wednesday, announcing a $615,000 settlement.
New York Attorney General Letitia James on Wednesday secured $615,000 from three companies — LCX, Lead ID and Ifficient — that her office found supplied millions of fake public comments to influence a 2017 proceeding by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to repeal net neutrality rules.
An investigation by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) found that the fake comments used the identities of millions of consumers, including thousands of New Yorkers, without their knowledge or consent.
“Public comment opportunities are a chance for Americans to give their input on important government policies, and these companies abused that for their own selfish purposes,” James said in a statement. “No one should have their identity co-opted by manipulative companies and used to falsely promote a private agenda.”
EU Draft Legislation Will Ban AI for Mass Biometric Surveillance and Predictive Policing
The EU has taken a step closer to enforcing strong regulation of AI, drafting new safeguards that would prohibit a wide range of dangerous use cases.
These include prohibitions on mass facial recognition programs in public places and predictive policing algorithms that try to identify future offenders using personal data. The regulation also requires the creation of a public database of “high-risk” AI systems deployed by public and government authorities so that EU citizens can be informed about when and how they are being affected by this technology.
The law in question is a new draft of the EU’s AI Act, which was approved today by two key committees: the Internal Market Committee and the Civil Liberties Committee. These committees are comprised of MEPs (members of the European Parliament) who have been charged with overseeing the legislation’s development. They approved the finished draft with 84 votes in favor, seven against, and 12 abstentions.
Prince George’s May Sue Social Media Firms Over Students’ Mental Health
Prince George’s County Public Schools could be the latest district to take legal action against the social media companies behind Instagram, TikTok and other apps arguing they are contributing to a youth mental health crisis and should be held accountable.
The county’s board of education will decide Thursday night whether members want to move forward with retaining legal representation.
Several school systems, including Seattle Public Schools in January, have filed suit against the social media companies, and school districts in California, Pennsylvania and Florida have joined. In Maryland, public school systems in Cecil and Carroll counties are also suing.
Attorneys who could be retained wrote in a memo to the Prince George’s school system that the goal of the legal action is to achieve “meaningful recoveries” for the school districts that have been “on the frontlines of a nationwide youth mental health crisis” fueled by social media. They argue that research shows there is a “direct connection” between the youth mental health crisis and the rise of social media.
Senate Republican Unveils Bill to End Government Internet Censorship
Missouri GOP Sen. Eric Schmitt introduced legislation Wednesday that would outlaw government-requested censorship of lawful online speech — restarting discussion of how to accomplish the lofty goal after earlier ideas stalled.
Schmitt’s COLLUDE Act would strip Big Tech platforms of legal immunity for third-party content under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 if they cooperate with government demands to remove First Amendment-protected speech.
“Big Tech executives have no business acting as censors on behalf of the federal government, and accountability is coming for those who sought to silence those whom they disagreed with,” Schmitt said.
Although it faces an uphill climb in the Democrat-held Senate, Schmitt’s proposal offers a fresh idea for heading off federal efforts to police so-called disinformation on subjects such as COVID-19 and alleged political corruption, after repeated instances of censored perspectives later gaining broad acceptance as fact.
Inslee Rescinds COVID Vaccine Requirement for WA State Employees
Gov. Jay Inslee has rescinded a requirement that Washington state employees receive vaccinations for COVID-19, ending one of the strictest such mandates in the country. Inslee made the announcement Wednesday morning, saying the state will no longer require current or prospective employees to show proof of vaccination.
Unlike many other states that imposed vaccine requirements, Washington’s mandate did not allow workers to take regular coronavirus tests in lieu of receiving the vaccines.
While Inslee’s mandate was followed by the vast majority of government employees, more than 2,100 workers who refused to be vaccinated were fired or resigned, according to the state Office of Financial Management.
The Washington Federation of State Employees, which represents nearly 47,000 public-service workers, posted an online message to members noting that the Inslee administration is making those who lost their jobs due to the vaccine mandate “apply, interview, and openly compete” for government positions.
Evolutionary Transhumanism: The End of Our Species as We Know It?
This subject will likely be very foreign to most, will be avoided by many, and will certainly offend those clinging to a god or religion in hopes of gaining everlasting life, by accepting certain dogma laid down in the past by ancient beliefs, religions, churches, monarchs, or rulers.
Those who depend on what is currently called ‘science,’ may be more interested, but will normally fail to see as clearly as they might, the true ramifications of this world being created today. The saying, “living in interesting times,” takes on a new meaning given our circumstances, and the great ‘advancement’ of ‘artificial intelligence,’ technological discovery, and the drive for global dominance, all happening at the same time.
In order to have gotten to this level of ‘thinking’ by the many, man’s achievements, supposed morality, history, and societal norms, had to be destroyed and demoralized, so that artificial life would be sought and desired by the herd. Given all that is happening, the absolute hatred and division that is evident, the loss of freedom, the insane drive for global dominance, and the mass belief in sameness and equality, all at the expense of others, and life itself, one cannot help but see the writing on the wall.
In order to achieve this fully controlled, technological, computerized non-human world, a world where robotic existence is deemed necessary and essential for survival, the mindset of the herd must be altered to such an extent, as to reach a level where the abandonment of this species is accepted as beneficial.
EXCLUSIVE: Congressman Urges Biden Administration to End Healthcare COVID Vaccine Mandate
President Joe Biden’s administration should immediately end its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers, a top congressman said on May 10.
The COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) is ending just after midnight on May 12. Several COVID-19 vaccine mandates are ending at the same time. But it’s not clear when the mandate imposed by the Department of Human Services (HHS) Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) is ending, prompting the new letter from Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.).
The White House said recently that HHS would be “start[ing] the process” to end the healthcare worker mandate. But no end date was given.
The congressman noted that there are serious healthcare worker shortages that have grown worse during the pandemic. Causes include the mandate and burnout.
South Korea to Lift Quarantine Mandate for COVID and End Testing Recommendation for Travelers
South Korea will drop its COVID-19 quarantine requirements and end testing recommendations for international arrivals starting next month after the World Health Organization declared the end of the global health emergency.
The decision was announced during a meeting attended by President Yoon Suk Yeol, where he thanked the country’s medical workers and said it was “delightful that people are getting their normal lives back after three and a half years.”
He said his government will take steps to improve the country’s capacity to deal with future pandemics, including providing stronger support for vaccine developments and expanding international cooperation.
We Know So Little About How Social Media Affects Kids’ Brains + More
We Know So Little About How Social Media Affects Kids’ Brains
The American Psychological Association has issued its first advisory on social media use in adolescence. What’s most striking in its data-based recommendations is how little we really know about how these apps affect our kids.
The relative newness of platforms like Snapchat and TikTok means little research is available about their long-term effects on teen and tween brains. Getting better data will require significant funding — and much more transparency from tech companies.
Perhaps a lack of clear data is one reason that so much of the conversation around social media and kids leans on our personal experiences and attitudes. And so much of the available data is murky: There’s plenty of correlative evidence that platforms like TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram can have a negative effect on kids’ development, but very little causal data.
That doesn’t mean that our assumptions about social media’s deleterious effects on kids aren’t true, or that parents don’t have cause to worry. But it has led to an all-or-nothing discourse that often ignores the reality that social media isn’t going away.
Biden Revokes COVID Travel, Federal Employee Vaccine Requirements
President Joe Biden on Tuesday revoked requirements that most international visitors to the United States be vaccinated against COVID-19 as well as similar rules for federal employees and contractors.
Biden’s orders take effect at 12:01 a.m. ET May 12 with the expiration of the U.S. COVID public health emergency. The Biden administration’s rules imposed in September 2021 requiring about 3.5 million federal employees and contractors to be vaccinated or face firing or disciplinary action have not been enforced for over a year after a series of court rulings.
The White House announced the plan last week to end the last of the extraordinary public health restrictions first adopted in 2020 that at one point barred most of the world’s population from entering the United States.
The Homeland Security Department will also no longer require non-U.S. travelers entering the United States via land ports of entry and ferries to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and provide proof upon request.
Biden Admin Creates New Disinformation Office to Oversee the Rest
With the Biden administration elevating disinformation to a national security threat, as codified in its first-of-its-kind National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism, published in June 2021, new government (and non-government) offices dedicated to fighting foreign disinformation are cropping up everywhere.
To oversee organizations like the Pentagon’s new Influence and Perception Management Office and at least four organizations inside the Department of Homeland Security alone, the Director of National Intelligence has created a new office — the Foreign Malign Influence Center, The Intercept reports.
Established on September 23 of last year after Congress provisioned funding, the FMIC was only announced publicly after The Intercept inquired. The group, operating under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), “enjoys the unique authority to marshal support from all elements of the U.S. intelligence community to monitor and combat foreign influence efforts such as disinformation campaigns,” according to the report.
That said, it isn’t just monitoring foreign threats … as the FMIC is also authorized to monitor “the public opinion within the United States.”
“It’s the basic rhetorical trick of the censorship age: raise a fuss about a foreign threat, using it as a battering ram to get everyone from Congress to the tech companies to submit to increased regulation and surveillance,” Twitter Files journalist Matt Taibbi wrote Friday. “Then, slowly, adjust your aim to domestic targets.”
Docs Warn About AI’s ‘Existential Threat to Humanity’
Artificial intelligence poses “an existential threat to humanity” akin to nuclear weapons in the 1980s and should be reined in until it can be properly regulated, an international group of doctors and public health experts warned Tuesday in BMJ Global Health.
What they’re saying: “With exponential growth in AI research and development, the window of opportunity to avoid serious and potentially existential harms is closing,” wrote the authors, among them experts from the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and the International Institute for Global Health.
The big picture: The warning comes amid increasing calls for improved oversight of artificial intelligence from the likes of Geoffrey Hinton, the so-called godfather of AI, who announced he was quitting Google over his worries about threats from machine learning, PBS reports.
Zoom in: The physicians and public health experts say the healthcare community needs to sound the alarm “even as parts of our community espouse the benefits of AI in the fields of healthcare and medicine.”
They cite AI’s ability to rapidly analyze sets of data could be misused for surveillance and information campaigns to “further undermine democracy by causing a general breakdown in trust or by driving social division and conflict, with ensuing public health impacts.”
Ex-Fox News Host Tucker Carlson Launching New Show on Twitter
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson plans to launch a “new version” of his show on Twitter. Carlson announced the news in a three-minute video posted on the social media platform on Tuesday.
“Speech is the fundamental prerequisite for democracy. That’s why it’s enshrined in the first of our Constitutional amendments,” Carlson says in the video. “There aren’t many platforms left that allow free speech. The last big one remaining in the world — the only one — is Twitter, where we are now.”
Twitter CEO Elon Musk took to his platform Tuesday evening to respond to Carlson’s announcement and confirm that Twitter did not make any sort of deal for the new show.
Carlson, 53, parted ways with Fox News in April but remains under contract until January 2025. According to reports, Carlson will forfeit $25 million in severance from the network to start the new show. Earlier Tuesday, Carlson’s lawyer accused Fox News of fraud and breach of contract, according to Axios.
Calif. Top Court Reluctant to Hold Employers Liable for COVID Infections
Judges on California’s top state court on Tuesday said they were concerned that allowing employers to be sued when workers who contracted COVID-19 spread it to members of their households would unleash “an avalanche of litigation” against businesses.
The seven-member California Supreme Court heard oral arguments in San Francisco over whether woodworking company Victory Woodworks Inc could be held liable for negligence by Corby Kuciemba, an employee’s wife who says she became seriously ill when her husband contracted COVID at work in the early days of the pandemic in 2020 and passed it to her.
Even with the COVID global health emergency officially over, the court’s ruling in the case could have major implications for California businesses. It will apply to lawsuits that are currently pending, any new cases that fall within California’s two-year window to file negligence lawsuits, and potentially future claims involving other infectious diseases.
Clearview Fined Again in France for Failing to Comply With Privacy Orders
Clearview AI, the U.S. startup that’s attracted notoriety in recent years for a massive privacy violation after it scraped selfies off the Internet and used people’s data to build a facial recognition tool it pitched to law enforcement and others, has been hit with another fine in France over non-cooperation with the data protection regulator.
The overdue penalty payment of €5.2M has been issued by the French regulator, the CNIL — on top of a €20M sanction it slapped the company with last year for breaching regional privacy rules.
The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) sets out conditions for processing personal data lawfully. Clearview has been found to have breached a number of requirements set out in law — by France’s CNIL and several other regional data protection authorities, including authorities in the U.K., Italy and Greece, garnering several tens of millions in total fines to date.
Whether Clearview will ever pay any of these fines remains an open question, since the U.S.-based company has not been cooperating with EU regulators.
CEO of ChatGPT Maker OpenAI to Testify to Congress
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will testify to Congress for the first time next week, the latest sign that policymakers in Washington are ratcheting up scrutiny of artificial intelligence as the technology booms in Silicon Valley.
Altman, whose company is behind the AI-driven chatbot ChatGPT, will appear Tuesday before a Senate panel to discuss efforts to keep AI in check — efforts that include potential legislation under consideration on Capitol Hill.
The hearing comes as lawmakers and federal officials grapple with how to tackle the surging popularity of generative AI tools like ChatGPT, which pull information from massive data sets to generate words, images and sounds, including conversational responses to users’ queries.
The product’s rapid deployment has triggered an AI arms race in the tech industry and raised alarm among some AI ethicists and public officials, who fear the technology’s potential to spread misinformation, replace jobs or otherwise cause significant harm to users.
MEPs to Vote on Proposed Ban on ‘Big Brother’ AI Facial Recognition on Streets
Moves to ban live “Big Brother” real-time facial recognition technology from being deployed across the streets of the EU or by border officials will be tested in a key vote at the European parliament on Thursday.
The amendment is part of a package of proposals for the world’s first artificial intelligence laws, which could result in firms being fined up to €10m (£8.7m) or removed from trading within the EU for breaches of the rules.
But the ban, contained in a final text to be voted on in parliament on Thursday, is expected to be challenged by a group of center-right MEPs on the grounds that biometric scanning should be deployed to combat serious crimes such as terrorism.
