Student Privacy and Security Risks
Student Privacy and Pandemics: Understanding and Reducing Privacy and Security Risks
Posts Tagged ‘Data Privacy’
the Platform Transparency and Accountability Act
Meta, TikTok and YouTube may finally have to start sharing data with researchers
A Senate hearing this week and a new law in Europe show how “transparency” advocates are winning
the Platform Transparency and Accountability Act, was introduced in December by (an ever-so-slightly) bipartisan group of senators.
“YouTube, TikTok, Telegram, and Snapchat represent some of the largest and most influential platforms in the United States, and they provide almost no functional transparency into their systems. And as a result, they avoid nearly all of the scrutiny and criticism that comes with it.”
When we do hear about what happens inside a tech company, it’s often because a Frances Haugen-type employee decides to leak it.
Cruz expressed great confusion about why he got relatively few new Twitter followers in the days before Elon Musk said he was going to buy it, but then got many more after the acquisition was announced.
The actual explanation is that Musk has lots of conservative fans, they flocked back to the platform when they heard he was buying it, and from there Twitter’s recommendation algorithms kicked into gear.
As usual, though, Europe is much further ahead of us. The Digital Services Act, which regulators reached an agreement on in April, includes provisions that would require big platforms to share data with qualified researchers. The law is expected to go into effect by next year. And so even if Congress dithers after today, transparency is coming to platforms one way or another. Here’s hoping it can begin to answer some very important questions.
India privacy
https://www.cnet.com/news/privacy/india-orders-vpn-companies-to-collect-and-hand-over-user-data/
A new government order will force virtual private networks to store user data for five years or longer.
The directive isn’t limited to VPN providers. Data centers and cloud service providers are both listed under the same provision. The companies will have to keep customer information even after the customer has canceled their subscription or account.
India has a history of applying a heavy hand to online activity.
In April, India banned 22 YouTube channels. In 2021, Facebook, Google Twitter ended a tense stand-off with the Indian government when they largely complied with the government’s expanded control over social media content in the country. In 2020, the country banned over 200 Chinese apps, including TikTok, and ultimately banned 9,849 social media URLs.
social media and social credit system
One of China’s biggest social networks is revealing user locations to head off ‘bad behaviour’
euters reports that Weibo will begin showing the rough locations of its users using IP addresses to combat “bad behaviour” online. The locations show up on both profiles and posts.
Chinese citizens have long resorted to using VPNs and other privacy tools to help either access non-Chinese services or speak freely online and you can see why.
In a similar view to the Panopticon, visibly showing users that the service knows where they are will lead to self-censorship, reducing the strain on Chinese censors to cover an internet with hundreds of millions of users.
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more on social credit system in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=china+social
new EU legislation for Google, Meta
Google, Meta, and others will have to explain their algorithms under new EU legislation
The Digital Services Act will reshape the online world
The EU has agreed on another ambitious piece of legislation to police the online world.
- argeted advertising based on an individual’s religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity is banned. Minors cannot be subject to targeted advertising either.
- “Dark patterns” — confusing or deceptive user interfaces designed to steer users into making certain choices — will be prohibited. The EU says that, as a rule, canceling subscriptions should be as easy as signing up for them.
- Large online platforms like Facebook will have to make the working of their recommender algorithms (used for sorting content on the News Feed or suggesting TV shows on Netflix) transparent to users. Users should also be offered a recommender system “not based on profiling.” In the case of Instagram, for example, this would mean a chronological feed (as it introduced recently).
- Hosting services and online platforms will have to explain clearly why they have removed illegal content as well as give users the ability to appeal such takedowns. The DSA itself does not define what content is illegal, though, and leaves this up to individual countries.
- The largest online platforms will have to provide key data to researchers to “provide more insight into how online risks evolve.”
- Online marketplaces must keep basic information about traders on their platform to track down individuals selling illegal goods or services.
- Large platforms will also have to introduce new strategies for dealing with misinformation during crises (a provision inspired by the recent invasion of Ukraine).
hese tech companies have lobbied hard to water down the requirements in the DSA, particularly those concerning targeted advertising and handing over data to outside researchers.
Facebook and January 6
“Facebook’s business model has evolved into social engineering via psychological warfare,” she declared. “The platform weaponizes user data to fuel algorithmic manipulation in order to maximize ad sales—not just for products, but for ideas like the disinformation that led to the conspiracy theories associated with the January 6 Capitol attack.”
“One thing is clear: Facebook and the other digital platforms that rely on an extractive business model will not change on their own,” the letter states. “Congress needs to step in.”
“The secretive collection, sale, and algorithmic manipulation of our personal data by platforms like Facebook must end,” he said. “It is a primary driver of the virality of the misinformation, hate speech, and online radicalization that people across the political spectrum are worried about.”
Tik Tok concerns
Amazon Health Care
https://newrepublic.com/article/162553/amazon-care-pharmacy-big-tech-universal-healthcare
Microsoft has a data initiative with Providence St. Joseph Health, which operates dozens of hospitals in the United States. In 2019, Google signed a deal with the Mayo Clinic to manage and parse health records for “insights,” explaining that cloud computing and data analytics would provide better performance. Google also reached an agreement this week with HCA Healthcare, a large hospital chain
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more on data privacy in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=data+privacy
Apple in China
Censorship, Surveillance and Profits: A Hard Bargain for Apple in China
Apple built the world’s most valuable business on top of China. Now it has to answer to the Chinese government.
Two decades ago, as Apple’s operations chief, Mr. Cook spearheaded the company’s entrance into China, a move that helped make Apple the most valuable company in the world and made him the heir apparent to Steve Jobs. Apple now assembles nearly all of its products and earns a fifth of its revenue in the China region. But just as Mr. Cook figured out how to make China work for Apple, China is making Apple work for the Chinese government.
Mr. Cook often talks about Apple’s commitment to civil liberties and privacy. But to stay on the right side of Chinese regulators, his company has put the data of its Chinese customers at risk
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more on Apple in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=apple+
Amazon Ring and surveillance
since Amazon bought Ring in 2018, it has brokered more than 1,800 partnerships with local law enforcement agencies. These partnerships are growing at an alarming rate.
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more on surveillance in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=surveillance