Daily Archives: June 4, 2021

This week, King county, Washington, became the first county in the US to ban its sheriffs office and other agencies from using facial recognition technology in nearly all circumstances.

The new measure flies in the face of Washington states lenient facial recognition law, which was authored by a Microsoft employee and passed last year, and brings a challenge on an emerging set of technologies to greater Seattle, the home of both Microsoft and Amazon, two tech giants that sell facial recognition software.

The situation in Washington state reflects a broader national debate. Law enforcement is increasingly reliant on facial recognition, which can help identify suspects. Earlier this year, it was used by the FBI to identify insurgents at the US Capitol on Jan. 6. But as its use spreads, theres a growing backlash from critics, who see the practice as an invasion of privacy, an expansion of police power, and biased against people of color.

In the absence of any federal privacy regulation, some states and localities are taking action on the matter. King county joins more than a dozen cities, including San Francisco and Boston, and the state of Vermont, which have already banned police and other agencies from using facial recognition. Experts expect more to join the list.

The King county law, which only applies to countywide agencies, prohibits the government from acquiring facial recognition technology or using that kind of biometric data. The county police can still participate in the nationwide program that locates missing children, which relies on facial recognition.

King county was not currently using any facial recognition technology and both Amazon and Microsoft halted sales of their tech to police departments last summer following the police killing of George Floyd and nationwide protests over the mistreatment of Black Americans at the hands of law enforcement.

IBM and others have stopped selling facial recognition technology to law enforcement agencies as well, but others carry on. Earlier this year, BuzzFeed News found that more than 7,000 people from nearly 2,000 government agencies used or tested facial recognition software from Clearview AI.

Washington states nascent law allows facial recognition technology as long as its AI systems are subject to meaningful human review, a provision widely criticized by civil liberties advocates.

It is an industry-backed bill that purports to put safeguards around the use of facial recognition technology, but actually legitimizes the infrastructural expansion of facial recognition technology that is sold by tech companies, Jennifer Lee, the technology and liberty project manager at the Washington ACLU, said in an interview.

Facial recognition is likely more widespread than you expect in the US. According to Georgetown Law Schools Center on Privacy & Technology, as of 2016, about half of all American adults had their photo included in a criminal facial recognition database.

While facial recognition technology has been used to capture criminals like the Capital Gazette newspaper mass shooter, it also carries the risk of overreach and false positives. There have been numerous reports of false identification of criminals based on the technology in recent years in which Black people were wrongly arrested.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a leading digital rights group, says it supports the complete abolition of government surveillance via facial recognition. Adam Schwartz, a senior staff attorney at the foundation, said its use is discriminatory, an Orwellian invasion of privacy, and deters people from participating in public protests.

There are some surveillance technologies that we think that broad requirements and transparency about how its being used might be enough, but face surveillance is so dangerous that governments should not be using it at all, Schwartz told Quartz.

Daniel Castro, who directs the Information Technology and Innovation Foundations (ITIF) Center for Data Innovation, said the King county law is premised on faulty information about how biased these systems are. Castro said the evidence is incontrovertible that the best-performing systems have no racial bias.

A 2019 study from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a government agency, found significant differences among various algorithms tested. NIST concluded that US-developed algorithms had high rates of false positives for Asians, African Americans, and Native Americans.

But Castro asserts that theres a stark difference between the best and worst-performing algorithms, and said the King county ban makes it harder for local government to use everyday technology to keep its citizens and workers safe.

Pressure is mounting to rein in the worst aspects of government use of facial recognition or ban it entirely.

On Thursday, a coalition of civil liberties groups including the ACLU and EFF put out a joint statement saying that even with improvements in facial recognition technology, its still fundamentally flawed. The group, which also includes the NAACP and the Innocence Project, is calling for a ban or moratorium on law enforcement use of the tech. The letter also urged lawmakers not to preempt state and local bans through any federal legislation.

A series of bills were introduced last Congress, including the George Floyd Justice In Policing Act and Advancing Facial Recognition Act, that would have clamped down on facial recognition, but none were adopted.

Brian Hengesbaugh, who chairs the Global Data Privacy and Security Business Unit at the law firm Baker McKenzie, expects a wildfire of activity in privacy regulations in the coming years. And any future federal and state privacy laws would likely include requirements for public and private entities capturing biometric data, he said. In many of the US jurisdictions that regulate biometric data collection, and under the EUs GDPR regulations, private companies have to obtain express consent from individuals they track or else they could face legal action. Thats not really feasible in a law enforcement context.

For local jurisdictions considering what to do about facial recognition, the question is broader: Does this technology have any place in law enforcement, or should we head it off before it goes too far?

Read more:

Should the police have facial recognition tech? - Quartz

In its latest ambitious digital policy announcement, the European Union has proposed creating a framework for a trusted and secure European e-ID (aka digital identity) which it said today it wants to be available to all citizens, residents and businesses to make it easer to use a national digital identity to prove who they are in order to access public sector or commercial services regardless of where they are in the bloc.

The EU does already have a regulation on electronic authentication systems (eIDAS), which entered into force in 2014, but the commissions intention with the e-ID proposal is to expand on that by addressing some of its limitations and inadequacies (such as poor uptake and a lack of mobile support).

It also wants the e-ID framework to incorporate digital wallets meaning the user will be able to choose to download a wallet app to a mobile device where they can store and selectively share electronic documents that might be needed for a specific identity verification transaction, such as when opening a bank account or applying for a loan. Other functions (like e-signing) are also envisaged being supported by these e-ID digital wallets.

Other examples the commission gives where it sees a harmonized e-ID coming in handy include renting a car or checking into a hotel. EU lawmakers also suggest full interoperability for authentication of national digital IDs could be helpful for citizens needing to submit a local tax declaration or enrolling in a regional university.

Some member states do already offer national electronic IDs but theres a problem with interoperability across borders, per the commission, which noted today that just 14% of key public service providers across all member states allow cross-border authentication with an e-Identity system, though it also said cross-border authentications are rising.

A universally accepted e-ID could in theory help grease digital activity throughout the EUs single market by making it easier for Europeans to verify their identity and access commercial or publicly provided services when travelling or living outside their home market.

EU lawmakers also seem to believe theres an opportunity to own a strategic piece of the digital puzzle here, if they can create a unifying framework for all European national digital IDs offering consumers not just a more convenient alternative to carrying around a physical version of their national ID (at least in some situations), and/or other documents they might need to show when applying to access specific services, but what commissioners billed today as a European choice i.e., versus commercial digital ID systems that may not offer the same high-level pledge of a trusted and secure ID system that lets the user entirely control who gets to sees which bits of their data.

A number of tech giants do of course already offer users the ability to sign in to third-party digital services using the same credentials to access their own service. But in most cases doing so means the user is opening a fresh conduit for their personal data to flow back to the data-mining platform giant that controls the credential, letting Facebook (etc.) further flesh out what it knows about that users internet activity.

The new European Digital Identity Wallets will enable all Europeans to access services online without having to use private identification methods or unnecessarily sharing personal data. With this solution they will have full control of the data they share, is the commission alternative vision for the proposed e-ID framework.

It also suggests the system could create substantial upside for European businesses by supporting them in offering a wide range of new services atop the associated pledge of a secure and trusted identification service. And driving public trust in digital services is a key plank of how the commission approaches digital policymaking arguing that its a essential lever to grow uptake of online services.

However to say this e-ID scheme is ambitious is a polite word for how viable it looks.

Aside from the tricky issue of adoption (i.e., actually getting Europeans to (A) know about e-ID, and (B) actually use it, by also (C) getting enough platforms to support it, as well as (D) getting providers on board to create the necessary wallets for envisaged functionality to pan out and be as robustly secure as promised), theyll also presumably need to (E) convince and/or compel web browsers to integrate e-ID so it can be accessed in a streamlined way).

The alternative (not being baked into browsers UIs) would surely make the other adoption steps trickier.

The commissions press release is fairly thin on such detail, though saying only that: Very large platforms will be required to accept the use of European Digital Identity wallets upon request of the user.

Nonetheless, a whole chunk of the proposal is given over to discussion of Qualified certificates for website authentication a trusted services provision, also expanding on the approach taken in eIDAS, which the commission is keen for e-ID to incorporate in order to further boost user trust by offering a certified guarantee of whos behind a website (although the proposal says it will be voluntary for websites to get certified).

The upshot of this component of the proposal is that web browsers would need to support and display these certificates, in order for the envisaged trust to flow which sums to a whole lot of highly nuanced web infrastructure work needed to be done by third parties to interoperate with this EU requirement. (Work that browser makers already seem to have expressed serious misgivings about.)

This regulation may force web browsers to accept additional types of trust certificates,' said security and privacy researcher, Dr. Lukasz Olejnik, discussing the commissions proposal with TechCrunch.

This comes with a requirement for web browsers to honor such certificates and change the web browser user interfaces to display this in some way. It is doubtful that such a thing actually improves trust. If this was a mechanism to fight fake news it would be a cumbersome one. On the other hand we have an additional precedent here when web browser vendors are required to amend their security and privacy models.

Another big question mark thrown up by the commissions e-ID plan is how exactly the envisaged certified digital identity wallets would store and most importantly safeguard user data. That very much remains to be determined, at this nascent stage.

Theres discussion in the regulations recitals, for example, of member states being encouraged to set up jointly sandboxes to test innovative solutions in a controlled and secure environment in particular to improve the functionality, protection of personal data, security and interoperability of the solutions and to inform future updates of technical references and legal requirements.

And it seems that a range of approaches are being entertained, with recital 11 discussing using biometric authentication for accessing digital wallets (while also noting potential rights risks as well as the need to ensure adequate security):

European Digital Identity Wallets should ensure the highest level of security for the personal data used for authentication irrespective of whether such data is stored locally or on cloud-based solutions, taking into account the different levels of risk. Using biometrics to authenticate is one of the identifications methods providing a high level of confidence, in particular when used in combination with other elements of authentication. Since biometrics represents a unique characteristic of a person, the use of biometrics requires organisational and security measures, commensurate to the risk that such processing may entail to the rights and freedoms of natural persons and in accordance with Regulation 2016/679.

In short, its clear that underlying the commissions big, huge idea of a unified (and unifying) European e-ID is a complex mass of requirements needed to deliver on the vision of a secure and trusted European digital ID that doesnt just languish ignored and unused by most web users some highly technical requirements, others (such as achieving the sought for widespread adoption) no less challenging.

The impediments to success here certainly look daunting.

Nonetheless, lawmakers are ploughing ahead, arguing that the pandemics acceleration of digital service adoption has shown the pressing need to address eIDAS shortcomings and deliver on the goal of effective and user-friendly digital services across the EU.

Alongside todays regulatory proposal theyve put out a recommendation, inviting member states to establish a common toolbox by September 2022 and to start the necessary preparatory work immediately with a goal of publishing the agreed toolbox in October 2022 and starting pilot projects (based on the agreed technical framework) sometime thereafter.

This toolbox should include the technical architecture, standards and guidelines for best practices, the commission adds, eliding the large cans of worms being firmly cracked open.

Still, its penciled-in timeframe for mass adoption of around a decade does a better job of illustrating the scale of the challenge, with the commission writing that it wants 80% of citizens to be using an e-ID solution by 2030.

The even longer game the bloc is playing is to try to achieve digital sovereignty so its not beholden to foreign-owned tech giants. And an own brand, autonomously operated European digital identity does certainly align with that strategic goal.

This report was updated with additional comment.

More:

Europe wants to go its own way on digital identity - TechCrunch

A deal on taxing tech giants at this weeks G7 finance meeting would only be the start of a lengthy process, an expert has said.

The US is pushing for a global minimum tax rate which would stop companies from gaming the system and boost government revenues after the pandemic.

G7 finance ministers are expected to discuss the proposal in talks on Friday and Saturday in the run-up to next weeks leaders summit in Britain.

Patrick Holden, an expert in international political economy at the University of Plymouth, said a deal would be the first major piece of tax co-operation in the modern era.

But Dr Holden told The National there would still be significant hurdles between a G7 deal and implementing the proposal.

I think theyll come up with some minimum agreement and then theyll have to get the countries at the G20 which is happening later this summer in Italy to agree, and that includes China, Russia and Brazil and lots of other big countries like that, he said.

An entity like the G7, its like a club, its not like the EU or even the United Nations or the World Trade Organisation where they make laws.

They would all have to put it into legislation in Japan and Canada and the US and UK and so on, so thats going to be a long process with lots of nuances involved.

He said: It will be an important agreement, and it will send a signal in various senses, but therell be a lot for lawyers and accountants to work out.

Germany and the US, which back the minimum tax proposal, both voiced optimism over the prospects for a G7 agreement.

German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said G7 nations were very close to concluding an international agreement.

Washington wants a minimum of at least 15 per cent, but there are calls for a higher floor, such as 21 or 25 per cent.

Research unveiled by the European Tax Observatory found that the revenues of EU countries could rise by more than $200 billion a year at the higher rate.

In this scenario, EU countries would force companies to make up the difference at home if they pay a lower rate in overseas tax havens.

This would make it impossible for companies to lower their bills by setting up shop in low-tax countries such as Ireland.

Irelands corporate tax rate of 12.5 per cent is one of the lowest in the world, attracting a clutch of tech companies, such as Google and Facebook.

Ireland, which is not in the G7, said it had significant reservations about the US tax proposal.

French European affairs minister Clement Beaune said Ireland was the EU member most hostile to the idea, with Cyprus and Malta also sceptical.

Alex Cobham, the chief executive of the Tax Justice Network, said at a World Economic Forum event that the extra revenues from a minimum tax could help recovery from the pandemic.

Fifteen per cent would be a step forward, it would still bring in more than $250 billion of new revenues and that would make it the biggest change in 100 years in international tax rules, he said.

The pandemic has been the point of the spear

Patrick Holden

If they go to 21 per cent, or even better to 25 per cent, we're talking $500bn, $600bn or $700bn, that sort of money.

When you're thinking about perhaps $50 billion needed for Covax or the amounts to invest in public health systems in lower income countries, suddenly, this is really game changing.

Dr Holden said the pandemic had given a burst of momentum to the idea.

The pandemic has done a lot of damage to the finances of countries including major countries like the G7 ones, he said.

Theres been a series of crises, but obviously the pandemic has been the point of the spear.

See more here:

Long road to making tech giants pay: Expert says G7 tax deal would only be the start - The National

Apple is the worlds most valuable public company, days from unveiling new software and hardware at WWDC, in the middle of its hottest iPhone cycle in years, and having just debuted its biggest iMac redesign in years. So all is good, then?

Well, apparently not. In fact, a report Friday notes that Apple stock on currently on track for its longest weekly losing streak in more than two-and-a-half years. Because the stock market works in mysterious ways.

A report from MarketWatch notes that:

Shares of Apple Inc. edged up 0.3% in premarket trading Friday, but remained on track to suffer a sixth-straight weekly loss, ahead of the technology giants Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) next week. That would be the longest such loss streak since the eight-week stretch through the week ended Nov. 23, 2018. The stock needs to gain 0.9% Friday, to at least $124.61, to snap the weekly loss streak.

At time of writing, its trading at $123.54. The report notes that one reason for the decline may be the Apple vs. Epic Games trial, and general concerns about Apples monopolistic App Store practices.

Whether thats actually the reason isnt 100% clear, though. Of all the tech giants, Apple is seemingly in the best position to thrive during the current tech backlash. Its not this year announced that its iconic CEO is stepping down, as Amazon has. Its not been mired in data privacy controversy as has Facebook. And so on and so forth. But, nonetheless, its this year been the worst performer as far as Big Tech is concerned, stock price-wise.

Do I understand it? Not really. At least since Tim Cook took over Apple a decade ago, theres been a certain vocal minority of analysts who predict, constantly, that Apples best days are behind it and its reached the peak, ready to decline. Then Apple hit $1 trillion in market cap. Then $2 trillion. Now some are predicting $3 trillion.

There are certainly reasons to be cautious about tech right now as the pandemic year boom subsides for some companies, and the global chip shortage causes problems. But Apples weathered far, far worse. And, lets not forget: Were not too far away from the iPhone 13, a device that Apple sounds very, very excited about.

Source: MarketWatch

Read the original:

Apple shares on track for longest weekly losing streak in more than 2 years - Cult of Mac