Monthly Archives: November 2022

Russian Tech Giant Wants Out of the Country As Ukraine War Rages on

Posted: November 27, 2022 at 2:01 pm

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Russia stands to lose its biggest tech company, which would throw a wrench in President Putin's plans to foster Russian-grown alternatives for Western technology.

Yandex, often referred to as Russia's Google, is the country's largest internet business best known for its search browser and ride-hailing apps. But its Dutch-based parent company, Yandex N.V., wants out of Russia because of the potential negative impact the Ukrainian invasion could have on its business, according to a report by The New York Times.

The exit of Russia's biggest tech company would deliver a blow to Putin, who has made a concerted effort to produce Russian technology and goods as sanctions cut access to Western suppliers.

Yandex N.V. said Friday that its board had "commenced a strategic process to review options to restructure the group's ownership and governance in light of the current geopolitical environment."

These options, Yandex said, included developing some of its international divisions "independently from Russia" and divesting "ownership and control of all other businesses in the Yandex Group." The company added: "This process is at a preliminary stage."

The Bell, a Russian media group, had earlier reported that Yandex N.V. would move its new businesses and most promising technologies including self-driving cars, machine learning, and cloud-computing services outside of Russia, the Times reported, citing two anonymous sources familiar with the matter. Those businesses would need access to Western markets, experts, and technology, all of which is unviable while the Russian invasion of Ukraine rages on and Western sanctions remain in place.

However, the decision to move Yandex's fledgling technology businesses might not be up to its parent company. The firm will have to get the Kremlin's approval to transfer Russian-registered tech licenses outside of the country, The Times reported. Plus, Yandex's shareholders would have to approve the broader restructuring plan.

Yandex's business, once hailed as a rare Russian business success story, has struggled since the invasion of Ukraine. The tech giant's story is not unlike those found in the Silicon Valley. Yandex employed more than 18,000 people, it was worth more than $31 billion, and is often referred to as the "Google of Russia." It even had offices in downtown Palo Alto, California, at one point.

But since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, thousands of Yandex employees have left Russia, and the price of the company's New York-listed shares lost more than $20 billion in value almost immediately after the war, before Nasdaq suspended trading in its shares. Meanwhile, Yandex's Moscow-listed shares dropped 62% in the past year.

Yandex's misfortune mirrors other Russian tech companies, which have struggled in the face of Western sanctions and the exodus of tens of thousands of Russian IT workers, according to an Al Jazeera report. It's something even Putin can't deny, admitting that the Russian IT sector will experience "colossal" difficulties as the US and 37 other countries restrict Russia's access to technologies, like semiconductors and telecommunications equipment, via export controls.

Untangling Russia's reliance on the global economy has been an uphill battle for the country, even before the Ukranian invasion and its sanctions.

In 2015, the Kremlin tried to stop all government bodies from using foreign software, but by 2019 only 10% of state-used software was Russian made. Russia's not just dependent on foreign tech, either. More than half, or 65% of Russian businesses relied on imports for their manufacturing, according to a 2021 note from Russia's central bank. From cars to office paper, most companies involve foreign providers some place in the supply chain.

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Hate speech – Wikipedia

Posted: at 1:57 pm

Speech that expresses hatred towards individuals or groups

Hate speech is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as "public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation".[1] Hate speech is "usually thought to include communications of animosity or disparagement of an individual or a group on account of a group characteristic such as race, colour, national origin, sex, disability, religion, or sexual orientation".[2] Legal definitions of hate speech vary from country to country.

There has been much debate over freedom of speech, hate speech, and hate speech legislation.[3] The laws of some countries describe hate speech as speech, gestures, conduct, writing, or displays that incite violence or prejudicial actions against a group or individuals on the basis of their membership in the group, or that disparage or intimidate a group or individuals on the basis of their membership in the group. The law may identify a group based on certain characteristics.[4][5][6] In some countries, hate speech is not a legal term.[7] Additionally, in some countries, including the United States, much of what falls under the category of "hate speech" is constitutionally protected.[8][9] In other countries, a victim of hate speech may seek redress under civil law, criminal law, or both.

In this section, the term "theories of hate speech" is being used as an umbrella term describing the ways in which different thinkers throughout history have defined hate speech and have provided frameworks for understanding its impact.

One theory on the merits of freedom of speech, and consequently hate speech, is the view that public discourse ought to serve as a marketplace of ideas. This perspective, often attributed to mid-19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill, claims that hate speech is an unavoidable part of the wider current of free speech. Within this theory, there exists no partial truth; everything must be debated in order to determine what is true and what is false. This theory privileges the community's progression over individual desires. Mill writes in On Liberty, "They [an individual] have no authority to decide the question for all mankind, and exclude every other person from the means of judging All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility".[10] Here, Mill asserts the necessity of hate speech as a stepping stone to truth. Denying others the ability to evaluate statements because one believes those words to be offensive is to make a unilateral decision that is ultimately harmful to the collective good. Although these thinkers believe speech can and should be limited in certain contexts, they firmly contend that all speech, including hate speech, is a part of the growth and development of the community.

Starting in the 1940s and 50s, different civil rights groups responded to the atrocities of World War II by advocating for restrictions on hateful speech targeting groups on the basis of race and religion.[11] These organizations used group libel as a legal framework for describing the violence of hate speech and addressing its harm. In his discussion of the history of criminal libel, scholar Jeremy Waldron states that these laws helped "vindicate public order, not just by preempting violence, but by upholding against attack a shared sense of the basic elements of each person's status, dignity, and reputation as a citizen or member of society in good standing".[12] A key legal victory for civil rights groups came in 1952 when group libel law was affirmed by the supreme court in Beauharnais v. Illinois.[13] However, the group libel approach lost ground due to a rise in support for individual rights within civil rights movements during the 60s.[14] Critiques of group defamation laws are not limited to defenders of individual rights. Some legal theorists, such as Richard Delgado, support legal limits on hate speech, but claim that defamation is too narrow a category to fully counter hate speech. Ultimately, Delgado advocates a legal strategy that would establish a specific section of tort law for responding to racist insults, citing the difficulty of receiving redress under the existing legal system.[15]

Often cited in the 1970s Feminist Sex Wars, a third framework for conceptualizing hate speech claims that speech can restructure social norms in violently subordinating ways. In this model, hate speech does not incite violence, but rather is itself a violent act that changes the power relations between speakers and across group hierarchies. This branch of thought, termed Speech-Act Theory, has been used by Catharine A. MacKinnon to argue that pornography, as speech, is inherently violent to women because it silences them and acts to subordinate them both through its creation and its consumption.[16] This theory has been expanded on by Mary Kate McGowan to include the role of authority in words performing acts. Essentially, truth becomes truth because it is said to be true by a legitimate authority. McGowan provides the example of an umpire's call to illustrate this point. If an umpire calls a play as safe, the play may or may not be safe, but it is designated as so because of the authority of the umpire.[17] This relates to Speech-Act Theory because words are able to do, to produce new meaning and reality. In the case of hate speech, those ostensibly with authority and power are able to tangibly alter the social location or life experience of others when they utter demeaning or derogatory words.

After WWII, Germany criminalized Volksverhetzung ("incitement of popular hatred") to prevent resurgence of Nazism. Hate speech on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity also is banned in Germany.[18] Most other European and WWII combatant countries have done likewise, except for Italy, though a new law is contemplated.[19]

International human rights laws from the United Nations Humans Rights Committee have been protecting freedom of expression, and one of the most fundamental documents is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) drafted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1948.[20] In Article 19 of the UDHR, it states that "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."[20]

Even though there are fundamental laws protecting freedom of expression, there are multiple international laws that expand on the UDHR and pose limitations and restrictions, specifically concerning the safety and protection of individuals.[21]

A majority of developed democracies have laws that restrict hate speech, including Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, India, South Africa, Sweden, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.[25] In the United Kingdom, Article 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998 expands on the UDHR, stating that restrictions on freedom of expression would be permitted when it threatens national security, incites racial or religious hatred, causes individual harm on health or morals, or threatens the rights and reputations on individuals.[26] The United States does not have hate speech laws, since the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that laws criminalizing hate speech violate the guarantee to freedom of speech contained in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.[9]

Laws against hate speech can be divided into two types: those intended to preserve public order and those intended to protect human dignity. The laws designed to protect public order require that a higher threshold be violated, so they are not often enforced. For example, a 1992 study found that only one person was prosecuted in Northern Ireland in the preceding 21 years for violating a law against incitement to religious violence. The laws meant to protect human dignity have a much lower threshold for violation, so those in Canada, Denmark, France, Germany and the Netherlands tend to be more frequently enforced.[27]

A few states, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Rwanda Hutu factions, actors in the Yugoslav Wars and Ethiopia have been described as spreading official hate speech or incitement to genocide.[28][29][30]

On 31 May 2016, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter, jointly agreed to a European Union code of conduct obligating them to review "[the] majority of valid notifications for removal of illegal hate speech" posted on their services within 24 hours.[31]

Prior to this in 2013, Facebook, with pressure from over 100 advocacy groups including the Everyday Sexism Project, agreed to change their hate speech policies after data released regarding content that promoted domestic and sexual violence against women led to the withdrawal of advertising by 15 large companies.[32][33]

Companies that have hate speech policies include Facebook and YouTube. In 2018 a post containing a section of the United States Declaration of Independence that labels Native Americans "merciless Indian savages" was labeled hate speech by Facebook and removed from its site.[34] In 2019, video-sharing platform YouTube demonetized channels, such as U.S. radio host Jesse Lee Peterson, under their hate speech policy.[35]

Several activists and scholars have criticized the practice of limiting hate speech. Civil liberties activist Nadine Strossen says that, while efforts to censor hate speech have the goal of protecting the most vulnerable, they are ineffective and may have the opposite effect: disadvantaged and ethnic minorities being charged with violating laws against hate speech.[36] Kim Holmes, Vice President of the conservative Heritage Foundation and a critic of hate speech theory, has argued that it "assumes bad faith on the part of people regardless of their stated intentions" and that it "obliterates the ethical responsibility of the individual".[37] Rebecca Ruth Gould, a professor of Islamic and Comparative Literature at the University of Birmingham, argues that laws against hate speech constitute viewpoint discrimination (prohibited by First Amendment jurisprudence in the United States) as the legal system punishes some viewpoints but not others;[38] other scholars such as Gideon Elford argue instead that "insofar as hate speech regulation targets the consequences of speech that are contingently connected with the substance of what is expressed then it is viewpoint discriminatory in only an indirect sense."[39] John Bennett argues that restricting hate speech relies on questionable conceptual and empirical foundations[40] and is reminiscent of efforts by totalitarian regimes to control the thoughts of their citizens.[41]

Michael Conklin argues that there are positive benefits to hate speech that are often overlooked. He contends that allowing hate speech provides a more accurate view of the human condition, provides opportunities to change people's minds, and identifies certain people that may need to be avoided in certain circumstances.[42] According to one psychological research study, a high degree of psychopathy is "a significant predictor" for involvement in online hate activity, while none of the other 7 criteria examined were found to have statistical significance.[43]

Political philosopher Jeffrey W. Howard considers the popular framing of hate speech as "free speech vs. other political values" as a mischaracterization. He refers to this as the "balancing model", and says it seeks to weigh the benefit of free speech against other values such as dignity and equality for historically marginalized groups. Instead, he believes that the crux of debate should be whether or not freedom of expression is inclusive of hate speech.[25] Research indicates that when people support censoring hate speech, they are motivated more by concerns about the effects the speech has on others than they are about its effects on themselves.[44] Women are somewhat more likely than men to support censoring hate speech due to greater perceived harm of hate speech, which some researchers believe may be due to gender differences in empathy towards targets of hate speech.[45]

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Methane ‘super-emitters’ on Earth spotted by space station experiment …

Posted: at 1:55 pm

A powerful eye in the sky is helping scientists spy "super-emitters" of methane, a greenhouse gas about 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

That observer is NASA's Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation instrument, or EMIT for short. EMIT has been mapping the chemical composition of dust throughout Earth's desert regions since being installed on the exterior of the International Space Station (ISS) in July, helping researchers understand how airborne dust affects climate.

That's the main goal of EMIT's mission. But it's making another, less expected contribution to climate studies as well, NASA officials announced on Tuesday (Oct. 25). The instrument is identifying huge plumes of heat-trapping methane gas around the world more than 50 of them already, in fact.

Related: Climate change: Causes and effects

"Reining in methane emissions is key to limiting global warming. This exciting new development will not only help researchers better pinpoint where methane leaks are coming from, but also provide insight on how they can be addressed quickly," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement (opens in new tab).

"The International Space Station and NASA's more than two dozen satellites and instruments in space have long been invaluable in determining changes to the Earth's climate," Nelson added. "EMIT is proving to be a critical tool in our toolbox to measure this potent greenhouse gas and stop it at the source."

EMIT is an imaging spectrometer designed to identify the chemical fingerprints of a variety of minerals on Earth's surface. The ability to spot methane as well is a sort of happy accident.

"It turns out that methane also has a spectral signature in the same wavelength range, and that's what has allowed us to be sensitive to methane," EMIT principal investigator Robert Green, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, said during a press conference on Tuesday afternoon.

Green and other EMIT team members gave some examples of the instrument's sensitivity during the Tuesday media call. For example, the instrument detected a plume of methane also known as natural gas at least 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) long in the sky above an Iranian landfill. This newfound super-emitter is pumping about 18,700 pounds (8,500 kilograms) of methane into the air every hour, the researchers said.

That's a lot, but it pales in comparison to a cluster of 12 super-emitters EMIT spotted in Turkmenistan, all of them associated with oil and gas infrastructure. Some of those plumes are up to 20 miles (32 km) long, and, together, they're adding about 111,000 pounds (50,400 kg) of methane to Earth's atmosphere per hour.

That's comparable to the peak rates of the Aliso Canyon leak, one of the largest methane releases in U.S. history. (The Aliso Canyon event, which occurred at a Southern California methane storage facility, was first noticed in October 2015 and wasn't fully plugged until February 2016.)

EMIT spotted all of these super-emitters very early, during the instrument's checkout phase. So it should make even greater contributions as it gets fully up and running, and as scientists gain more familiarity with the instrument's capabilities, team members said.

"We are really only scratching the surface of EMIT's potential for mapping greenhouse gases," Andrew Thorpe, a research technologist at JPL, said during Tuesday's press conference. "We're really excited about EMIT's potential for reducing emissions from human activity by pinpointing these emission sources."

Mike Wall is the author of "Out There (opens in new tab)" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or on Facebook (opens in new tab).

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China rolls out rocket to launch final space station module | Space

Posted: at 1:55 pm

China is nearly ready to launch the third and final piece of its modular crewed space station.

A Long March 5B heavy-lift rocket rolled out to the pad at Wenchang spaceport on Hainan island early Tuesday (Oct. 25), Chinas human spaceflight agency (CMSA) announced.

The Mengtian space station module is encapsulated in a 67-foot-long (20.5 meters) payload fairing on top of the 187-million-pound (849,000 kilograms) Long March 5B. The rocket and module were transported to the pad in a vertical position, covering roughly 9,200 feet (2,800 meters) in under three hours.

Related: The latest news about China's space program

CMSA did not reveal a launch date for Mengtian, but previous launches and earlier statements by Chinese space officials point to a liftoff around Oct. 31 Beijing time.

Mengtian ("Dreaming of the Heavens") is a 58.7-foot-long (17.9 m) and roughly 48,500-pound (22 metric tons) spacecraft designed mainly to host an array of science racks and experiments.

The new module will join the already orbiting Tianhe core module, launched in April 2021, and Wentian, which launched in July. Together the three modules will complete Chinas Tiangong space station.

Three Shenzhou 14 mission astronauts are currently aboard Tiangong awaiting the arrival of the new module.

China plans to operate Tiangong for at least a decade and will conduct its first crew handover as soon as next month, when the Shenzhou 14 astronauts welcome aboard the crew of Shenzhou 15, who will launch from Jiuquan in the Gobi Desert.

Notably, the huge first stages of the three previously launched Long March 5B rockets have entered orbit and made high-profile uncontrolled reentries around a week after launch. The fiery first stage reentry from the Wentian module launch in July was spotted by onlookers in Malaysia and Indonesia.

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International Space Station shines in glamour shots from SpaceX … – CNET

Posted: at 1:55 pm

1 of 10 NASA/ESA/Thomas Pesquet

2 of 10 NASA/ESA/Thomas Pesquet

During the Crew-2 return journey to Earth in early November, the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft took a trip around the ISS. That gave ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet an opportunity to photograph the station from a variety of angles.

3 of 10 NASA/ESA/Thomas Pesquet

The ISS stands out against the darkness of space in this image from November 2021.

4 of 10 NASA/ESA/Thomas Pesquet

The International Space Station is made up a of series of modules that are used for science experiments, spacecraft docking, and areas for the crew.

5 of 10 NASA/ESA/Thomas Pesquet

This close-up of the ISS from early November 2021 gives a good view of some of the station's solar panels. The sets of darker-brown panels are roll-out solar arrays that were added to boost the station's power.

6 of 10 NASA/ESA/Thomas Pesquet

This view of the ISS shows a peeled-back section of the station's radiator system. It's an old bit of damage that doesn't affect the station's operations.

7 of 10 NASA/ESA/Thomas Pesquet

The International Space Station's radiators are on show in a photo snapped from a SpaceX Crew Dragon during the return of the Crew-2 mission to Earth.

8 of 10 NASA/ESA/Thomas Pesquet

The ISS is a truly international project, featuring components from the US, Russia, Japan, Canada and Europe.

9 of 10 NASA/ESA/Thomas Pesquet

The International Space Station sparkles in a glorious photo taken by ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet on his way home to Earth in November 2021 as part of the SpaceX Crew-2 mission.

10 of 10 NASA/ESA/Thomas Pesquet

Fluffy white clouds provide an elegant backdrop for a new image of the International Space Station, taken in early November 2021.

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International Space Station shines in glamour shots from SpaceX ... - CNET

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SpaceX launches tomato seeds, other supplies to International Space Station – CNN

Posted: at 1:55 pm

  1. SpaceX launches tomato seeds, other supplies to International Space Station  CNN
  2. SpaceX Dragon cargo ship docks at space station to deliver solar arrays, seeds and more  Space.com
  3. SpaceX supply ship docks at space station Spaceflight Now  Spaceflight Now
  4. Liftoff! SpaceX Falcon 9 Soars Into the Sky With Space Station Supplies  SciTechDaily
  5. SpaceX resupply cargo capsule docks with International Space Station  UPI News
  6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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Commentary: TSA faces ethical limits in use of AI. But work to improve the technology must persist – Yakima Herald-Republic

Posted: at 1:51 pm

Commentary: TSA faces ethical limits in use of AI. But work to improve the technology must persist  Yakima Herald-Republic

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Commentary: TSA faces ethical limits in use of AI. But work to improve the technology must persist - Yakima Herald-Republic

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Have Insiders Sold SoundHound AI, Inc. (NASDAQ:SOUN) Shares Recently? – Simply Wall St

Posted: at 1:50 pm

Have Insiders Sold SoundHound AI, Inc. (NASDAQ:SOUN) Shares Recently?  Simply Wall St

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The Liberal Democrats (the Party) respect individuals rights over their personal data. We are committed to ensuring that people are treated fairly in everything we do. This Privacy and Cookie Notice (Notice) outlines:

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We only keep your personal data for as long as required to meet the purposes set out in this Notice, unless a longer retention period is required by law. For example, this may include holding your data after you have ceased to engage with the party (such as by resigning or ceasing to be a member) where we have a legitimate interest in doing so, such as to enable us to respond effectively to grievances that may arise after you cease to engage with us. Where we collect and hold your details as part of our public interest work, this may also include retaining those details for as long as you remain a registered voter in the UK.

Where permitted by law, we may also save personal data for archiving purposes in the public interest, including historical research. This may involving passing such data to third parties who run historical archives .

The exact details of this are set out in our Data Retention Policy, a copy of which is available here(https://www.libdems.org.uk/data-retention) and all the above is subject to your legal rights, such as to have data in certain cases deleted or corrected, as set out below.

You have legal rights over any of your personal data that we hold.

You may, at any time, request access to the personal data that we hold which relates to you (sometimes called a subject access request).

This right entitles you to receive a copy of the personal data that we hold about you. It is not a right that allows you to request personal data about other people, or a right to request specific documents from us that do not relate to your personal data.

You may, at any time, request that we correct personal data that we hold about you which you believe is incorrect or inaccurate. You may also ask us to erase personal data if you do not believe that we need to continue retaining it (sometimes called the right to be forgotten).

Please note that we may ask you to verify any new data that you provide to us and may take our own steps to check that the new data you have supplied us with is accurate. Further, we are not always obliged to erase personal data when asked to do so; if for any reason we believe that we have a good legal reason to continue processing personal data that you ask us to erase we will tell you what that reason is at the time we respond to your request.

Where we process your personal data on the legal basis of us having a legitimate interest to do so, you are entitled to ask us to stop processing it in that way if you feel that our continuing to do so impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms or if you feel that those legitimate interests are not valid.

You may also ask us to stop processing your personal data (a) if you dispute the accuracy of that personal data and want us verify its accuracy; (b) where it has been established that our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where we no longer need to process your personal data (and would otherwise dispose of it) but you wish for us to continue storing it in order to enable you to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

If for any reason we believe that we have a good legal reason to continue processing personal data that you ask us to stop processing, we will tell you what that reason is, either at the time we first respond to your request or after we have had the opportunity to consider and investigate it.

You may, at any time, write to us to ask us to cease processing your personal data which relates to your political opinions (such as how you have voted in the past, and things that you have told us about how you are likely to vote).

Please note that these requests can only be made about data which relates to your political opinions; they will not affect our right to use other aspects of your personal data.

Where you wish to transfer certain personal data that we hold about you, which is processed by automated means, to a third party you may write to us and ask us to provide it to you in a commonly used machine-readable format.

Wherever possible, we will provide you with a choice about how we can contact you to share information about the Party. You can opt out of communications at any time by visiting libdems.org.uk/optout. It may take several days for requests submitted this way to become effective on our systems, or by the methods described below.

If you provide us with your email address and indicate that we may do so (e.g. by subscribing to an email distribution list or by opting in through the membership page) we may send you further information about the Party in the future. These communications will take the form of e-mails promoting us and our work.

You can request that you cease to receive these kind of communications from us at any time. The easiest way to do so is to use the unsubscribe link provided at the bottom of any e-mail messages that we send to you. You can also do so at any time by visiting libdems.org.uk/optout. It may take several days for requests submitted this way to become effective on our systems.

If you provide your mobile phone number, we may call or send you text messages if you have given us permission to do so. You may request to stop receiving SMS messages at any point.

You can stop receiving SMS text messages by following the instructions to opt out provided within that text message. You can also do so by at any time by visiting libdems.org.uk/optout. It may take several days for requests submitted this way to become effective on our systems.

We may contact you by post or telephone using information provided to us through the electoral roll and other legitimate sources of contact information for the purposes of campaigning, notifying you of our values and policies, and checking your eligibility to donate.

We will respect any registration you hold with the Telephone Preference Service except where you have opted in to receive communications from us. Further, even if you are not on the Telephone Preference Service register you may ask us to stop making calls to you by telling one of our operators when we call you.

If you provide us with your email address or telephone number we may use it to ensure online adverts you receive from us are relevant to you. These communications will take the form of online adverts promoting us and our work.

You can opt out of online advertising at any time by visiting libdems.org.uk/optout. It may take several days for requests submitted this way to become effective on our systems. We will have to share your data with relevant service providers. You may still receive online advertising from time to time where providers are unable to remove you from lists or their systems do not permit exclusion lists.

While all of our direct marketing communications contain details of how you can stop receiving them in the future you can either follow those instructions (such as using the unsubscribe link in an email or telling a telephone caller), visit libdems.org.uk/optout, or ask us directly using the contact details below. If you do the latter, please provide us with full details of the telephone numbers, postal addresses, email addresses and so on to which you wish us to stop sending communications to in order to help us deal with your request quickly and accurately.

Liberal Democrat Party8-10 Great George StreetLondonSW1P 3AETel: 020 7222 7999Email: data.protection@libdems.org.uk

We will process any requests to stop receiving communications as quickly and comprehensively as is practical although there may in some cases be further communications already on their way to you which cannot be stopped.

If you ask us to stop sending you information (e.g. by email, post, phone or SMS text), we may keep a record of your information to make sure we do not contact you again, up until the normal retention period for that type of data. See our retention policy above for details.

Please note that this right to stop communications does not apply to emails that we send to you that are a necessary part of us providing a service to you (such as messaging you about your status as a member or a volunteer) or us notifying you about how your personal data is being used.

In addition, the right to stop communications does not apply to the Election Address that we are permitted to send to you during certain elections.

You may exercise any of these rights by contacting us using the details below and providing the necessary details for us to be able to identify the relevant data and to act on your request accurately.

When you contact us making a request to exercise your rights we are entitled to ask you to prove that you are who you say you are. We may ask you to provide copies of relevant ID documents to help verify your identity.

It will help us to process your request if you clearly state which right you wish to exercise and, where relevant, why it is that you are exercising it. The clearer and more specific you can be the faster and more efficiently we can process the request. If you do not provide us with sufficient information then we may delay actioning your request until you have provided us with additional information (and where this is the case we will tell you).

If you have any queries regarding the information set out here, if you wish to exercise any of your rights set out above or if you think that it has not been followed, please contact:

Liberal Democrats8-10 Great George StreetLondonSW1P 3AEdata.protection@libdems.org.uk

You can also use these contact details, marked for the attention of the Chief Executive, if you wish to lodge a formal complaint about any matter covered here.

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The implementation and effectiveness of geographic information systems and location intelligence technology in – Times of India

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The implementation and effectiveness of geographic information systems and location intelligence technology in  Times of India

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The implementation and effectiveness of geographic information systems and location intelligence technology in - Times of India

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