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"She said: "I don't think it should ever be used. It is one of, if not the, greatest threats to individual freedom, partly because of the intimacy of the information it takes and hands to the state without your consent, and without even your knowledge, and partly because you don't know what is done with that information.""

"The app, which scraped billions of photos from the likes of Facebook, YouTube, Venmo, and other online platforms, drew the world's attention last weekend following a detailed report in the New York Times. The app's supposed capability to identify practically anyone from even low-quality photos frightened privacy advocates and officials. And today, one of the latter - New Jersey's attorney general Gurbir Grewal - actually did something about it."

"Imagine a store showing you targeted advertising based on the products you look at but never buy - or even personalized pricing based on a perception of your income once they've identified you. Or a store scanning the faces of everyone approaching the building, barring anyone with a criminal record from entering. These nightmare scenarios are terrifying precisely because they are so plausible."

"This is an abuse of the concept of consent and risks desensitizing people to surveillance. Eproctoring also treats students as if they are guilty until proven innocent, which is a concerning and disrespectful stance for any academic institution to take." What do you think?

YES IAN YOU SHOULD BE READING THIS! "The authors raise three arguments: first, that "notice and choice" has been a failure ("to opt out simply stay indoors!"); second, that facial recognition fears are technophobic overreactions, and finally, that facial recognition is uniquely powerful and dangerous and needs a regulatory framework separate from other privacy rules ("to opt out, just don't have a face")."

"The submission outlines Big Blue's belief that facial recognition is fine in a "1 to 1" context such as unlocking a phone. But IBM is opposed to "1 to many" facial recognition that refers to a database to identify a face in a crowd and could therefore be used for "mass surveillance systems, racial profiling or other human rights violations.""

"Participants in a virtual paleontology session found themselves caught between a rock and a hard place last week, when a profanity filter prevented them from using certain words - such as bone, pubic, stream and, er, beaver - during an online conference."

"The decision will be the most consequential yet made by Facebook's Oversight Board, a group of 20 members who range from humanitarian activists and religious experts to lawyers and a former prime minister. The board, which launched in late 2020, is meant to function as an independent arm of the social platform, making binding decisions on a selection of its thorniest content moderation issues."

"Some of Britain's biggest retailers, including Tesco, John Lewis and Sainsbury's, have been urged to pull out of a new policing strategy amid warnings it risks wrongly criminalising people of colour, women and LGBTQ+ people. A coalition of 14 human rights groups has written to the main retailers - also including Marks & Spencer, the Co-op, Next, Boots and Primark - saying that their participation in a new government-backed scheme that relies heavily on facial recognition technology to combat shoplifting will "amplify existing inequalities in the criminal justice system"."

"The governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, has signed sweeping social media legislation requiring explicit parental permissions for anyone under 18 to use platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and Facebook. He also signed a bill prohibiting social media companies from employing techniques that could cause minors to develop an "addiction" to the platforms."

"Moratoria on dangerous and unpredictable technologies have happened in the past. The UN gained widespread support for a pause on human cloning, for example. The debate now is about cloning human minds rather than bodies, but the question remains: how obvious must the danger become before artificial intelligence is viewed in a similar light?"

" Virtual reality games helping UK's deaf children to understand speech Scientists have found that immersing kids in computer games can train their brains to localise sounds better Robin McKie Science Editor Sat 25 May 2024 13.00 BST Share Scientists have recruited an unusual ally in their efforts to help children overcome profound deafness. They are using computer games to boost the children's ability to localise sounds and understand speech. The project is known as Bears - for Both Ears - and it is aimed at youngsters who have been given twin cochlea implants because they were born with little or no hearing. "These are children who are profoundly deaf," said audio engineer Lorenzo Picinali, a scientist on the project from Imperial College London. "They require major interventions to restore their hearing and we have found that computer games can make these much more effective.""