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"The tech giant revealed updates to the controversial tool on Monday that include improving the accuracy and functionality of its face analysis features such as identifying gender, emotions and age range."

""I don't really care about data privacy because I think it's all an illusion anyway." It's interesting to see how this encounter also reflects the general behavior of a majority of people when it comes to privacy. Although user data has long been a gold mine for companies, would it be more acceptable if they started paying their users in exchange for it?"

"This led to claims that the software is woefully inaccurate; in fact, police had set the threshold for a match at 60%, meaning that faces do not have to be rated as that similar to be flagged up. This minimises the chance of a person of interest slipping through the net, but also makes a lot of false positives inevitable."

"There are three big challenges in the Internet space that all countries must face in the near future. China's approach to the challenges will impact not only Chinese Internet users, but potentially all Internet users. What interface follows the smart hone, whether it be AR-enabled glasses, foldable screens, or wearable projectors, will not only be influenced by China's substantial Internet-using population, but also by their manufacturing. Privacy, as it relates to online information collecting and sale, has consequences for broader community standards, and there is no one-size fits all approach to this issue. China must engage their own ethicists, community, government and technologists to develop a solution that works for China. Finally, globalization. Most of China's internet success has been within China, but as China begins to consider how it might attract users from outside its borders, it will need to consider dialing back the protections that have held foreign Internet companies at bay."

""Every generation is having fun with it," said Jon Alexis, partner in the fast-casual Malibu Poke in Dallas, which opened Nov. 28 with three kiosks that allow guests to save their order history and access them again through facial recognition. "It has exceeded my expectations.""

"As hospitals face a surge in patients and critical equipment shortages stemming from the coronavirus pandemic, they are increasingly becoming the target of hackers who see health care facilities as easy prey. Ransomware attacks, in which hackers lock up a network and demand payment to return access to these systems, have presented a growing threat to hospitals since January. "

"Raza wasn't the only one in her class who felt concerned about new levels of surveillance. Another student in the class, who did not want to be named, said that in addition to privacy worries, they were concerned that they didn't even have enough RAM to run the Proctorio software. Worse, the tool's facial detection algorithm seemed to struggle to recognize them, so they needed to sit in the full light of the window to better expose the contours of their face, in their view an indication that the system might be biased. "

"Instead, the new work shows our brains rely on the kind of maths that an algorithm might use to perform the task. In fact, Tsao and her colleague, Steven Le Chang, stumbled on their discovery while working on computer vision. The pair had initially set themselves the challenge of coming up with a way of reliably converting facial images into a numerical representation."

"In October, American teachers prevailed in a lawsuit with their school district over a computer program that assessed their performance. The system rated teachers in Houston by comparing their students' test scores against state averages. Those with high ratings won praise and even bonuses. Those who fared poorly faced the sack. The program did not please everyone. Some teachers felt that the system marked them down without good reason. But they had no way of checking if the program was fair or faulty: the company that built the software, the SAS Institute, regards its algorithm a trade secret and would not disclose its workings."

"He never got the chance to find out. A week later, he opened up his digital "wallet," where the artwork would supposedly be available, and was faced with an ominous banner reading, "This page has gone off grid. We've got a 404 error and explored deep and wide, but we can't find the page you're looking for."  The artwork, which he expected to be on the page, had disappeared entirely. "There was no history of my ever purchasing it, or ever owning it," he said. "Now there's nothing. My money's gone.""

" "The longer one spends on email in [a given] hour the higher is one's stress for that hour," the authors noted. In another study, researchers placed thermal cameras below each subject's computer monitor, allowing them to measure the tell-tale "heat blooms" on a person's face that indicate psychological distress. "

"Qoves founder Shafee Hassan claimed to MIT Technology Review that beauty scoring is widespread; social media platforms use it to identify attractive faces and give them more attention."

"Explained by "Anna", a desk-sitting avatar complete with an artificial voice, the video introduces TP Observer as "a risk-mitigation tool that monitors and tracks real time employee behaviour, and detects any violations to pre-set business rules". Anna explains that this means home workers will have an AI-enabled webcam added to their computers that recognises their face, tags their location and scans for "breaches" of rules at random points during a shift."

"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."

"Microsoft has blamed human error after its search engine, Bing, blocked image and video results for the phrase "tank man" - a reference to the iconic image of a lone protester facing down tanks during the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square - on the 32nd anniversary of the military crackdown. Users reported that no results were shown for the search query in countries including the US, Germany, Singapore, France and Switzerland, according to Reuters and Vice News."

""But this is the lead, and I think it's going to be a very, very important game changer for our country. It will be a pivotal battle in the defense of the first amendment and, in the end, I am confident that we will achieve a historic victory for American freedom and at the same time, freedom of speech." The lawsuit faces tough odds. Under a law known as Section 230, internet companies are generally allowed to moderate their content by removing posts that, for instance, are obscene or violate the services' own standards, so long as they are acting in "good faith"."

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")."

"Under the oxymoronic rubric of "self-regulation", Facebook, Twitter and Google are already considering ways to appear responsible and protective of the integrity of those two elections. Twitter has pledged to stop running political ads, and both Google and Facebook are considering suspending precise targeting of political ads."

"Fighting the creep of government use of face surveillance and the related risks can seem overwhelming. Police agencies, and the spy tech vendors that profit from the growth of a surveillance state, have much to gain by deploying this invasive spying technology. "

"Activists from Fight for the Future prowled the halls of Congress in "jumpsuits with phone strapped to their heads conducting live facial recognition surveillance" to "show why this tech should be banned.""