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Daily Archives: January 10, 2018

Bill Would Establish Cybersecurity Inspections, Impose Mandatory Penalties, and Compensate Consumers for Stolen Data

“United States Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) today introduced the Data Breach Prevention and Compensation Act to hold large credit reporting agencies (CRAs) – including Equifax – accountable for data breaches involving consumer data. The bill would give the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) more direct supervisory authority over data security at CRAs, impose mandatory penalties on CRAs to incentivize adequate protection of consumer data, and provide robust compensation to consumers for stolen data. In September 2017, Equifax announced that hackers had stolen sensitive personal information – including Social Security Numbers, birth dates, credit card numbers, driver’s license numbers, and passport numbers – of over 145 million Americans. The attack highlighted that CRAs hold vast amounts of data on millions of Americans but lack adequate safeguards against hackers. Since 2013, Equifax has disclosed at least four separate hacks in which sensitive personal data were compromised. The Data Breach Prevention and Compensation Act would establish an Office of Cybersecurity at the FTC tasked with annual inspections and supervision of cybersecurity at CRAs. It would impose mandatory, strict liability penalties for breaches of consumer data beginning with a base penalty of $100 for each consumer who had one piece of personal identifying information (PII) compromised and another $50 for each additional PII compromised per consumer. Under this legislation, Equifax would have had to pay at least a $1.5 billion penalty for their failure to protect Americans’ personal information. To ensure robust recovery for affected consumers, the bill would also require the FTC to use 50% of its penalty to compensate consumers and would increase penalties in cases of woefully inadequate cybersecurity or if a CRA fails to timely notify the FTC of a breach.”

Text of Bill (PDF)

Fact Sheet (PDF)

50 Places Raising the Minimum Wage in 2018

24/7 Wall St: 50 Places Raising the Minimum Wage in 2018 “Several dozen American cities, counties, and states raised local minimum wages on January 1. In a few California cities, the minimum wage increased by $2.00 or more per hour. In places like Berkeley, San Francisco, and Mountain View — the latter famously home to the… Continue Reading

LIS News – Ten Stories That Shaped 2017

LIS NEWS – Can you believe it’s almost 2018? That means it’s time to look back at some of the notable library-related stories from the past year. 10. Librarians Fight Fake News The problems with fake news caused many of us to revamp our web evaluation handouts into guides for spotting bogus information sources. 9.… Continue Reading

U.S. Waterways Are Getting Saltier, With Possible Effects on Drinking Water

Science: U.S. rivers are getting saltier, potentially compromising drinking water: “The bomb cyclone that hit the northeastern United States last week left roadways and vehicles caked in a white film of road salt and grime. Those salts might be washing into the region’s fresh waterways, a new study reveals. A 50-year-long analysis of hundreds of… Continue Reading

Community-Owned Fiber Networks: Value Leaders in America

Community-Owned Fiber Networks: Value Leaders in America. Pricing Review Shows They Provide Least-Expensive Local “Broadband”. January 10, 2018. “By one recent estimate about 8.9 percent of Americans, or about 29 million people, lack access to wired home “broadband” service, which the U.S. Federal Communications Commission defines as an internet access connection providing speeds of at… Continue Reading

Wielding Data, Women Force a Reckoning Over Bias in the Economics Field

Wielding Data, Women Force a Reckoning Over Bias in the Economics Field – “Longstanding complaints about the barriers women face in the economics profession are beginning to resonate within the male-dominated field. It is not difficult to find an all-male panel at the annual January mega-gathering of American economists. They are as common as PowerPoint… Continue Reading

Visualizing the Uncertainty in Data

Nathan Yau – Flowing Data: “Data is a representation of real life. It’s an abstraction, and it’s impossible to encapsulate everything in a spreadsheet, which leads to uncertainty in the numbers. How well does a sample represent a full population? How likely is it that a dataset represents the truth? How much do you trust… Continue Reading

NYC sues major oil companies over climate change

Washington Post: “The New York City government is suing the world’s five largest publicly traded oil companies, seeking to hold them responsible for present and future damages to the city from climate change. The suit, filed Tuesday against BP, Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell, claims the companies together produced 11 percent of all… Continue Reading

What is the U.S. Digital Registry?

“Whether for access to emergency, financial or education public services, users need to trust they are engaging with official U.S. government digital accounts. To help prevent exploitation from unofficial sources, phishing scams, or malicious entities, the U.S. Digital Registry serves as a crowdsource resource for agencies, citizens, and developers to confirm the official status of… Continue Reading

Trump Justice Department Pushes for Citizenship Question on Census, Alarming Experts

ProPublica: “Two members of Congress are pushing back against a proposal by the Justice Department to add a question on citizenship to the 2020 census. In a letter sent to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who has the authority to decide on census questions, Reps. Jose Serrano and Grace Meng, both New York Democrats, call on… Continue Reading