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Category Archives: E-Records

The US Is Openly Stockpiling Dirt on All Its Citizens

Wired – The US Is Openly Stockpiling Dirt on All Its Citizens “A newly declassified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence reveals that the federal government is buying troves of data about Americans…Perhaps most controversially, the report states that the government believes it can “persistently” track the phones of “millions of… Continue Reading

How AI could take over elections and undermine democracy

Via LLRX – How AI could take over elections and undermine democracy – Archon Fung, Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government, Harvard Kennedy School, and Lawrence Lessig, Professor of Law and Leadership, Harvard University, pose the question: “Could organizations use artificial intelligence language models such as ChatGPT to induce voters to behave in specific ways? Sen.… Continue Reading

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, June 11, 2023

Via LLRX – Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, June 11, 2023 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly… Continue Reading

ProPublica Adds More Than a Million New Records to Nonprofit Explorer

“The IRS finally resolved its delay in publishing new nonprofit tax records, and we’ve added them to our database. ProPublica has added more than a million new tax records for tax-exempt organizations to Nonprofit Explorer, making it easier to assess the finances of charities operating across the nation. The update includes more than 900,000 filings… Continue Reading

Here’s what your boss might be able to see while you’re at work

Washington Post [free link] – “Workplace software like Microsoft, Google Workspace, Slack and Zoom log certain activities that could be accessed by your employer…The software tools you use to do tasks like collaborate with your colleagues, host meetings or create digital files often track certain activities for various purposes, in many cases for safety, security… Continue Reading

Office of Civil Rights Issues Guidance on HIPAA Compliant Use of Meta Pixels

ABA: “A Meta Pixel is a code embedded in websites that tracks users’ online activities and sends such activities as discrete packets of user data to Meta, the parent company of Facebook. The Meta Pixel can track “users as they navigate through a website, logging which pages they visit, which buttons they click, and certain… Continue Reading

Why won’t Google give a straight answer on whether Bard was trained on Gmail data?

Skiff Blog: “… Google’s Smart Compose feature was trained on Gmail users’ private emails.Bard is not Google’s only language-focused machine learning model. Anyone who’s used Gmail in the past few years knows about the Smart Compose and Smart Reply features, which auto-complete sentences for you as you go. According to Google’s 2019 paper introducing Smart Compose, the feature was… Continue Reading

Driver’s Licenses, Addresses, Photos: Inside How TikTok Shares User Data

The New York Times [alternate free link]: “Employees of the Chinese-owned video app have regularly posted user information on a messaging and collaboration tool called Lark, according to internal documents… In August 2021, TikTok received a complaint from a British user, who flagged that a man had been “exposing himself and playing with himself” on… Continue Reading

CISA, FBI, NSA, MS-ISAC Publish Updated #StopRansomware Guide 

“Updated guide developed through the Joint Ransomware Task Force provides best practices and resources to help organizations reduce the risk of ransomware incidents. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), National Security Agency (NSA), and Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) today published the #StopRansomware Guide—an updated version of… Continue Reading

Thomson Reuters brings forward vision to redefine the future of professionals with content-driven AI technology

“Thomson Reuters plugin with Microsoft 365 Copilot helps unlock the value of generative AI for legal professionals  a global content and technology company, today brings forward its vision to redefine the future of professionals through generative artificial intelligence (AI). At a time of rapid global innovation, Thomson Reuters is at the forefront, helping its customers… Continue Reading

Google Builds on Tech’s Latest Craze With Its Own A.I. Products

Washington Post: “Google is changing the way we search with AI. It could upend the web. Google Search will start answering some queries directly by generating its own results — a move dreaded by publishers and bloggers..” The New York Times: “On Wednesday [May 10, 2023], at its annual conference in Mountain View, Calif., the… Continue Reading