Month: October 2021

Donald Trump’s new social network, Truth Social, has been reported to be a thinly disguised variant of the Mastodon social network codebase.  Mastodon is free software that anyone can use as long as they comply with Mastodon’s license terms, which Truth Social may be in violation of.

Donald Trumps social media company will be funded by a special purpose acquisition corporation (SPAC).  Michael Ohlrogge here at NYU has recently released a paper on the subject.

YouTube, Snap, and TikTok executives testified before the Senate Commerce Committee.  The senators were particularly concerned with the platforms’ impact on young people, reflecting concerns that have percolated around Facebook in recent days. 

Senators Gary Peters (D-MI) and Rob Portman (R-OH), the Chair and Ranking Member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC), introduced legislation to secure and protect information handled by federal contractors using AI technology.  The bill would require OMB to establish and consult the Artificial Intelligence Hygiene Working Group to ensure that government contractors are securing data like biometrics that preserve privacy rights and national security.

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) penned an op-ed in Just Security calling for the end of secret laws, given the evolution of government surveillance and markets for private information.

The Journal of Online Trust and Safety is launching its inaugural issue this week. ILI Fellow Aniket Kesari will be featured!

According to Microsoft, a victim of the SolarWinds hack, the group behind the attack, Nobelium, is targeting technology companies that sell and provide cloud services. 

A cyberattack disrupted the sale of heavily subsidised gasoline in Iran on Tuesday, state media reported, causing long queues at gas stations across the country weeks before the anniversary of 2019 street protests that followed fuel price hikes.

Parents or individuals under eighteen years old will be able to request that images of their children or themselves be removed from Google search results unless there is “compelling public interest or newsworthiness.”

Digital rights advocate Elliot Harmon, who was the Director of Communications at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, passed away Saturday.

Baltimore school-issued laptops include monitoring software that helps track when their student users begin to exhibit mental health issues. 

The Center for Democracy and Technology also has some writing on school issued devices. One of the big findings it that poor students are far more likely to be monitored than wealthy ones.  In addition, CDT raises concerns that this software can be unduly intrusive and may discourage students from expressing themselves. 

Sam Altman, a former president of the Y Combinator tech startup accelerator, has developed a cryptocurrency that would be equally distributed across the world population via a retina scan.  The project has faced backlash from the privacy community. 

PRG member Alexandre de Streel will join the Guarini Colloquium on Monday to discuss the EU’s proposals for a digital markets act and a digital services act.  If you are interested in attending, please email guariniglobal@nyu.edu (NYU Law community members can attend in person).

North Carolina prisons have prohibited physical mail including cards, photos, and correspondence in favor of digital scans of mail for inmates. 

(Prepared by Student Fellow Coordinator Justin Lee)

The Guarini Center will host a colloquium on the global data economy.  They will seek legal solutions to deal with data as a new type of asset in order to foster innovation and growth and to reduce obstacles for all stakeholders in the data economy. In a session of the colloquium, Michael Veale will discuss the EU proposal, the AI Act.  (link)

A UK court has fined a man for violating the Data Protection Act 2018 and the UK General Data Protection Regulation for using their Amazon Ring cameras to surveil their neighbor, including capturing distant conversations of the neighbor. (link)

Mark Zuckerberg has been added to a consumer protection lawsuit brought by the attorney general for the District of Columbia.  Based on ongoing investigations, Attorney General Karl Racine claims that Zuckerberg played a much more active role than previously thought.  The District can claim up to $5,000 for any of the District’s 3,000 residents who may have ben affected by the Cambridge Analytica breach, meaning that this suit may be one of the first of many in which Zuckerberg may be personally liable for substantial damages. (link)

Facebook intends to change the company’s name to focus on the ‘metaverse’, the future virtual conceptions of the internet. However, this rebranding also comes as Facebook faces intense scrutiny in the US after the whistleblower Frances Haugen revealed the company’s business practices involving manipulation of its platform and users for profit. (link)

A traffic camera in the United Kingdom fined a British motorist for driving in a bus lane despite the motorist living and commuting a 100 miles from the camera’s location in Bath. The camera had confused a shirt reading “KNITTER” for the motorist’s license plate “KN19TER” and registered a violation to the motorist’s vehicle. (link)

(Prepared by Student Fellow Maxwell Votey)

The Brazilian National Data Protection Authority (ANPD) and the Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD) – the administrative authorities responsible for data protection in Brazil and Spain, respectively – signed a Memorandum of Intellectual Cooperation for the protection of personal data, both at a national and transnational level. (link)

The Israeli Communications Ministry is assembling a team that will examine whether Facebook is legally responsible for its content, according to an N12 report. Based on the report, the team’s mandate will also includes assessing transparency requirements for contest takedown, and user blocking policies. (link)

Andy Parker, the father of journalist Alison Parker that was shot and killed in 2015, filed with Georgetown Law clinic a complaint to the F.T.C. against Facebook, for failing to take down violent videos of the killing from the platform. The complaint alleged that Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram unlawfully deceive consumers by allowing violent murder videos to spread and persist on its platforms, in clear violation of their Terms of Service. (link)

Former “Google Fiber” employee shares her experiences and claims that Google’s monopoly in the search and online ad business allowed it to compete against the big internet service providers. The piece later discusses the problems with monopolies in a more general way. (link)

The CIA appears to have invested $1.6 million in Wickr, an encrypted messaging app, recently purchased by Amazon. According to Vice, the investment highlights Wickr’s continuing position as an end-to-end encrypted messaging app for government agencies. (link)

(Prepared by Student Fellow Danya Amir)

Russia is seeking a fine from Facebook totaling 5-10% of its annual turnover in the country. In 2020 Russia passed legislation that allows regulators to fine internet providers if they repeatedly fail to delete content when requested. While Russia said Facebook had complied with demands to delete some of the requested content, it announced it would seek the fine because Facebook had not taken down all of the content it had requested. It is estimated that the fine could be between 12 and 39 billion roubles, equal roughly to $165 million to $538 million. (Link)

The European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs adopted the committee’s recommendations on the Digital Services Act. While these are recommendations and not binding on the final outcome, the committee called for limiting liability exemptions for internet companies that perform basic functions of content moderation and content curation, the right to use and pay for digital services anonymously, a ban on behavioral tracking and advertising and a stricter time limit of 72 hours for deciding on reported content. The Digital Services Act regulates online internet intermediaries and digital platforms with the goal of better protecting consumers and establishing greater transparency. If adopted by the Internal Market Committee, the recommendations would be a notable change in the liability exception for internet platforms. The Internal Market Committee will meet on November 8^th to vote on the recommendations. (Link) (Link)

In “Vaccine – Educated Decision Assoc.” v. City Kinds Inc., a case recently decided in Israel, an anti-vaccination group alleged that the requirement to show proof of vaccination at a kindergarten was an infringement of privacy. The lower court in Israel rejected their claims and held asking for proof of vaccination is not illegal. (Link)

A lower court has asked the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) to rule on whether the collection and retention of publicly available data by a credit agency violates the General Data Protection Regulation’s (GDPR) sections on lawfulness and storage limitation principles. The case comes as part of an increase of cases posed by national courts to the CJEU regarding how the GDPR should be interpreted and applied in practice. (Link)

Facebook Whistleblower Frances Haugen filed eight complaints with the Securities and Exchange Commission. She accused the company of making material misstatements and omissions in statements to investor and prospective investors through past filings, testimony to Congress, online statements and media stories. She also accused Facebook of misrepresenting the scale and its awareness of problems with its products. (Link) (Link)

(Compiled by Student Fellow Caolinn Mejza)