Business / Tech Aug 17, 2019
A British mall that scanned shoppers using facial-recognition cameras said on Friday it is no longer using technology that advocacy groups called a threat to privacy. Meadowhall in the northern city of Sheffield, which attracts more than 25 million visitors a year, used the surveillance ...
Business / Tech Aug 15, 2019
U.S. lawmakers pressure tech as devices capture conversations
Members of Congress from both parties called out Facebook Inc. on Wednesday for paying contractors to transcribe audio clips from its users and urged new statutes to tackle the drumbeat of such revelations from across the tech industry. The calls, which followed a Bloomberg report ...
Asia Pacific Aug 9, 2019
The U.S. State Department's spokeswoman called China a "thuggish regime" for releasing personal information on an American diplomat who met with opposition protesters in Hong Kong, escalating a war of words over protests that have wracked the territory. "I don't think that leaking an American ...
Business Aug 9, 2019
Facebook loses facial recognition appeal and must face privacy class action
A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected Facebook Inc.'s effort to undo a class action lawsuit claiming that it illegally collected and stored biometric data on millions of users without their consent. The 3-0 decision from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San ...
National / Crime & Legal | FOCUS Aug 5, 2019
Dignity, privacy and the right to know: Mixed feelings on disclosure of Kyoto arson victims' names
The release of the names of 10 of the 35 people who died in last month's arson attack on a Kyoto Animation Co. studio has prompted mixed responses from the public, including concerns over the privacy of grieving families. Friday's disclosure by the Kyoto Prefectural ...
Business / Tech | FOCUS Aug 3, 2019
More privacy missteps cast cloud over voice-activated digital assistants
by Rob Lever
A series of privacy missteps in recent months have raised fresh concerns over the future of voice-activated online digital assistants, a growing market seen by some as the next frontier in computing. Recent incidents involving Google, Apple and Amazon devices underscore that despite strong growth ...
Business / Tech Aug 2, 2019
Google halts Assistant speech transcription in EU after German regulator starts probe
Google has given reassurances that it won't make transcripts of speech data picked up by its Google Assistant system in the European Union for at least the next three months, a German data-protection authority said Thursday. The office of Johannes Caspar, who as Hamburg's commissioner ...
Business / Tech Jul 30, 2019
Hacker accesses over 100 million Capital One credit applications in massive data breach
A hacker gained access to personal information from more than 100 million Capital One credit applications, the bank said Monday as federal authorities arrested a suspect in the case. Paige A. Thompson — who also goes by the handle "erratic" — was charged with a ...
Business / Tech Jul 30, 2019
Americans' views on tech firms turn sharply negative in poll
Americans' views on major technology firms have taken a dramatic negative turn in the past four years, with both Democrats and Republicans seeing the sector in a less positive light, a poll showed Monday. The Pew Research Center study showed the percentage of people seeing ...
World Jul 29, 2019
Facial recognition push at India airports raises privacy concerns
by Rina Chandran
The launch of facial recognition technology at two Indian airports and plans to place it in police stations have stoked fears over privacy and increased surveillance among human rights groups in the country. The "paperless biometric technology" launched in Bengaluru airport this week identifies passengers ...
National / Politics Jul 27, 2019
A government panel has resumed talks on measures against pirate websites where manga and other content are uploaded without the permission of copyright holders. At a meeting of an expert panel of the Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters on Friday, some participants stressed the need to ...