By Robert Bateman
The U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS) has set up a “Test and Trace” program to help track the spread of COVID-19.
The program, rolled out May 28, involves “contact-tracing” — gathering information about COVID-19 patients and those with whom they have been in contact, with an aim to slow the spread of the virus.
Continue reading “Experts: UK’s 20-Year Retention of Health Data Violates Law”
By Christopher Adams
As relations between the United States and China become increasingly strained, the pervasive use of Beijing-manufactured drones by American government agencies and public-safety forces have come under fire because of privacy concerns.
Da Jiang Innovations (DJI), the dominant player in the drone market, recently donated several unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to more than 40 U.S. law-enforcement agencies.
Continue reading “Chinese Drone Donations Sow Rift Between Police, Legislators”
By Aishwarya Jagani
The government of India last month took several steps to allay some privacy fears over its official COVID-19 contact-tracing app, Aarogya Setu.
The app’s terms of service now says the government will accept “limited liability” for data collected by the app, which had not been the case. The device also is now open-sourced, allowing independent coders and researchers to check for security flaws.
But Aarogya Setu, announced in April by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, still remains under fire: The device is mandatory for many Indian citizens, as well as for central government employees and those traveling by air or train.
Continue reading “In India, Mandatory COVID App Raises Privacy and Data-Theft Issues”
By Brittany VanDerBill
Technology brings increased convenience and other benefits to users. Voice recognition technology provides the added ease of operating smartphones and other devices orally.
But this convenience could come at the cost of privacy, experts tell Digital Privacy News.
“Voice recognition technology is actually quite advanced and capable of a lot of privacy violations that people might not even think of,” said Brian Green, director of technology ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University in California.
Green’s views mirror the results of a study last year by the University of Michigan and National Science Foundation, which found how voice recognition technology could be exploited with lasers and audio signals to hack into and use smart devices.
Continue reading “Ease of Voice Recognition Technology Brings Great Risks”
By Myrle Croasdale
Physicians expect to field patients’ medical questions. Nowadays, however, they also can expect questions on what health-related apps and websites are safe to use.
“I see it all the time in my own practice,” Dr. Jesse Ehrenfeld, an anesthesiologist at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and American Medical Association (AMA) board member, told Digital Privacy News. “I get lots of questions from my patients on how safe it is.
“Like the hospital patient portal or the pharmacy app to manage their own prescriptions,” Ehrenfeld posed. “Right now, it’s hard to provide good guidance to patients about what the apps are and are not doing, because there’s no transparency.”
Continue reading “New AMA Privacy Principles Seek to Build Public Trust”
By Joanne Cleaver
When Karen Anderson saw that self-employed workers could qualify for financial assistance through the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) section of the federal CARES Act, the California freelance editor thought that — just maybe — freelancers might catch a break this year.
Then Anderson heard of the data breaches in Ohio, Illinois, and Colorado, all resulting from faulty PUA payment systems quickly built and introduced by Deloitte, the U.K.-based consulting and accounting giant.
“It discourages people who are qualified,” Anderson told Digital Privacy News of such glitches. “They’re afraid to apply.”
Continue reading “Freelancers Wary After Ohio Data Breach of Pandemic Jobless Aid Program”
By Robert Bateman
The U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS) is creating a “COVID-19 datastore” with the help of such tech firms as Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Silicon Valley artificial intelligence company, Palantir.
In a March blog post detailing the project, Matt Gould, chief executive of government unit NHSX, said the goal was to provide “secure, reliable and timely data — in a way that protects the privacy of our citizens — in order to make informed, effective decisions.”
Continue reading “U.K. Government Urged to Publish Details of COVID Datastore Contracts”
By Todd Feathers
In March, Facebook announced a $100 million grant program for small businesses struggling from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’ve listened to small businesses to understand how we can best help them,” Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg wrote in a March 17 post on the platform. “We’ve heard loud and clear that financial support could enable them to keep the lights on and pay people who can’t come to work.”
The need is great. As of May 29, for instance, the federal Paycheck Protection Program of the U.S. Small Business Administration had approved more than $510 billion in emergency loans to over 4.4 million businesses, agency officials told Digital Privacy News.
Continue reading “Facebook’s Small Business Grants Come With a Big Catch: Your Data”
By Linda Childers
Businesses across the country are now reopening after the COVID-19 lockdown, with many implementing thermal imaging technology to help curb the spread of the disease.
But security experts tell Digital Privacy News that these thermal cameras offer limited accuracy and raise critical privacy concerns.
Continue reading “Experts Recommend Caution as Businesses Turn to Thermal Imaging for Reopening”
By Mary Pieper
Arizona resident Jose Ramos (not his real name) came to the United States from Mexico with his family when he was 8 years old.
In 2013, when he was 18, he obtained deportation protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. He was in his first semester of community college.
In his DACA application, Ramos gave his address and other personal information to U.S. Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS).
Now, Ramos is 25 and has a master’s degree in engineering. But his future and that of 700,000 other “Dreamers” remains clouded by uncertainty.
Continue reading “‘Dreamers’ Live in Fear of ICE Accessing Data as SCOTUS Weighs DACA’s Fate”