Franken presses Apple on new iPhone fingerprint technology privacy
"If hackers get a hold of your thumbprint, they could use it to identify and impersonate you for the rest of your life," Sen. Al Franken wrote in a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook.
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The problem is, the bill they’re laser-focused on is misguided, wouldn’t protect us — and is a huge gift to companies wanting legal cover if and when they choose to violate Americans’ privacy rights.
In March, the Senate Intelligence Committee voted 14–1 in favor of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 (CISA). The bill, like its infamous predecessor CISPA, would allow companies to share vast amounts of users’ private and personally identifiable data with the government. That information would go straight to the Department of Homeland Security and then on to the NSA.
If CISA passes, companies would be permitted to monitor and then report to the government on vaguely defined “cyber-threat indicators” — a term so broad that it covers actual threats hackers pose to computer systems but also sweeps in information on crimes like carjacking and burglaries. Those are serious offenses to be sure, but they have nothing to do with cybersecurity.
While current law allows companies to monitor their own systems for cyber threats, CISA would take this to the next level. The bill would allow companies that hold huge swaths of our personal data — like health insurers and credit-card companies — to monitor and report online activity “notwithstanding any other provision of law.”
This means that CISA would undermine the strong protections embedded in laws like the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 and the Privacy Act of 1964 — laws designed to keep the government from spying on our communications.
While posing a serious threat to our privacy online, CISA wouldn’t even guard well against cyber attacks. The bill offers a bad trade-off, to put it mildly.
Google to Pay $22.5M to Settle Privacy Complaint.
- Federal Trade Commission announced that Google will pay $22.5 million to settle privacy dispute.
- The case involved allegations that Google bypassed privacy settings of users of Apple’s Safari Internet browser.
- This is not the first time Google has run into trouble over its privacy practices.
- The company agreed to a settlement last year over allegations that it violated its privacy policies for Gmail users.
The flashpoints for activism are the many failures of the existing media system. Whether it’s the silencing of dissenting views, the attacks on online privacy, the throttling of Internet access or the monopolization of choice, the problems are often rooted in bad public policy.
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Major internet providers, including AT&T, Time Warner and Verizon, are slowing data from popular websites to thousands of US businesses and residential customers in dozens of cities across the country, according to a study released on Monday.
The study, conducted by internet activists BattlefortheNet, looked at the results from 300,000 internet users and found significant degradations on the networks of the five largest internet service providers (ISPs), representing 75% of all wireline households across the US.
The findings come weeks after the Federal Communications Commission introduced new rules meant to protect “net neutrality” – the principle that all data is equal online – and keep ISPs from holding traffic speeds for ransom.
Tim Karr of Free Press, one of the groups that makes up BattlefortheNet, said the findings show ISPs are not providing content to users at the speeds they’re paying for.
“For too long, internet access providers and their lobbyists have characterized net neutrality protections as a solution in search of a problem,” said Karr. “Data compiled using the Internet Health Test show us otherwise – that there is widespread and systemic abuse across the network. The irony is that this trove of evidence is becoming public just as many in Congress are trying to strip away the open internet protections that would prevent such bad behavior.”
By taking the Internet Health Test, everyday Internet users helped build the data set that lead to these discoveries.
You can help uncover possible Net Neutrality violations by taking the Internet Health Test.
HUGE NEWS: Democrats in Congress have introduced new legislation that would restore Net Neutrality!
Tell Congress: Keep the Internet WEIRD — and SAVE NET NEUTRALITY
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