Month: January 2020

Internet Governance

UK To Allow Huawei To Supply 5G Network Infrastructure: Despite protests from the Trump Administration, which has banned the use of Huawei’s technology in the United States due to national security concerns, the UK announced on Tuesday that it will allow Huawei and other “high-risk vendors” to supply equipment for its national 5G infrastructure, citing a lack of alternatives and an existing reliance on Huawei’s technology by major network operators within the country.

Privacy

Facebook To Prompt Users To Examine Privacy Settings: The social network plans to direct 2 billion users to its updated Privacy Checkup tool, through which users can learn who can see their data and adjust their privacy preferences; the platform has also given users access to its new Off-Facebook Activity tool, where they can view a summary of their data being used by third-party sites and delete that data.

London Police Begin Using Live Facial Recognition Technology To Locate “Serious Offenders”: The technology will initially be deployed in targeted areas and is intended to supplement police’s discretion in engaging with individuals; privacy groups contend that the development threatens civil liberties, and an independent review of the technology has called into question the technology’s ability to accurately identify individuals.

Information Security and Cyberthreats

Over Half Of NFL Team Twitter Accounts, Along With ESPN And UFC Accounts, Hacked: Activity on the compromised accounts during the two-day hack promoted the hacking group OurMine, which later took responsibility; tweets sent out from official NFL team accounts proclaimed that the hacking collective had returned and that “everything is hackable.” 

Intellectual Property

UK Says It Will Not Implement EU Copyright Directive: Prime Minister Boris Johnson confirmed that the UK will not implement the new Copyright Directive, which it originally voted to approve in 2019, after leaving the EU; the Directive, which imposes a “link tax” and requires platforms to identify and remove infringing content, is currently being transposed into the national laws of other EU member states. 

Free Expression and Censorship

Facebook, Google, And Twitter Work To Halt The Spread Of Coronavirus Misinformation: As social media users begin to make unsubstantiated posts about the coronavirus’ spread, such as that it developed because of Chinese dietary habits or that oregano oil and colloidal silver are curative, the three tech giants are taking action to stop their powerful social media platforms from becoming echo-chambers for misinformation about the quickly spreading disease. 

Practice Note

Facebook Settles Facial Recognition Lawsuit For $550 million: In a case filed in 2015, Illinois Facebook users accused the site of violating the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act by using the platform’s photo “Tag Suggestions” function to collect and store the biometric data of millions of users without their consent; this week, the company announced that it had reached a $550 million settlement pending approval from the district court.

On the Lighter Side

Introducing Vine 2.0, Byte: For those of you who may find yourselves re-watching YouTube videos such as “Vines I Quote Every Day,” or “Iconic Vines That Changed the World,” with a yearning sense of nostalgia, look no further than Vine co-founder Dom Hofmann’s TikTok competitor and Vine spinoff, Byte, which announced on Twitter last week, “today we’re bringing back 6-second looping videos and a new community for people who love them.”

Joel R. Reidenberg
Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and Professor of Law
Founding Academic Director, Fordham CLIP

Tom Norton
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Brittany Thomas
Sean Conners
Editorial Fellows, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance

France Offers To Suspend Its Digital Tax In Response To Proposed U.S. Tariffs: A new French tax that is seen by some to unfairly target U.S. tech companies spurred threats of retaliatory tariffs on certain French products; an unnamed source within the French Finance Ministry confirmed France would suspend down payments of the tax until December as a gesture of goodwill and to enable further negotiation.

Privacy

Newly Revealed Facial Recognition App Threatens To Erode Anonymity: The app, created by Clearview AI, relies on a database of three billion images ostensibly scraped from social media profiles and other online sources to identify individuals based on their photograph by revealing other photos of the person as well as links to the sources where those photos appear; the app has been licensed to over 600 law enforcement and security companies in the past year.

Information Security and Cyberthreats

UN Seeks Investigation After Evidence Ties Saudi Crown Prince To Hack Of Jeff Bezos’ Phone: UN investigators have discovered a report from a private security consultant detailing the hack of Bezos’ phone last May and tracing the breach to spyware sent by the Crown Prince’s WhatsApp account; the same investigators suggest the hack may have been part of an effort to influence coverage of the muder of Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist for the Bezos-owned Washington Post. 

Microsoft “Misconfiguration” Leaves More Than 250 Million Customer Service Records Vulnerable: Microsoft disclosed and corrected a database error that left exposed customer service chat logs dating as far back as 2005; in response, Microsoft will begin contacting affected users and also plans to audit its internal security system.

Intellectual Property

Court Overturns Patent Ruling In Favor Of Nintendo, Ending Seven Year Litigation: The action filed by iLife Technology in 2013 alleged that the Nintendo Wii’s motion-sensing controller infringed six of its patents and resulted in an award of $10.1 million in damages to iLife. 

Free Expression and Censorship

Journalist Glen Greenwald Charged With Cybercrimes In Brazil: The charges come after Greenwald published stories that included “leaked” messages containing content embarassing to public officials as part of an effor to expose public corruption; Greenwald states the Brazilian Federal Police cleared him of any wrongdoing just two months ago, and that prosecutors’ allegations that he “encouraged” the hacking of officials’ phones is retaliatory.

Practice Note

Appeals Court Refuses To Reopen 3D-Printed Gun Publishing Suit: The Texas-based nonprofit Defense Distributed sought to reopen its 2018 suit against the State Department, the Secretary of State, and other officials, seeking government approval to publish online plans for its 3D-printed gun; Defense Distributed is still facing ongoing litigation after 20 states and the District of Columbia filed suit to block publication of the plans.

On the Lighter Side

Seattle County To Host The First U.S. Election Offering Smartphone Voting: In an effort to boost voter turnout, King County, Washington, will allow electronic voting from its blockchain-based smartphone app for the upcoming board of supervisors election; the county hopes to overcome numerous challenges and security risks that have hindered online voting for years.

Joel R. Reidenberg
Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and Professor of Law
Founding Academic Director, Fordham CLIP

Tom Norton
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Lawrence Keating
Editorial Fellow

Internet Governance

Online Retailers Face Antitrust Probe In India: In response to a complaint filed by a group that represents small- and medium-sized businesses, the Competition Commission of India will investigate whether Amazon and Walmart’s Flipkart promote “preferred sellers” over smaller sellers in violation of the country’s competition laws.

Privacy

Dating Data Shared: A recent report reveals that popular online dating services such as Grindr, OkCupid, and Tinder send data about users’ gender, ethnicity, location, and personal dating preferences to advertisers, marketing services, and location data brokers in ways that may run afoul of data privacy laws such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation and California’s newly effective California Consumer Privacy Act.

Third-Party Trackers Not Welcome On Chrome: Google has announced that as part of its Privacy Sandbox initiative to make web use more private and secure, the Chrome browser will stop supporting third-party tracking cookies by 2022; the policy change will affect how web tracking and advertising works on the platform.

Information Security and Cyberthreats

Burisma Becomes Victim Of Apparent Russian Hack: A Silicon Valley security firm discovered that the Ukrainian gas company, which is at the center of the Trump impeachment proceedings, was infiltrated in a hack that employed tactics similar to those used by Russian hackers from a military intelligence unit; while it is unclear how much data was obtained through the hack, it raises concerns that Russia may be prying for information that could be used to meddle in the 2020 election.

Intellectual Property

Chinese Court Affords Copyright Protection To AI-Generated Content: A court in Shenzhen ruled that an AI-generated financial report produced by tech giant Tencent was entitled to copyright protection after another online platform duplicated the report on its own website; the court found that the work had a “certain originality” and that it met the legal requirements to be considered a “written work” entitled to copyright protection.

Free Expression and Censorship

Digital Art Falls Victim To Instagram’s False Information Warning Feature: The feature, which notifies users that third-party fact checkers have determined that a post contains false information, has begun to flag postings of digitally manipulated art and has hid those postings from Instagram’s Explore and Hashtag pages.

Practice Note

GrayKey Enables iPhone Access By Law Enforcement: A newly discovered search warrant suggests that the FBI has access to a tool—GrayKey—that can retrieve data from iPhones, including the latest 11 Pro Max model, even when they are locked; the discovery raises questions about the FBI, President Trump, and Attorney General Barr’s motivations for pressuring Apple to assist in unlocking the devices owned by the Pensacola, Florida, naval base shooting suspect.

On the Lighter Side

Spotify Curates Content For Canines: After surveying UK listeners and finding that nearly three-quarters of them play music for their pets, Spotify has created a playlist and a podcast for dogs to listen to when their owners aren’t home.

Joel R. Reidenberg
Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and Professor of Law
Founding Academic Director, Fordham CLIP

Tom Norton
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance

New Cambridge Analytica Documents Leaked: A former employee-turned-whistleblower has begun to leak a trove of over 100,000 documents showing that the now-defunct company was a “global operation that worked with governments, intelligence agencies, commercial companies and political campaigns to manipulate and influence people,” and that it had even worked for a Ukrainian political party in 2017 while under investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Privacy

Ring Adds Privacy Dashboard: In response to recent criticism of its privacy and security practices, the home security system has added a privacy dashboard to its app that allows users to alter privacy and security settings, including by setting up two-factor authentication and managing law enforcement’s ability to request video clips.

YouTube Implements Children’s Privacy Changes: As part of a settlement with the FTC over alleged Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act violations, the streaming service has effected changes that include removing targeted advertising, push notifications, and other community-oriented features from videos designated by creators as “made for kids”; content creators complain that a lack of guidance makes it difficult to determine whether they may be in violation of the new policies.

Information Security and Cyberthreats

FBI Again Seeks Apple Help To Unlock Device: Armed with a court order permitting it to search iPhones allegedly belonging to the suspected gunman at a Florida naval base last month, the FBI has requested that Apple help it unlock the password-protected devices; the Bureau has sought similar help from Apple in the past, but ultimately found alternative ways into the devices in those cases.

TikTok Vulnerabilities Discovered: A cybersecurity research firm discovered “multiple vulnerabilities” in the popular video-sharing app that would allow hackers to upload and delete videos from users’ accounts, change the privacy settings of users’ existing videos, and redirect users to malicious websites that mimic TikTok’s homepage; the vulnerabilities were disclosed to TikTok parent ByteDance and have since been patched. 

Intellectual Property

Airbnb Owns User-Profiling Patent: Airbnb has patented “trait analyzer” software that scours the web for information about users’ behavioral and personality traits to gauge their “trustworthiness” and ultimately to calculate their compatibility with various hosts.

Free Expression and Censorship

Facebook Deepfake Ban Met With Skepticism: On Monday, the social network announced that it will ban deepfakes on its platform, including content created by artificial intelligence and content that has been edited “in ways that aren’t apparent to an average person and would likely mislead someone”; lawmakers, however, say that the prohibition does not go far enough, as it likely does not cover content created using “widely available editing software.”

On the Lighter Side

AI That Makes You Smile: A newly announced AI toothbrush, which is driven by an app that provides “real-time tracking and coaching,” has proven to improve gum health in clinical trials.

Joel R. Reidenberg
Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and Professor of Law
Founding Academic Director, Fordham CLIP

Tom Norton
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance

Brazil Fines Facebook For Sharing User Data: The country’s Ministry of Justice fined the social network an amount equal to $1.6 million after finding that Facebook improperly made the data of 443,000 users available to developers of the app “thisisyourdigitallife,” which was at the center of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Uber And Postmates Challenge California Freelancer Law: In a lawsuit filed Monday, the companies argue that the law, which would require that ridesharing, delivery, and similar “gig work” companies classify their workers as employees rather than contractors in some situations, denies exemptions for such companies “on the basis of lack of equal protection and due process under both federal and state law”; on Tuesday, a California federal judge temporarily enjoined the law’s taking effect.

Privacy

New California Privacy Law Takes Effect: The law took effect on January 1, 2020, but companies have different interpretations of how the law applies and what they must do to comply with it.

Information Security and Cyberthreats

U.S. Army Bans TikTok On Government-Issued Devices: The ban comes after the Defense Department labelled the app a “security risk” over suspicion about its Chinese parent, ByteDance; the U.S. Navy also recently banned the app, and lawmakers asked U.S. intelligence agencies to investigate the app for “national security concerns” in October of last year.

Employee Error Leads To Wyze Data Leak: The employee removed security protocols from a database that included user email addresses, Wi-Fi network information, Wyze device information, and other data related to 2.4 million users of the home surveillance system.

Intellectual Property

Apple Faces Patent Suit Over Apple Watch Heart Monitor: A New York University cardiologist has sued the company, alleging that the heart-monitoring technology it uses in its Apple Watch violates his “patented method for detecting atrial fibrillation.”

Free Expression and Censorship

Facebook Removes Misleading HIV Prevention Ads: Following pressure from LGBTQ+ groups and health organizations, Facebook has removed false and misleading ads about HIV prevention medications; a large number of the ads were run by plaintiffs’ lawyers who sought potential clients by falsely advertising that certain medications led to kidney or liver damage.

On the Lighter Side

Cops And Robots: A North Carolina couple called the police one night after they thought they heard a burglar in their home, only to find that their recently acquired Roomba vacuum cleaner had turned itself on and was bumping into the walls.

Joel R. Reidenberg
Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and Professor of Law
Founding Academic Director, Fordham CLIP

Tom Norton
Executive Director, Fordham CLIP