FCC Democrats pledged action against robocalls seeking to confuse voters in Tuesday’s election. “I'm going to get to the bottom of this,” tweeted Commissioner Geoffrey Starks. “Illegal robocalls and robotexts that seek to impact our elections are unacceptable.” Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel asked citizens to report such calls, tweeting, “The FCC has the authority to fine bad actors responsible for illegal robocalls.” Michigan AG Dana Nessel (D) said robocalls were spreading election misinformation in Flint. New York AG Letitia James (D) is investigating, her office said Tuesday. "Attempts to hinder voters from exercising their right to cast their ballots are disheartening, disturbing, and wrong." Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla., tweeted concerns about robocalls in her state. The Enforcement Bureau was aware of the issue, said an FCC official.
Chatbots’ inability to express emotion, attitude or opinion, especially if they can’t solve a consumer’s problem, leads to user frustration and cessation of use, said Strategy Analytics Monday. Research shows a customer’s emotions have significant influence on their satisfaction with a service chatbot, said analyst Diane O’Neill. Despite some success in development of empathetic chatbots, human-level intelligence “is still not fully understood,” said analyst Kevin Nolan. Further advances are needed for chatbots to diversify into critical health-related services such as mental support systems.
The Department of Homeland Security inspector general should investigate Customs and Border Protection “warrantless tracking of phones” in the U.S. (see 2009240051), Senate Democrats wrote Friday. “CBP is not above the law and it should not be able to buy its way around the Fourth Amendment,” wrote Ron Wyden, Ore.; Elizabeth Warren, Mass.; Sherrod Brown, Ohio; Ed Markey, Mass.; and Brian Schatz, Hawaii. Citing public contracts, they said CBP “paid a government contractor named Venntel nearly half a million dollars for access to a commercial database containing location data mined from applications on millions of Americans’ mobile phones.” DHS didn’t comment.
Three consumers had their “unique, biometric voiceprints” collected without their consent when they contacted call centers using Amazon Web Services and Pindrop Security voice authentication technologies, violating the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), alleged a complaint (in Pacer) Friday in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Delaware. The suit seeks class-action status on behalf of others who made similar call center contacts. Plaintiffs suffered “significant damage” because their biometric data was “intercepted, collected, and disseminated without their knowledge or consent," substantially increasing the likelihood "they will suffer as victims of fraud and/or identity theft,” said the complaint. It seeks $5,000 in statutory damages for each “intentional and reckless” BIPA violation. AWS and Pindrop didn’t respond to questions Monday.
Nearly nine in 10 parents are impressed with how quickly their kids pick up new technology, a “beneficial” trait with many school districts transitioning to remote learning for the 2020-21 school year, VTech found. The supplier of electronic learning products for children canvassed 2,000 parents of kids ages 3-12, finding 82% think their offspring will have more tech opportunities than they did growing up, and 78% approve of introducing tech to kids at a young age. Nearly nine in 10 parents think it’s important for their kids to be proficient with tech and agree tech “will shape who their child becomes," said VTech. Some 48% think tech will bolster their kids’ education, and 47% believe it will “help their children in a variety of career paths.”
Thousands of K-12 students were affected by 99 reported data breaches July 2016 to May 2020, GAO said Thursday. Fifty-eight involved academic records, “including assessment scores and special education records,” GAO said. Data including personally identifiable information like Social Security numbers was in 36 breaches. Staff was responsible for 21 of 25 accidental breaches, and students for 27 of 52 intentional breaches, most often to change grades, with the remaining 22 of “unknown intent,” GAO said: “Reports of breaches by cybercriminals were rare but included attempts to steal PII.”
Google’s proposed $2.1 billion Fitbit purchase (see 1911010051 or 1911010054) raises “serious competition and privacy concerns" and risks harming people in the wearables, advertising and digital health markets, warned 19 global consumer and citizen groups Thursday. “This takeover must therefore only be approved if merger remedies can effectively prevent those harms.” The groups said they fear Google could shut rival manufacturers out of the wearables market by “degrading their interoperability” with Android devices. The takeover also risks jeopardizing rivals’ access to wearables data in “digital health markets to the detriment of innovation in these critical nascent markets,” they said. It would bolster Google’s “unparalleled market power” in online advertising by giving it “a further data advantage in the personalisation of ads through its ownership of Fitbit’s user database,” they said. Regulators need to get Google to commit to conditional “safeguards,” they said. U.S.-based groups included New America's Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge. Google didn’t comment.
Consumers are more willing to share their smartphone data for contract tracing if they know someone who has had COVID-19, reported Parks Associates Wednesday. More than 80% of those who know someone infected are willing to share smartphone data, with privacy protections, vs. 65% who don’t. The effectiveness of contact tracing depends on the recall quality of the infected person and the timeliness of tracers’ ability to locate and contact those potentially exposed, said Parks Senior Director Jennifer Kent. Using Bluetooth to detect the distance and duration of interaction, a smartphone-based approach can identify people with whom an infected person may have interacted but doesn't know. It can also make notifications of potential exposure “nearly instantaneous.” In March, 8% of survey respondents knew at least one person who had COVID-19; that jumped to 35% in May. By Wednesday, the U.S. had 7,504,116 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 210,972 deaths, said the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Seventy percent of those with firsthand COVID-19 experience said they’re willing to share smartphone data to track COVID-19; 59% of those with a household member who had the disease would share, said the survey. Just under half who had experienced no symptoms would be willing to share. By mobile operating system, 58% of iPhone users would be willing, 47% of Android users. Age affected willingness to share smartphone data for contract tracing, said the report: 90% of respondents ages 18-24 were willing to share if privacy protections are offered, vs. 63% of those 65 and older. Higher-income households and those with higher levels of education are more likely to share, it said. For more effective digital contact tracing, “consumers must adopt the technology,” said Kent, citing an Oxford University study saying adoption by 15% of the population will result in reduced disease transmission and fewer deaths; adoption by 60% of the population or more yields the biggest public health benefit. To promote wider adoption, Apple and Google rolled out the Exposure Notification Express system Sept. 1, removing the requirement that individuals seek out and download an app from a public health official to participate, Kent noted. But state adoption is “slow,” she said, with only 10 states signed on by mid-September; 25 more expressed interest.
The Supreme Court won’t hear a Pennsylvania cellphone privacy case (docket 19-1254) on when it’s permissible for police to require someone to unlock an encrypted device. The court denied cert Monday to the state seeking review of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision that individuals may refuse to unlock their phones for law enforcement to avoid self-incrimination. “Great news” that the Pennsylvania court's decision stays in effect, but varying decisions on similar cases in several other state supreme courts (see 2009160058) could still go to SCOTUS, emailed Electronic Frontier Foundation Senior Staff Attorney Andrew Crocker. “We'll have to see if the Court decides to take any of those or waits for the issue to develop further.” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s (D) office didn’t comment.