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Content type: Examples
13th November 2019
A woman was killed by a spear to the chest at her home in Hallandale Beache, Florida, north of Miami, in July. Witness "Alexa" has been called yet another time to give evidence and solve the mystery. The police is hoping that the smart assistance Amazon Echo, known as Alexa, was accidentally activated and recorded key moments of the murder. “It is believed that evidence of crimes, audio recordings capturing the attack on victim Silvia Crespo that occurred in the main bedroom … may be found on…
Content type: Examples
12th July 2019
US Immigrations & Customs Enforcement (ICE) used social media monitoring to track groups and people in New York City associated with public events opposing the Trump administration’s policies, including ones related to immigration and gun control. The investigative branch of ICE created and circulated a spreadsheet, entitled ‘Anti-Trump Protest Spreadsheet 07/31/2018,” that provided details of events planned between July 31, 2018, and August 17, 2018. The spreadsheet pulled data from…
Content type: Examples
12th July 2019
The US government created a database of more than 50 journalists and immigrant rights advocates, many of whom were American citizens, associated with the journey of migrants travelling from Central America to the Mexico-US border in late 2018. Officials from Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the US Border Patrol, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had access to this database. This list allowed the…
Content type: Examples
22nd April 2020
Tunisian authorities have sent humanly remote-controlled robots onto the streets to enforce the country's lockdown; videos shared on social media show the robots challenging Tunisians in the country's capital to ask if they are aware of the rules and demand where they are going. The robots, known as "P-Guard" and made by Enovaro Robotics, are equipped with infrared and thermal cameras as well as a laser telemetry system.
Source: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/coronavirus-tunisia-lockdown-…
Content type: Examples
3rd May 2019
In August 2017, it was reported that a researcher scraped videos of transgender Youtubers documenting their transition process without informing them or asking their permission, as part of an attempt to train artificial intelligence facial recognition software to be able to identify transgender people after they have transitioned.
These videos were primarily of transgender people sharing the progress and results of hormone replacement therapy, including video diaries and time-lapse videos. The…
Content type: Examples
12th July 2019
A private intelligence company, LookingGlass Cyber Solutions, used social media to monitor more than 600 “Family Separation Day Protests” held across the United States on June 30, 2018, to oppose the Trump administration’s policy family separation policy. The policy was part of a “zero tolerance” approach to deter asylum seekers from coming to the United States by separating children from their parents. After collecting information about these protests through Facebook, including the precise…
Content type: Examples
31st July 2019
The Lumi by Pampers nappies will track a child's urine (not bowel movements) and comes with an app that helps you "Track just about everything". The activity sensor that is placed on the nappy also tracks a baby's sleep.
Concerns over security and privacy have been raised, given baby monitors can be susceptible to hackers and any app that holds personal information could potentially expose that information.
Experts say the concept could be helpful to some parents but that there are some…
Content type: Examples
12th August 2019
In late 2017, the residents of the small town of Santa Maria Tonantzintla, about three-hours away from Mexico City, discovered their town was intended to become a pilot smart city in a collaboration between the state of Puebla and the organisation Alianza Smart Latam. The town's residents, who had already lost its distinctive cobblestones, the clock tower, and a stucco bridge as part of the early stages of the project, filed an injunction to halt the project, which had failed to obtain the…
Content type: Examples
3rd May 2018
In 2015, The Intercept obtained documents showing that the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota used a fake Facebook account to friend and monitor local Black Lives Matter activists, and collect their personal information and photographs without their knowledge. The account was discovered in a cache of files the Mall of America provided to Bloomington officials after a large BLM protest against police brutality that was held at the mall. After the protest, the city charged 11 protesters…
Content type: Examples
19th March 2020
Ministers have permitted the Shin Bet security service to "use the cellular phone data of carriers of the disease to retrace their steps and identify anyone they may have infected", and will relay the information to the Health Ministry, which will send a message to those who were within two meters (6.6 feet) of the infected person for 10 minutes or more, telling them to go into quarantine. An update to the original order has extended the period during which it is in force from 30 days until the…
Content type: Examples
12th July 2019
In 2017, US Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that it would seek to use artificial intelligence to automatically evaluate the probability of a prospective immigrant “becoming a positively contributing member of society.” In a letter to acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke, a group of 54 concerned computer scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and researchers objected to ICE’s proposal and demanded that ICE abandon this approach because it would be…
Content type: Examples
3rd May 2018
In a 2017 study of patterns of postings on Chinese social media, three Harvard researchers disagreed with the widespread claim that the government's strategy is to post "50c party" posts that argue for the government's side in policy and political debates. Instead, the researchers estimated that the Chinese government fabricates as many as 448 million social media comments a year but found that these avoid controversial issues and arguments with government skeptics. Instead, the researchers…
Content type: Examples
4th February 2020
Recent study shows that Americans are wary of data from smart speakers being used in criminal investigations, the Pew Research Center reported. A recent study showed that 49% of Americans answered that it is unacceptable for smart speakers companies to share audio recordings of their customers with law enforcement in order to help with criminal investigations. Only 25% said it is acceptable. Aparently, this result contrasts with some other data use practices measured in the same survey. For…