World Privacy Forum in the news – update

News Update, Summer 2014

For a complete list of stories, see our full World Privacy Forum in the news page.

SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, 06 August 2014, Blue Cross, Blue Shield team up to create huge medical records data base, Tracy Seipel.

CONTRA COSTA TIMES, 06 August 2014, Blue Cross, Blue Shield team up to create huge medical records data base, Tracy Seipel.

KIPLINGER, 05 August 2014, Retailers tracking your cell phone signals, Miriam Cross.

LOS ANGELES TIMES, 05 August 2014, Online medical records coming, Tim Logan, Stuart Pfeifer.

Deutsch-Tuerkische-Nachrichten, 27 July 2014, Mit Chip zum Sport: Gesunde zahlen weniger Versicherung.

COMMUNICATIONS DAILY, 25 July 2014, Open source code gives data collection, use notification for consumers, Cory Bennett.

BUSINESS INSIDER, 09 July 2014, How your doctor and insurer will know your secrets, even if you never tell them, Katie Jennings.

HENDRICKS COUNTY FLYER, 19 July 2014, Critics push specious privacy pitch.

CSO, 15 July 2014, Wearables: Are we handing more tools to Big Brother? Taylor Amerding.

POLITICO, 13 July 2014, Electronic health records ripe for theft, David Pittman.

ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER, 07 July 2014, Millions of electronic medical records breached, Ronald Campbell and Deborah Schoch.

MONEY MORNING, 03 July 2014, Facebook’s “experiment” is one more freedom slipping away, Shah Gilani.

WALLSTREETCHEATSHEET, 01 July 2014, Data policy implicates unethical Facebook emotion experiement, Jess Bolluyt.

CURVED, 01 July 2014, Facebook: Heimliche Studie ohne ausdruckliche Erlaubnis.

POLITICO, 01 July 2014, Experts: Health records hack coming, David Pittman.

FORBES, 30 June 2014, Facebook added “research” to user agreement 4 months after emotion manipulations study, Kashmir Hill.

CREDITCARDS.COM, 27 June 2014, Do predictive scores violate your privacy? Kelly Dilworth.

GOVERNMENT HEALTH IT. 24 June 2014, Could big data become big brother? Diana Manos.

FORBES, 20 June 2014, Why a San Francisco coffee shop stopped tracking cutomers’ phones, Kashmir Hill.

FORBES, 19 June 2014, Get ready for wearable tech to plug into health insurance, Parmy Olson.

BOBSULLIVAN, 18 June 2014, Nine surprising ways identity theft can hurt you, Bob Sullivan.

THE HILL, 02 June 2014, Privacy advocates eye new Apple feautres, Kate Tummarello.

CNN WIRE, 01 June 2014, Stop big data from getting your health information, Melanie Hicken.

…. more stories

Posted August 7, 2014 in News, Press, and Media

New Report: Risky Analysis: Assessing and Improving AI Governance Tools

We are pleased to announce the publication of a new WPF report, “Risky Analysis: Assessing and Improving AI Governance Tools.” This report sets out a definition of AI governance tools, documents why and how these tools are critically important for trustworthy AI, and where these tools are around the world. The report also documents problems in some AI governance tools themselves, and suggests pathways to improve AI governance tools and create an evaluative environment to measure their effectiveness. AI systems should not be deployed without simultaneously evaluating the potential adverse impacts of such systems and mitigating their risks, and most of the world agrees about the need to take precautions against the threats posed. The specific tools and techniques that exist to evaluate and measure AI systems for their inclusiveness, fairness, explainability, privacy, safety and other trustworthiness issues — called in the report collectively AI governance tools – can improve such issues. While some AI governance tools provide reassurance to the public and to regulators, the tools too often lack meaningful oversight and quality assessments. Incomplete or ineffective AI governance tools can create a false sense of confidence, cause unintended problems, and generally undermine the promise of AI systems. The report contains rich background details, use cases, potential solutions to the problems discussed in the report, and a global index of AI Governance Tools.
National IDs Around the World — Interactive map

About this Data Visualization: This interactive map displays the presence...
Report: From the Filing Cabinet to the Cloud: Updating the Privacy Act of 1974

This comprehensive report and proposed bill text is focused on the Privacy Act of 1974, an important and early Federal privacy law that applies to the government sector and some contractors. The Privacy Act was written for the 1970s information era -- an era that was characterized by the use of mainframe computers and filing cabinets. Today's digital information era looks much different than the '70s: smart phones are smarter than the old mainframes, and documents are now routinely digitized and stored and perhaps even analyzed in the cloud, among many other changes. The report focuses on why the Privacy Act needs an update that will bring it into this century, and how that could look and work. This work was written by Robert Gellman, and informed by a two-year multi-stakeholder process.