Privacy

The California legislature is very, very close to passing AB 2273, The California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act. As far as I can tell, it has strong support in the legislature and very little opposition. And that's incredibly dangerous, because the bill is not just extremely problematic, but at the same time it's also impossible to comply with.

The bill is a for the children bill in that it has lots of language in there claiming that this is about protecting children from nefarious online services that create harm. But, as Goldman makes clear, the bill targets everyone, not just children, because it has ridiculously broad definitions.

Bill 2273 doesn't limit its impact to sites targeting those under 13. It targets any business with an online service likely to be accessed by children who are defined by a consumer or consumers who are under 18 years of age. I'm curious if that means someone who is not buying (i.e., consuming) anything doesn't count? Most likely it will mean consuming as in accessing / using the service. And that's ridiculous.

Because EVERY service is likely to have at least someone under the age of 18 visit it.

According to the law, I need to estimate the age of child users with a reasonable level of certainty. How? Am I really going to have to start age verifying every visitor to the site? It seems like I risk serious liability in not doing so. And then what? Now California has just created a fucking privacy nightmare for me. I don't want to find out how old all of you are and then track that data. We try to collect as little data about all of you as possible, but under the law that puts me at risk.

Yes, incredibly, a bill that claims to be about protecting data, effectively demands that I collect way more personal data than I ever want to collect.

See full article from techdirt.com

The World Economic Forum has made a big push for digital identity programs around the world

The article then states (without mentioning numbers) that consumers said they would pick banks and financial firms as the most trustworthy entities to create and maintain a system that controls their identities online.

The WEF write-up adds some doom-and-gloom scenarios and fear mongering into the mix, arguing that with economies around the world heading into high inflation and recession, and the trend likely to continue -- digital economy and its potential becomes more important than ever.

But -- unless there is a way to identify everybody online, the WEF warns that people will actually stop interacting online.

Meta writes:

• We're testing secure storage on Messenger, a new feature that allows you to back up your end-to-end encrypted chats.

• We're also starting a test of automatic end-to-end encrypted chat threads on Messenger and expanding other features.

People want to trust that their online conversations with friends and family are private and secure. We're working hard to protect your personal messages and calls with end-to-end encryption by default on Messenger and Instagram. Today, we're announcing our plans to test a new secure storage feature for backups of your end-to-end encrypted chats on Messenger, and more updates and tests to deliver the best experience on Messenger and Instagram.

See article from about.fb.com

Vodafone & Deutsche Telekom recently started trials with Trustpid to reintroduce persistent user tracking of their internet browsing with view to selling browsing history to advertisers.

Although Vodafone claims there is nothing to worry about, privacy officials are especially concerned about the recent involvement of network operators. Privacy advocates call it the return of the Super Cookie. This would be a massive step backward in creating an independent web where the privacy of internet users is respected.

With TrustPid, Vodafone assigns a fixed ID to a user based on someone's phone number. Website operators would then be able to call up this identifier to exactly see what websites this user has visited and create a profile to display targeted ads.

Recent privacy laws are currently challenging Google and Apple's current solutions for selling users' browser history to advertising. Many web browsers block third-party cookies, and even Google Chrome is phasing out third-party cookies next year. Apple is cracking down on user tracking, costing Facebook billions in revenue.

It has become more challenging to monetize customer data, so the advertising market is looking for new solutions to tap into. They do not want to go back to non-personalized advertising, so they are pushing the frontier to see what's still possible. The Trustpid trial is an example of this.

See further details from blog.simpleanalytics.com

Warwickshire County Cricket Club

Warwickshire County Cricket Club has confirmed that snooping measures were brought in for Saturday's international T20 match at Edgbaston. The crowd will be surveilled by undercover football crowd-style spotters .

The move was in response to the recent test match where passage of play was marred by reports of racial insults from a section of the crowd. This subsequently led to a criminal investigation by West Midlands Police. Stuart Cain, Warwickshire's chief executive, said:

We cannot hide from the mindless racist abuse experienced by some fans following India in the Eric Hollies Stand.

For Saturday's T20 match, Warwickshire confirmed that undercover football crowd-style spotters would be deployed throughout Edgbaston to listen out for abusive behaviour and report it for immediate action, and added that there would be an increased police presence at games to handle such incidents swiftly, and enable more chance of successful prosecutions.

The club said that all fans at subsequent matches would be encouraged to report abuse via the Edgbaston app, adding that anyone found guilty of hate crime will be banned not only from Edgbaston but from all venues under the ECB's jurisdiction.

The club has not commented on what speech it considers to be worthy of punishment nor has it detailed whether people's conversation are being recorded in support its punishment regime.