Security News
They believe CES, an annual lovefest for gadgets and innovation, should have focused less on hype and more on the security and privacy implications of new surveillance features unveiled at the show. Among a bevy of surveillance cameras in the CES spotlight was a mass-market Blurams smart doorbell that uses AI and facial recognition to send a text-based alert to homeowners about who is at the door - be it a recognizable face or a delivery person.
TechRepublic's Karen Roby talked to Steven Cardwell, vice president of program marketing at HBO, at CES 2020 about its Westworld display and the importance of data privacy. Just given the conversation happening right now at CES, predominantly around data privacy, we thought this was a really great way to integrate into the conversation to not only talk about data privacy, but actually make people experience what it feels like when a company such as Incite actually has the power perhaps for good or bad. SEE: CES 2020: The big trends for business.
For much of Android's existence, Google has adopted a relatively hands-off approach that lets manufacturers ship units with pre-installed bloatware which, in many cases, cannot be easily removed. "Android Partners - who use the Android trademark and branding - are manufacturing devices that contain pre-installed apps that cannot be deleted, which can leave users vulnerable to their data being collected, shared and exposed without their knowledge or consent," the letter states.
These pre-installed apps can have privileged custom permissions that let them operate outside the Android security model. This means permissions can be defined by the app - including access to the microphone, camera and location - without triggering the standard Android security prompts.
A Westworld-themed experience gave CES attendees a creepy glimpse into tech consequences of the future.
Six months after Facebook agreed to a landmark privacy settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that included a record $5 billion fine, a federal judge is still considering objections from advocacy groups that claim the deal doesn't go far enough. Judge Timothy J. Kelly has given Facebook and the FTC until Jan. 24 to respond to objections raised by several privacy and consumer advocacy groups, including the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which raised concerns about whether the settlement does enough to protect users' data and address privacy concerns, according to court documents filed in the case.
The advent of the CCPA and other similar regulations marks a sea change in how companies need to manage data and consumer privacy. In 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation, the biggest remake of data privacy rules affecting European citizens in more than 20 years, required similar actions.
On Wednesday, more than 50 advocacy groups accused Google of exploiting poor people by failing to police misbehaving Android apps on cheap phones. The advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Privacy International, to name a few, published an open letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai asking him "To take action against exploitative pre-installed software on Android devices."
On Wednesday, more than 50 advocacy groups accused Google of exploiting poor people by failing to police misbehaving Android apps on cheap phones. The advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Privacy International, to name a few, published an open letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai asking him "To take action against exploitative pre-installed software on Android devices."
One of the bigger challenges with the CCPA is the question of tracking the location of that user data, Terry Ray, SVP and fellow with Imperva, tells Threatpost. So CCPA changes a little bit of it in that CCPA says, look, you know, we're not asking everybody to comply to this, we're asking people that are going to store what California considered a reasonable amount of data - 50,000 records - if you store more than that you're relevant to CCPA, you have to start thinking about how am I going to protect that data, monitor that data, find that data and ultimately deal with processes around the potential breach of that data.