Jay Stanley
@jaystanley.bsky.social
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Emerging technology and science for ACLU
Using an LLM with your secure messaging service, as Meta proposes, brings new risks to the architecture that protects privacy and security.
www.aclu.org/news/privacy...
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Secure Messaging and AI Donât Mix | ACLU
A Privacy Failure Waiting to Happen
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/secure-messaging-and-ai-dont-mix
12 days ago
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We can debate the moral complexities of individual responsibility for the misuse of LLMs, but policymakers need to be realistic that lapses are inevitable and take steps to limit certain uses of AI.
www.aclu.org/news/privacy...
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The AI Trapdoor Lying in Wait for Workers | ACLU
âThe pilots were well aware of which lever to pull. It was âhuman errorâ that caused the mistake. But laying the blame on the pilots wasnât ever going to solve the problem.â
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/the-ai-trapdoor
about 1 month ago
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"Basically, he said that itâs a tool that isnât going to be used â and if it is used, then 'youâre failing in the training department, big time.'"
www.aclu.org/news/privacy...
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Another Police Use of AI | ACLU
Axonâs âPolicy Chatâ product seeks to give officers guidance on department policies and procedures
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/ai-policy-guidance-police
about 1 month ago
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@ACLU demanding more information on violations of photographer's rights, including DHS policy directives, training materials, legal analyses, and communications
www.aclu.org/news/free-sp...
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Immigration Agents are Retaliating Against People Who Record Them | ACLU
Weâre filing a FOIA to find out how deep the problem goes
https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/photographer-retaliation-foia
about 1 month ago
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Perspective on AP report revealing how DHS uses AI and mass surveillance across the nation to target, detain, and seize money from innocent drivers
www.aclu.org/news/privacy...
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New Report Highlights How CBP and Border Patrol are Becoming a Repressive Internal Intelligence Agency | ACLU
AP report reveals how the agency uses AI and mass surveillance across the nation to target, detain, and seize money from innocent drivers
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/border-patrol-alpr-dragnet
about 1 month ago
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What happens when your device can only run what the government decides is OK? How we have gotten dangerously close to this kind of totalitarian control
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Your Smartphone, Their Rules: How App Stores Enable Corporate-Government Censorship | ACLU
Big Tech Oligopoly helps the Trump Administration crack down on free speech
https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/app-store-oligopoly
about 2 months ago
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A breakdown of the new âMobile Fortifyâ face recognition program, including lists of a) The reasons itâs problematic, b) The vast array of data that the agencies can connect to c) Some of the unanswered questions that remain about the program.
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Face Recognition and the âTrump Terrorâ: A Marriage Made in Hell | ACLU
ICE and CBP are smashing their way not only through car windows but also through any constraints on the use of face recognition
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/ice-face-recognition
about 2 months ago
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Utah is the only state where political leaders are thinking through the potentially disastrous effects of the current effort to create a national digital ID through the driver's license system.
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Thereâs Only One State That is Asking the Right Questions About Digital Identity | ACLU
A digital ID system involves value-laden choices that should be made through explicit political discussion and debate
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/digital-id-utah
about 2 months ago
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Exciting news: you can now subscribe to an ACLU newsletter to keep up with with ACLU technology policy blog posts and other news! Subscribe here:
action.aclu.org/signup/free-...
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Subscribe to the Free Future Newsletter
Subscribe to the Free Future newsletter to see the latest updates on emerging technology and science from Jay Stanley.
https://action.aclu.org/signup/free-future-newsletter
about 2 months ago
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A bureaucratic wall is being built between Americans and the information they have a right to access
www.aclu.org/news/privacy...
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Digital Driverâs Licenses Threaten to Create a âGreat Internet Lockdownâ | ACLU
Two trends threaten the creation of an online identity infrastructure that would transform the internet
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/the-internet-lockdown
2 months ago
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We shouldn't get rid of police audit logs but we also shouldn't think they're worth more than they are
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Surveillance Supporters Tout Police Audit Logs But Theyâre Not an Effective Check and Balance | ACLU
If an officer had just left the word "abortion" out of an audit log, a vital national story would never have come to light
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/police-audit-logs
2 months ago
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Some US prisons and jails have started using non-consensual, non-removable biometric wrist straps on prisoners to monitor their pulse, blood oxygenation level, skin temperature, activity level, and location. What does the ACLU think of this? I look at the issue in a post on our Free Future blog
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Biometric bracelets for prisoners | ACLU
Invading privacy as well as "barking up the wrong tree"
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/biometric-bracelets-for-prisoners
2 months ago
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Appalling... apparently "military grade" AI has fallen short...
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Gun-Toting Police Swarm, Handcuff Young Black Man After AI Mistakes Doritos Bag For a Gun | ACLU
Deploying AI in Inappropriate Ways Can and Does Get People Hurt
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/doritos-or-gun
2 months ago
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News about the driver-surveillance company Flock just keeps coming in: findings from Massachusetts and Virginia, new deals with big companies, and more:
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Flock Can Share Driver-Surveillance Data Even When Police Departments Opt Out, And Other Flock Developments | ACLU
The companyâs default agreement with police departments grants the company license to share peopleâs license plate data
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/flock-massachusetts-and-updates
2 months ago
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Digital driverâs licenses â now being built in many states â have a big problem that almost nobody is addressing: the threat of an explosion of ID demands from all quarters. There is a body of existing state laws that points toward a solution.
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State Barcode Laws | ACLU
State regulation of who may scan barcodes from driverâs licenses and what scanners can do with the data point the way toward vital protections against abuses of digital IDs
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/state-barcode-laws
3 months ago
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Generally people should have privacy from government, and the government should be an open book to the people â not the other way around.
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Sweeping Ban on Drone Flights Across Chicago Looks Suspiciously Like an Attempt to Ban Press Coverage | ACLU
We canât let government block drone photography of newsworthy events simply by claiming a need to fly their own aircraft in an area or claiming the existence of vague âsecurity threatsâ
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/chicago-drone-ban
3 months ago
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reposted by
Jay Stanley
Edward Hasbrouck
3 months ago
Surveillance, AI, and airline ticket prices:
hasbrouck.org/blog/archive...
@jaystanley.bsky.social
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The Practical Nomad: Edward Hasbrouck's blog
The Practical Nomad: Edward Hasbrouck's blog
https://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/002794.html
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There are a growing number of companies that are engaging in mass surveillance that could prove useful to the Trump Administrationâs efforts to target immigrants. They have human rights responsibilities.
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Surveillance Businesses Have Human Rights Responsibilities | ACLU
The Trump Administration's immigration abuses are human rights violations
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/surveillance-human-rights
3 months ago
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The coming battles over being identified versus not being identified
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Digital Driverâs Licenses Could Make âSurveillance Pricingâ Much Easier for Companies | ACLU
The coming battles over being identified versus not being identified
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/surveillance-pricing-and-ids
4 months ago
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We are certainly not the ones whose power increases when companies crunch data with AI to individually set the prices they charge us.
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âSurveillance Pricingâ Hurts Consumers, Incentivizes More Corporate Spying on Them | ACLU
Those hurt the most are those who can least afford it
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/surveillance-pricing
4 months ago
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A look at the prospects for, and reasons to support, open source LLM models and research
www.aclu.org/news/privacy...
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Open vs. Closed: The Battle for the Future of Language Models | ACLU
Will Language Models Foster Freedom or Authoritarianism? (part 4 in a series)
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/open-source-llms
4 months ago
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It's not hard to imagine police departments deploying fleets of self-docking, self-navigating patrol drones over communities. We're starting to see that in the commercial space now.
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Autonomous Drone Patrols Start to Become a Thing | ACLU
Edging toward police drone dystopias
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/drone-patrols
4 months ago
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A look at the possible future of local AI models, and what that might mean for the question of how much of a centralizing force the technology will be.
www.aclu.org/news/privacy...
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What's the Future of AI Language Models as a Decentralized Technology? | ACLU
Many assume that LLMs will always be provided by big tech companies through the cloud, but is that true? (LLMs and power series part 3)
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/decentralized-llms
4 months ago
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Policymakers are beginning to recognize that you can't count on surveilling your local residents while keeping that data out of the hands of ICE and the Trump Administration
www.aclu.org/news/privacy...
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Iâm Hearing About More Pushback Against Flock, Fueled by Concern Over Anti-Immigrant Uses | ACLU
Policymakers are beginning to recognize that the boundaries between local surveillance and the Trump Administration are hard to maintain
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/flock-pushback
5 months ago
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What are the chances that the ability to train a frontier LLM will become more democratized? That's a key question in evaluating whether this tech will become yet another source of tech leverage over ordinary people.
www.aclu.org/news/racial-...
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Will Giant Companies Always Have a Monopoly on Top AI Models? | ACLU
Part 2 of my dive into how likely LLMs are to either centralize or distribute power
https://www.aclu.org/news/racial-justice/will-giant-companies-always-have-a-monopoly-on-top-ai-models
5 months ago
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There's a lot going on with Flock and license plate recognition; here's an overview of how this authoritarian technology is expanding. Latest post on @ACLU Freefuture blog
www.aclu.org/news/privacy...
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Flockâs Aggressive Expansions Go Far Beyond Simple Driver Surveillance | ACLU
Build it (an authoritarian tracking infrastructure) and they (expanded uses) will come
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/flock-roundup
5 months ago
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Large language models have been evolving in dramatic â and, for those who care about freedom â suspenseful ways.
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Many Are Focused on the Wrong Questions When it Comes to AI | ACLU
Do large language models have an inherent politics?
https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/many-are-focused-on-the-wrong-questions-when-it-comes-to-ai
5 months ago
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My first post on my new newsletter: If your local police start using Flock, they could target you just because some algorithm has decided your movement patterns suggest criminality, under new AI capabilities that the company has created.
ourfreefuture.substack.com/p/surveillan...
5 months ago
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Dear all, today I'm announcing "Free Future" a newsletter/blog that I'm launching on Substack, where I'll be publishing my writing for the ACLU on privacy and technology policy topics. I hope you will find it of interest!
ourfreefuture.substack.com/about
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About - Free Future
Who will technology serve? Technology and Privacy by Jay Stanley of the ACLU. Click to read Free Future, a Substack publication. Launched 6 days ago.
https://ourfreefuture.substack.com/about
5 months ago
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reposted by
Jay Stanley
Rob Pegoraro
6 months ago
Noteworthy endorsement from the American Enterprise Institute's Jim Harper of the ACLU's efforts to require that smartphone digital-ID systems operate on a decentralized basis--no location tracking, no phoning home, no kill-switch functionality--and support authorization short of identification.
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https://www.aei.org/technology-and-innovation/the-engineers-at-the-aclu-have-some-good-things-to-say/
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reposted by
Jay Stanley
Rob Pegoraro
6 months ago
I think Harper is correct in endorsing the work of folks like
@jaystanley.bsky.social
. He's also literally walked the walk on these issues, having accepted and completed a challenge in 2006 to fly from SFO to D.C. without showing any ID to airport screeners.
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The Great No-ID Airport Challenge
In which millionaire privacy activist John Gilmore challenges a DHS adviser to attempt a cross-country plane ride without showing ID. Wired News referees the gentlemen's wager. Ryan Singel reports fro...
https://www.wired.com/2006/06/the-great-no-id-airport-challenge/
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reposted by
Jay Stanley
Rebecca Williams
7 months ago
Press release from
@jaystanley.bsky.social
here:
www.aclu.org/press-releas...
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Digital Identity Leaders and Privacy Experts Sound the Alarm on Invasive ID Systems | American Civil Liberties Union
Signatories, including the ACLU, warn officials of âPhone Homeâ feature of digital IDs that allows the government to track peopleâs daily lives
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/digital-identity-leaders-and-privacy-experts-sound-the-alarm-on-invasive-id-systems
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Not a great moment in history to let our law enforcement agencies adopt new authoritarian tracking technologies.
www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/12/1...
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How a new type of AI is helping police skirt facial recognition bans
Adoption of the tech has civil liberties advocates alarmed, especially as the government vows to expand surveillance of protesters and students.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/12/1116295/how-a-new-type-of-ai-is-helping-police-skirt-facial-recognition-bans/
8 months ago
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Trump administration re-directing the nation's spy satellites from foreign countries onto US border communities.
www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...
9 months ago
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Excellent piece on the danger we face of getting locked into a decisively bad new ID tracking infrastructure:
www.projectglitch.xyz/p/how-the-us...
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How the US could sleepwalk into a dystopian digital ID system
Tech born in the crypto community could ward off a privacy nightmareâbut only if people actually use it.
https://www.projectglitch.xyz/p/how-the-us-could-sleepwalk-into-a
10 months ago
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Large language model technology is super-charging video analytics. Unless we enact guardrails, we can expect that nearly every rule, regulation, law, and employer dictate that can be enforced through the visual monitoring of human beings will be subject to unblinking AI cameras ready to report us.
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Machine Surveillance is Being Super-Charged by Large AI Models | ACLU
Limits and guardrails are vital to protect our privacy and liberty â as well as our sanity â against omnipresent AI surveillance.
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/machine-surveillance-is-being-super-charged-by-large-ai-models
10 months ago
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A top NYPD official wants to use drones for routine patrol. Americans need to vehemently oppose that use of drones. No other PD is currently doing that (with possible exception of Beverly Hills). This after the dept has already used drones abusively to surveil protests and people's back yards.
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The NYPD is sending more drones to 911 calls, but privacy advocates donât like the view
New York City police recently launched the Drones as First Responders program, which quickly gives officers an aerial view at the site of an emergency call. Privacy and civil liberties groups are ques...
https://therecord.media/nypd-drones-as-first-responders-911-calls-privacy-surveillance
10 months ago
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reposted by
Jay Stanley
EPIC
11 months ago
We partnered with U.S. PIRG Education Fund in a new report mapping every state's status on comprehensive
#privacy
laws. âď¸ Find out exactly what rights your state gives you â and what it doesn't. đ§đ
epic.org/state-of-pri...
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One of our periodic reminders that in addition to being bad for privacy and for low-income and marginalized people, a cashless society is brittle and susceptible to centralized points of failure (and control).
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Thousands of Capital One Customers Are Locked Out of Accounts for Days
The company said a technical issue with a third-party vendor was to blame for a disruption with deposits and payment processing that stretched into the weekend.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/18/business/capital-one-outage-direct-deposits.html
12 months ago
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We're very skeptical about "Content Authenticity" proposals to lock down media hardware and software so we can prove provenance. They are unlikely to work, and if they did would be likely to entrench big tech players at the expense of software freedom.
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Attempts at a Technological Solution to Disinformation Will Do More Harm Than Good | ACLU
Futile âcontent authentication technologiesâ are being pushed by companies and others.
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/attempts-at-a-technological-solution-to-disinformation-will-do-more-harm-than-good
12 months ago
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A convincing argument that retail industry efforts to portray shoplifting as some great new problem are baloney -- that shoplifting rates have not changed in decades and that a deceptive new report was sponsored by company that sells video analytics and other security measures for stores.
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Lies, damn lies, and shoplifting statistics
For 32 years, the National Retail Federation (NRF) â the lobbying group representing major retailers in the United States â has produced the "National Retail Security Survey." The survey, widely cited...
https://popular.info/p/lies-damn-lies-and-shoplifting-statistics?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1664&post_id=153339528&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=7vxiw&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
about 1 year ago
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The FAA has banned drones across wide swaths of New Jersey in response to the recent hysteria. This seems stupid.
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F.A.A. Bans Drone Flights Near âCritical Infrastructureâ in New Jersey
The ban runs through Jan. 17 and precludes most drone flights in airspace near 22 communities, including the cities of Camden, Elizabeth and Jersey City.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/19/nyregion/faa-bans-drone-flights-new-jersey.html?smtyp=cur&smid=bsky-nytimes
about 1 year ago
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The companies providing face recognition-based access control in sports stadiums want to push FaceRec from sports stadiums outward -- think, anywhere that you need a ticket, pass, or ID to enter. This might be good for assorted team owners, companies, and billionaires, but it's not good for us.
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Face Recognition Threatens to Replace Tickets, ID at Sports Events â and Beyond | ACLU
You shouldn't participate in face recognition ticketing schemes.
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/face-recognition-threatens-to-replace-tickets-id-at-sports-events-and-beyond
about 1 year ago
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Weâve just published a 6-page white paper on why the use of AI to help draft police reports is a bad idea. We see four general problems with it: 1. AI problems 2. Evidentary and memory problems 3. Transparency and discovery problems 4. A loss of police reportsâ human disciplinary function
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https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/ai-generated-police-reports-raise-concerns-around-transparency-bias
about 1 year ago
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Very nice piece on some of the problems with society going cashless, with focus on seniors. Not mentioned: cashless transactions can also be blocked by censorious middlemen.
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Payments Are Going Digital, but Many Seniors Still Rely on Cash (Gift Article)
âWeâre putting another burden on the elderly that we donât have to,â one researcher said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/07/health/elderly-cash-electronic-payments.html?unlocked_article_code=1.fk4.QAuF.avMpvO-fHwdt&smid=url-share
about 1 year ago
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Digital payments under our current system not only represent rent-seeking exploitation by oligopolistic companies per this article, they are terrible for privacy and exclude vulnerable people. Use cash and demand that places you shop accept it!
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As Cash Fades, Small Retailers Embrace Efforts to Rein In Swipe Fees
Business owners say card transaction fees are a growing monthly expense, one often passed to consumers. Theyâre cheering efforts to lower them.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/30/business/swipe-fees-merchants.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
about 1 year ago
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Excellent breakdown & super helpful for us tipping-point joiners
add a skeleton here at some point
about 1 year ago
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Maybe it's time that policymakers require that cellular location data be shielded from carriers using techniques like zero knowledge proofs (already demonstrated successfully) and from apps as well.
www.aclu.org/news/privacy...
add a skeleton here at some point
about 1 year ago
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you reached the end!!
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