Posts Categorized: Ethical Issues

Bodyhackers: Bold, inspiring and terrifying

Posted by & filed under Ethical Issues, ethics.

Stelarc, a 72-year-old Australian, has an ear on his arm. Soon he hopes to attach a small microphone to it so people can, via the internet, listen to whatever it hears.  Meow-Ludo Disco Gamma Meow-Meow – yes, that’s his legal name – has the chip from his Sydney travel card implanted into his hand. Source: BBC Future… Read more »

Canada’s privacy commissioner proposes right to change inaccurate search engine results

Posted by & filed under Civil Liberties, Ethical Issues, Google, IT and the law, IT Trends.

Canada’s privacy commissioner thinks you should have the right to ask that inaccurate, incomplete or outdated information appearing in search engines be either amended or removed — and that under Canadian law, internet companies should have to comply. Source: CBC News Date: January 26th, 2018 Link: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/privacy-commissioner-de-indexing-forgotten-search-results-1.4505425 Discussion 1) Search engines are searching information from websites that they have no control over… Read more »

Welcome to the neighbourhood. Have you read the terms of service?

Posted by & filed under Civil Liberties, Ethical Issues, Smart Home, social impacts.

It’s already hard enough to get people to read the terms of service for the apps they use, and experts are skeptical we could expect any better of someone crossing into the boundary of a smart city neighbourhood, where sensors and data collection abound. Source: CBC News Date: January 18th, 2018 Link: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/smart-cities-privacy-data-personal-information-sidewalk-1.4488145 Discussion 1) “Sidewalk Labs is… Read more »

Uber’s Secret Tool for Keeping the Cops in the Dark

Posted by & filed under Ethical Issues, Uber.

At least two dozen times, the San Francisco headquarters locked down equipment in foreign offices to shield files from police raids. Source: BusinessWeek Date: January 16th, 2018 Link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-11/uber-s-secret-tool-for-keeping-the-cops-in-the-dark?cmpid=socialflow-facebook-business&utm_content=business&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social Discussion 1) Should it be okay for a U.S. company to be able to avoid local government inspections based on legally obtained search warrants? 2) In what other ways might a… Read more »

The Tricky Ethics of Knightscope’s Crime-Fighting Robots

Posted by & filed under Artificial intelligence, Ethical Issues, ethics.

THE San Francisco SPCA deployed a 5-foot-tall, 400-pound robot to patrol its campus. Not for muscle, mind you, but for surveillance. The SPCA, a large complex nestled in the northeast corner of the city’s Mission neighborhood, has long dealt with vandalism, break-ins, and discarded needles in its surrounding parking lots. Fearing for the safety of its… Read more »

A Three-Digit Score Could Dictate Your Place in Society

Posted by & filed under China, Civil Liberties, data analytics, Electronic Surveillance, Emerging Technologies, Ethical Issues.

In 2015 Ant Financial was one of eight tech companies granted approval from the People’s Bank of China to develop their own private credit scoring platforms. Zhima Credit appeared in the Alipay app shortly after that. The service tracks your behavior on the app to arrive at a score between 350 and 950, and offers… Read more »

HP laptops found to have hidden keylogger

Posted by & filed under Consumer Technology, Cybersecurity, Ethical Issues.

Hidden software that can record every letter typed on a computer keyboard has been discovered pre-installed on hundreds of HP laptop models. Security researcher Michael Myng found the keylogging code in software drivers preinstalled on HP laptops to make the keyboard work. HP said more than 460 models of laptop were affected by the “potential security vulnerability”. Source: BBC Technology… Read more »

The Brutal Fight to Mine Your Data and Sell It to Your Boss

Posted by & filed under Big Data, bots, Business Intelligence, data mining, Electronic Surveillance, Ethical Issues.

HiQ is a “people analytics” firm that creates software tools for corporate human resources departments. Its Skill Mapper graphically represents the credentials and abilities of a workforce; its Keeper service identifies when employees are at risk of leaving for another job. Both draw the overwhelming majority of their data from a single trove: the material that is… Read more »