Category:

Technology

EU aims to set global standards for AI, fines for violations

The move comes as China moves ahead in the AI race, while the COVID-19 pandemic has underlined the importance of algorithms and internet-connected gadgets in daily life.

“On artificial intelligence, trust is a must, not a nice to have. With these landmark rules, the EU is spearheading the development of new global norms to make sure AI can be trusted,” European tech chief Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.

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‘Please help!’ India’s Covid-19 tragedy spills onto social media

The collapse of the country’s decrepit public health system is evident in the gut-wrenching photos on social media of multiple Covid patients sharing a single hospital bed, a line of ambulances outside a hospital in Mumbai, and people dying as they wait for oxygen. Government helplines are broken. Thousands of social media forwards plead for the antiviral drug Remdesivir, and many more seek donor plasma.

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TikTok faces claim for billions in London child privacy lawsuit

Anne Longfield, the former Children’s Commissioner for England alleged that every child that has used TikTok since May 25, 2018, may have had private personal information illegally collected by ByteDance through TikTok for the benefit of unknown third parties.

“Parents and children have a right to know that private information, including phone numbers, physical location, and videos of their children are being illegally collected,” she said, as a website to detail the case goes live.

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Apple explains environmental benefit behind eliminating chargers from iPhone, Apple Watch

While citing the reason over the removal of power adapters from boxes, the company explained, “Since removing them from iPhone and Apple Watch packaging last year, we’ve avoided mining a significant amount of materials from the earth, and we’ve eliminated the emissions that come from processing and transporting them.” The American company also mentioned that leaving out power adapters was a bold change and a necessary one for the planet.

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Fears of vaccine exclusion as India uses digital ID, facial recognition

But a requirement to register for appointments on a mobile app using Aadhaar is excluding millions of people who do not have an Aadhaar ID, said Anushka Jain, an associate counsel at the Internet Freedom Foundation in Delhi.

Using facial recognition at vaccine centres risks further marginalising vulnerable people who may be misidentified and refused the vaccine, and raises fears the controversial technology could become the norm at all centres, she added.

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Customer privacy, data protection non-negotiable: RBI deputy governor

“We must generate trust amongst the customers that their data is safe and secure in all their financial relationships with regulated entities and for that – innovation and regulation should go hand-in-hand,” he said while speaking at a webinar on Open Banking organised by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in association with the Embassy of India in Brazil on April 14. RBI posted the speech on Friday.

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How the Kremlin provides a safe harbor for ransomware

On Thursday, as the U.S. slapped sanctions on Russia for malign activities including state-backed hacking, the Treasury Department said Russian intelligence has enabled ransomware attacks by cultivating and co-opting criminal hackers and giving them safe harbor. With ransomware damages now well into the tens of billions of dollars, former British intelligence cyber chief Marcus Willett recently deemed the scourge “arguably more strategically damaging than state cyber-spying.”

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White House blames Russian spy agency SVR for SolarWinds hack: statement

While some national security experts say the SolarWinds hacking operation could be viewed as a traditional espionage activity that is not uncommon between government hackers, the Treasury Department in its statement said the “scope and scale of this compromise combined with Russia’s history of carrying out reckless and disruptive cyber operations makes it a national security concern.”

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