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Past the Pilot Stage: Policy Makers Must Consider Impacts of Police Body-Worn Cameras beyond Accountability

01.21.20

In September 2013, attorney Scott Greenwood of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said of police use of body-worn cameras, “You don’t want to give officers a list and say, ‘Only record the following 10 types of situations.’ You want officers to record all the situations, so when a situation does go south, there’s an […]

Digital Privacy, But at What Cost?

05.1.18

BY AYNA AGARWAL About three years ago, a little-known researcher named Aleksandr Kogan began a social science experiment at Cambridge University. Nothing unusual here. But just a few years later, he became embroiled in a Silicon Valley scandal of epic proportions. Over 80 million raw profiles of users—including their friends, activity, and private information—were scraped […]

Who Will Own the Smarts in Super-Smart Cities?

03.21.18

BY EMILY MIDDLETON Imagine a traffic system so smart that it can cut your commute in half. Imagine paths that heat up in winter, so you don’t have to walk in the snow. Imagine sensors that make it easier for the blind to get around the city, and quicker for ambulances to reach their patients. […]

Mandatory Digital Privacy Labels: One Way to Protect Consumer Data

07.11.17

Ninety-one percent of Internet users feel they have “lost control” of their personal information, Pew Research Center found in a 2016 poll.[1] The exponential increase in the capacity of firms to collect, store, and analyze data raises significant privacy concerns. But the most significant challenge for policy makers is not the risk that personal data […]

Science, Technology and Data

Techno-Populism Won’t Help in the Apple vs FBI Debate

03.3.16

BY HUGO ZYLBERBERG When I first read Tim Cook’s “Message to [Apple’s] customers,” I felt on the receiving end of a marketing push. Sure, I agree the government should not be able to read my online diary, and sure, I agree the government should not be able to weaken encryption for everyone. But the real […]

Apple’s Encryption Battle: February 17, 1984/2016

02.17.16

BY KATIE D’HONDT Today, Apple released an open letter defying the U.S. government, the first of its kind. In the wake of the San Bernardino attack, a U.S. federal judge has mandated that Apple build software that will allow the government to break the encryption that safeguards the data of all Apple products – a […]

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