Category Archives: Technology

Canada bans TikTok on government devices over security risks

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EU and parts of US already block access to Chinese-owned app amid concerns over data privacy and security

Canada has joined the US and EU in enacting a sweeping ban preventing TikTok from being installed on all government-issued mobile devices, as western officials take action over the Chinese-owned video-sharing app.

Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, did not rule out further action. “I suspect that as government takes the significant step of telling all federal employees that they can no longer use TikTok on their work phones, many Canadians from business to private individuals will reflect on the security of their own data and perhaps make choices,” he said.

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Meta-funded online tool lets people remove their explicit images from the internet

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Take It Down allows anyone to anonymously generate a digital fingerprint of the image they want deleted, without uploading it

“Once you send that photo, you can’t take it back,” goes the warning to teenagers, often ignoring the reality that many teens send explicit images of themselves under duress, or without understanding the consequences.

A new online tool aims to give some control back to teens, or people who were once teens, and take down explicit images and videos of themselves from the internet.

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German minister warns of ‘massive’ danger from Russian hackers

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Nancy Faeser says Ukraine war has exacerbated German cybersecurity concerns

Germany’s interior minister has warned of a “massive danger” facing Germany from Russian sabotage, disinformation and spying attacks.

Nancy Faeser said Vladimir Putin was putting huge resources into cyber-attacks as a key part of his war of aggression. “The cybersecurity concerns have been exacerbated by the war. The attacks of pro-Russia hackers have increased,” she said in an interview with the news network Funke Mediengruppe published on Sunday.

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Rishi Sunak faces calls to ban TikTok use by government officials

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PM under pressure to follow EU and US in taking step over fears Chinese-owned app poses cybersecurity risk

Rishi Sunak has been urged to ban government officials from using TikTok in line with moves by the EU and US, amid growing cybersecurity fears over China.

Officials in Europe and the US have been told to limit the use of the Chinese-owned social video app over concerns that data can be accessed by Beijing.

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‘Political propaganda’: China clamps down on access to ChatGPT

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Leading tech firms reportedly ordered to remove workarounds allowing access to US-based service

Chinese regulators have reportedly clamped down on access to ChatGPT, as Chinese tech firms and universities push forward with developing domestic artificial intelligence bots.

ChatGPT, the popular discussion bot created by US-based OpenAI, is not officially available in China, where the government operates a comprehensive firewall and strict internet censorship. But many had been accessing it via VPNs, and some third-party developers had produced programs that gave some access to the service.

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Almost 40% of domestic tasks could be done by robots ‘within decade’

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Chores such as shopping likely to have most automation, while caring for young or old least likely to be affected, says report

A revolution in artificial intelligence could slash the amount of time people spend on household chores and caring, with robots able to perform about 39% of domestic tasks within a decade, according to experts.

Tasks such as shopping for groceries were likely to have the most automation, while caring for the young or old was the least likely to be affected by AI, according to a large survey of 65 artificial intelligence (AI) experts in the UK and Japan, who were asked to predict the impact of robots on household chores.

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RT videos spreading Ukraine disinformation on YouTube despite ban – report

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The platform banned the Russia-controlled publication last year for its Ukraine falsehoods, but its content is still posted on various channels

Hundreds of videos produced by the Russia-controlled publication RT have found their way on to YouTube in the past year, despite the platform’s ban of such media last year.

YouTube, which is owned by Google, banned all Russian state-funded media from its platform globally in March 2022, citing a policy barring content that “denies, minimizes or trivializes well-documented violent events” as Russia sought to guide the narrative on its war in Ukraine.

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Child abuse image offences in UK have soared, NSPCC report shows

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Charity says police recording has improved but online grooming has risen and tech firms are failing to act

Police have recorded a surge in child abuse image offences in the UK, with more than 30,000 reported in the most recent year, according to a report from the NSPCC.

That is an increase of more than 66% on figures from five years ago, when police forces across the country recorded 18,574 such offences.

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Facebook and Instagram to get paid verification as Twitter charges for two-factor SMS authentication

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Mark Zuckerberg follows Elon Musk’s lead in introducing fee for blue ticks, as Twitter gets set to charge for 2FA via SMS

Facebook and Instagram users will soon need to pay to be verified on the social media platforms, as Meta follows in the footsteps of rival platform Twitter.

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, announced in a Facebook post on Sunday that the service would first roll out in Australia and New Zealand later this week.

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Self-driving vehicles from overseas face ban in England and Wales

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Delivery of rental cars using remote driving could be outlawed after Law Commission recommendations

The remote driving of vehicles from overseas, such as for the delivery of rental cars, could be banned following a government-commissioned review.

The review was carried out by the Law Commission of England and Wales, which recommended ministers regulate the technology.

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‘Greenwashing’ firms face steep new UK fines for misleading claims

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Legislation could see companies fined millions of pounds for making unproven environmental assertions to sell their products

When the hydrogen-powered Hyundai Nexo car was launched in the UK in the spring of 2019, it was described as “so beautifully clean” that it “purifies the air as it goes”.

Hyundai Motor UK claimed that if 10,000 of its cars were on the road, carbon emission reduction would be “equivalent to planting 60,000 trees”.

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Revealed: the US adviser who tried to swing Nigeria’s 2015 election

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Sam Patten, an American consultant later mired in controversy, exploited emails obtained by Tal Hanan’s team

In late December 2014, a team from Cambridge Analytica flew to Madrid for meetings with a handful of old and new contacts. A member of the former Libyan royal family referred to as “His Royal Highness” was there. So, too, was the son of a US billionaire, a Nigerian businessman and a private Israeli intelligence operative.

For Alexander Nix, the Etonian chief executive of Cambridge Analytica, and his new employee Brittany Kaiser, who networked like most other people breathed, there may have been nothing unusual about such a gathering.

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Ruto ally says Telegram account was hacked before Kenyan election

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Strategist says he noticed ‘increased activity’, after revelations about activities of a disinformation unit

A senior strategist with close links to Kenya’s president, William Ruto, has publicly acknowledged that his Telegram account was infiltrated in the lead-up to last year’s election.

Dennis Itumbi told the Star newspaper that he had noticed “increased activity” on his Telegram last year but called it “inconsequential”.

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Twitter data appears to support claims new algorithm inflated reach of Elon Musk’s tweets, Australian researcher says

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Dr Timothy Graham says his analysis shows that after the algorithm change was reported to have occurred, impressions of billionaire owner’s tweets went up 737%

Data collected by an Australian researcher via Twitter’s API appears to support media claims that the reach of the tweets of the platform’s billionaire owner Elon Musk have been artificially inflated.

On Wednesday, the tech news site Platformer reported 80 Twitter engineers had been engaged to tweak the platform’s algorithm after Musk noticed a tweet from the US president, Joe Biden, about the Super Bowl outperformed his own, despite Musk having more than three times the number of followers.

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Australians able to opt out of targeted ads and erase their data under proposed privacy reforms

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Individual rights could be modelled on the EU’s general data protection regulation or GDPR, a review by the attorney general’s department says

Australians would gain greater control of their personal information, including the ability to opt out of targeted ads, erase their data and sue for serious breaches of privacy, under a proposal to the Albanese government.

On Thursday the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, will release a review conducted by his department into modernisation of the Privacy Act which calls to expand its remit to small businesses and add new safeguards for use of data by political parties.

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Political aides hacked by ‘Team Jorge’ in run-up to Kenyan election

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Revelation shows dangers posed by bad actors and paid operatives in democratic systems across Africa

An Israeli disinformation specialist hired to run covert dirty tricks campaigns in African elections hacked political advisers close to Kenya’s president, William Ruto, in the run-up to last year’s election, an investigation can reveal.

The interference did not prevent Ruto winning the poll, nor the peaceful transfer of power in Kenya, but the revelation highlights the growing risks posed by the involvement of bad actors and paid operatives in the relatively new democratic systems and institutions across Africa.

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Fury in Ukraine as Elon Musk’s SpaceX limits Starlink use for drones

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SpaceX says satellite communications service ‘never, never meant to be weaponised’

A senior Ukrainian presidential aide has reacted with anger after Elon Musk’s SpaceX said it had taken steps to prevent its Starlink satellite communications service from controlling drones, which are critical to Kyiv’s forces in fighting off the Russian invasion.

Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s chief operating officer, said at a conference in the US that the surprise decision had been taken because it had never been the company’s intention to allow Starlink to be used “for offensive purposes”.

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Scottish MP Stewart McDonald fears emails hacked by Russia-linked group

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SNP MP for Glasgow South says he is victim of ‘sophisticated and targeted spear phishing’ attack

An SNP MP whose emails were hacked has spoken out because he fears they were stolen by a group linked to Russia and will be published.

Stewart McDonald’s emails were compromised last month after he clicked on a message from a member of his staff on his private MP’s account.

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High-profile lawsuit against Meta can be heard in Kenya, Nairobi court rules

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Decision on case of ex-Facebook moderator, who claims the work left him with PTSD, hailed as win for accountability of big tech in Africa

A Kenyan court has ruled that a case brought against Facebook by a former content moderator can go ahead.

Daniel Motaung, who was hired as a Facebook content moderator by the tech firm’s subcontractor Sama in 2019, filed a suit against the two companies last year, alleging that he had been exposed to graphic and traumatic content at work, without adequate prior knowledge or proper psychosocial support – which he says left him with post-traumatic stress disorder.

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Dating apps must share information about threatening behaviour, says Australia’s eSafety watchdog

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Rise in online abuse a concern for regulator, who says investigators will be on the lookout for racist behaviour during voice to parliament referendum

Dating apps must cooperate to share information about “bad actors” using their services to abuse and harass other users, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner said, as new data shows three-quarters of Australian adults reported at least one negative online experience in the last year.

Julie Inman Grant said her agency may soon issue legal notices to online dating services, compelling them to report on how they are responding to violence and threats – and also said the agency’s investigators would be actively looking out for misinformation and abuse of First Nations people during the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum.

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