By The Defender Staff
Cops Want to Turn Your Kid’s School Bus Into a Surveillance Tool
Citizens have started pushing back against Flock Safety, a company best known for its AI-powered Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs). Now they’ve got another company they can add to their enemies list. According to a report from 404 Media, a company called BusPatrol has installed cameras on school buses across the country and is planning to let law enforcement use them to scan license plates.
It’s likely that the “letting law enforcement use them” part is not the first bit of information that gave you pause. Perhaps it’s the fact there’s a company installing AI-powered cameras in school buses. That is BusPatrol’s whole modus operandi. The company claims to have cameras installed on more than 40,000 buses in 24 states and is “protecting” (read: monitoring) more than two million students nationwide.
The marketing for the technology is that it is designed to help catch “stop arm” violators — people who blow by the bus when the “Stop” sign is deployed so that kids can get off the bus safely. It records the violation and identifies the license plate number, sends that to law enforcement, and the cops issue a fine.
Northwestern Medicine Agrees to Pay $325K in Religious Discrimination Case
Northwestern Medicine agreed to pay $325,000 in monetary relief to a class of employees denied vaccine exemptions because of their religious beliefs or practices and to provide other relief following an investigation by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
The agreement resolves charges filed with the EEOC alleging discrimination against employees based on their religion when it denied reasonable accommodation requests to employees who requested a faith-based exemption to Northwestern Medicine’s mandatory flu vaccination policy.
The EEOC’s investigation found that Northwestern Medicine discriminated against a class of employees from November 10, 2023, to the present at its facilities across Illinois by denying these employees a religious accommodation and by denying them the opportunity to earn an annual bonus which the employer described as a “vaccine incentive bonus,” intended to motivate compliance with the vaccination mandate policy.
The alleged conduct violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on religion.
COVID Is Shaping Americans’ Reaction to Ebola and Hantavirus
Global health emergencies are back in the headlines, with recent outbreaks of hantavirus on a cruise ship and Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The internet has responded accordingly, with the situation evoking painful reminders of COVID-19 for many people.
Questions filled with fear have surfaced on Reddit, comedic videos are all over TikTok and Instagram, and search terms involving the word “pandemic” have increased on Google Trends in recent weeks. The COVID-19 pandemic introduced people across the U.S. to a global health emergency that they may have never imagined.
That experience is coloring how some people are thinking about Ebola and hantavirus, public health and infectious disease experts say. Fear around exotic-sounding diseases has always existed, but now people know how a pandemic can change their life.
As Chandra Harvey, a content creator on Instagram whose joking video about another possible pandemic received over 100,000 views, told NPR: “We’re all dealing with PTSD from COVID.”
Disney Faces Lawsuit Over Alleged Use of Facial Recognition at Park Entrances Without Consent
Disney is being sued over allegations that it used facial recognition technology at Disneyland without guests’ knowledge, according to The Hollywood Reporter and The Orange County Register. The lawsuit claims Disney violated privacy and consumer protection laws by collecting and storing biometric data of visitors without adequately disclosing the practice or meaningful consent.
According to the complaint, which was filed in federal court in California, Disneyland and Disney California Adventure began using the technology at park entrances in April to verify tickets and annual passes. The system photographs guests and compares those images with photos associated with their tickets or passes from their initial use.
The lawsuit claims most guests are unaware the technology is being used.
“Consumers, which almost always include children, have no idea that Disney is collecting this highly sensitive data,” the complaint states.
Disney has said the technology helps streamline park entry and reduce ticket fraud. The company’s privacy policy states that facial recognition data is deleted within 30 days unless it is needed for legal or fraud prevention purposes.
Big Tech Isn’t Even Pretending That It’s Not Listening Anymore
The co-CEOs building what could become the next major tech disruptor say Americans have already surrendered their privacy, and it’s time to stop pretending otherwise.
On Tuesday, Warby Parker co-CEOs Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa discussed their company’s entry into the rapidly escalating race for artificial intelligence-powered smart glasses, positioning Warby Parker against Meta in what many in Silicon Valley believe could become the post-smartphone era.
Asked by CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin if the smart glasses would “persistently listen” to or watch users, Blumenthal replied, “Our phones are already listening to us, so we’ve already given that up. Now, for us, you’re going to need a prompt. But I think we probably have to have honest discussions about what we’ve already decided in society.”
Unlike Warby Parker, which openly acknowledged that consumers have already surrendered privacy to always-on technology, Meta has stopped short of saying its devices are constantly listening. The company has instead compared its smart glasses to voice assistants like Siri, maintaining that they only activate and begin listening after a user prompt.
Erin Brockovich Targets AI Industry With New Data Center Map
Activist Erin Brockovich is setting her sights on the AI industry, launching a new crowdsourced map that collects community concerns about the major AI data centers popping up across the country.
“The RACE to build AI infrastructures is unfolding town by town across America. In some places, data centers are welcomed. In others, they are delayed, contested or abandoned altogether. This MAP captures the real-world footprint of that race — revealing patterns of growth, conflict and uncertainty,” Brockovich said on the map’s webpage.
Brockovich is best known for her work on the successful case against Pacific Gas & Electric over the company’s contamination of groundwater in California. Julia Roberts even won an Oscar for playing Brockovich in the 2000 film based on her life.
Now, the activist is taking aim at the AI boom backed by the White House, Wall Street, and some of the most powerful companies in the world.
Poll Finds Michigan Voters Don’t Want Data Centers Nearby
Government Technology reported:
Most Michigan voters don’t want a data center built in their backyard. But that opposition softens with safeguards in place, like a guarantee that the power-hungry facilities won’t hike electric rates.
Those are some of the findings of a new poll released by the Detroit Regional Chamber Tuesday, May 26, underscoring data centers’ troubled public image in Michigan as several large-scale projects designed with artificial intelligence in mind advance.
The Detroit Chamber backs the megaprojects as a means to support economic growth, and they promise to be a major theme as the group hosts the state’s political and business elite for the annual Mackinac Policy Conference on Mackinac Island this week.
The post Cops Want to Turn Your Kid’s School Bus Into a Surveillance Tool + More appeared first on Children’s Health Defense.
IPAK-EDU is grateful to The Defender as this piece was originally published there and is included in this news feed with mutual agreement. Read More
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