Data, Tech & Black Communities

Comprehensive review of digital poverty in the UK

Warnings vulnerable people in danger of being ‘unfairly penalised’ by AI system

🚨NEWS: after the Met spent massive resources in central London on Saturday using live facial recognition cameras all day, scanning *36,420* people’s faces, guess what the outcome was?0 correct matches1 wrong match, requiring a member of the public to prove their innocence 🥴 https://t.co/gKDtT0Jjp5— Silkie Carlo (@silkiecarlo) July 18, 2022

In buying iRobot, the e-commerce titan gets a data collection machine that comes with a vacuum.

A partnership with the Health Foundation to study the relationships between data-driven systems and inequalities in health

In the first study to examine this issue among COVID-19 patients, researchers found that the inaccurate measurements resulted in a “systemic failure,” delaying care for many Black and Hispanic patients. The study adds a growing sense of urgency to an issue raised decades ago.

Meta—the company formerly known as Facebook—is running a new TV ad showing a future in which college students slip on a lightweight VR headset to enter ...

Dozens of scientific fields that have adopted machine learning face a reproducibility crisis. At a Princeton workshop today, ten experts discuss how to find and fix ML flaws. We had to cap Zoom signups at 1,600, but we’ve added a livestream. Starting NOW:https://t.co/14ypK6NguA— Arvind Narayanan (@random_walker) July 28, 2022

Mayor’s decision to give police access to more data described as ‘gargantuan increase of surveillance in London’

Police should be able to mon­itor pas­sen­gers who spend hours on the rail­way net­work in case they are pick­pock­ets or sex offend­ers — or are in need of help — a chief con­stable has said. Lucy D’Orsi, the head of the Brit­ish Trans­port Police,...

Huge yikes in this story about school surveillance: schools sent teens home with chrome books pre-loaded with Gaggle spyware. Teens plugged their phones into their laptops to charge them. Gaggle sent administrators alerts when teens texted each other nudes https://t.co/SIX1Tdn5PV— Evan Greer (@evan_greer) August 3, 2022

As the post-Roe era underscores the risks of digital surveillance, a new survey shows that teens face increased monitoring from teachers—and police.

(1/7) Home Office is now introducing facial recognition smart watches to monitor foreign nationals who have completed their sentences and released back into the community. Lucy Audibert (@privacyint) and I clearly explain as to why this is problematic and must be challenged. pic.twitter.com/1h5KrwLa38— Monish Bhatia (@DrMonishBhatia) August 5, 2022

Home Office and MoJ plans will require migrants convicted of crimes to take photos up to five times a day

Web3 is being touted as the future of the internet. The vision for this new, blockchain-based web includes cryptocurrencies, NFTs, DAOs, decentralized finance, and more. It offers a read/write/own version of the web, in which users have a financial stake in and more control over the web communities they belong to. Web3 promises to transform the experience of being online as dramatically as PCs and smartphones did. It is not, however, without risk. Some companies have entered the space only to face a backlash over the environmental impact and financial speculation (and potential for fraud) that comes with Web3 projects. And while blockchain is offered as a solution to privacy, centralization, and financial exclusion concerns, it has created new versions of many of these problems. Companies need to consider both the risks and the benefits before diving in.

Mensakas hopes to provide an alternative to gig economy platforms like Deliveroo

In an email, the space freak told Tesla executives he has a “super bad feeling” about the economy.

Computer algorithms that scan everything from terror watch lists to eviction records spit out flawed tenant screening reports. And almost nobody is watching

Up for discussion in the Guardian tech newsletter: Facebook and Google will be targets for Ofcom if the government passes the proposed legislation

We’ve generally come to accept that our devices are listening to our conversations, our personal data is being tracked and sold, and that law enforcement tracks and stores images of our own faces. But is there anything to be done about our dwindling digital privacy? While there is a growing community of people committed to protecting our privacy...

In an email, the space freak told Tesla executives he has a “super bad feeling” about the economy.

Things can go disastrously wrong on data science and machine learning projects when we undervalue data work, use data in contexts that it wasn’t gathered for, or ignore the crucial role that humans play in the data science pipeline.

This guide is for data protection officers and others who have day-to-day responsibility for data protection. It is aimed at small and medium-sized organisations, but it may be useful for larger organisations too.

It was designed to help prevent violent crime. But now the Metropolitan Police has been forced to delete hundreds of names from its Gang Violence Matrix.

Concerns were raised in 2018 about the database which was set up following the 2011 riots.

Controversial database trimmed down in face of mounting pressure from campaign groups and data watchdog

This Guide to Law Enforcement Processing highlights the key requirements of Part 3 of the DP Act 2018.