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Data ethics

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How The Shady World Of The Data Industry Strips Away Our Freedoms

The recent questioning of the heads of Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple in the US Congress has highlighted the threat their practices pose to our privacy and democracy. However these big four companies are only part of a vast, sophisticated system of mass surveillance. In this network are thousands of data brokers, ad agencies and technology companies – some of them Australian. They harvest data from millions of people, often without their explicit consent or knowledge. Currently, this includes data related to the COVID-19 pandemic. For instance, data giant Palantir has provided lab test results and emergency department statuses to…
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AI Technologies — Like Police Facial Recognition — Discriminate Against People Of Colour

Detroit police wrongfully arrested Robert Julian-Borchak Williams in January 2020 for a shoplifting incident that had taken place two years earlier. Even though Williams had nothing to do with the incident, facial recognition technology used by Michigan State Police “matched” his face with a grainy image obtained from an in-store surveillance video showing another African American man taking US$3,800 worth of watches. Two weeks later, the case was dismissed at the prosecution’s request. However, relying on the faulty match, police had already handcuffed and arrested Williams in front of his family, forced him to provide a mug shot, fingerprints and…
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