24 Apr 2020
At least four law enforcement agencies in the US - two in California, and one in each of Maryland and Texas - are using drones to communicate with homeless people about maintaining social distance because encampments are located in areas that are difficult to access and police do not have to visit
29 Apr 2020
Hawaii governor David Ige has ordered all travellers to the island US state arriving between March 26 and May 31 to self-quarantine for 14 days. Violating the order is a criminal offence and subject to a $5,000 fine and up to a year's imprisonment. In addition, the Department of Transportation
25 Apr 2020
The automated facial recognition company Clearview AI has suggested to US federal and state authorities that its facial biometrics could leverage cameras already in place at gyms and retailers in order to identify individuals in the interests of contact tracing. Simultaneously, the company is asking
16 Apr 2020
New versions of drones that currently issue audio warnings reminding people in Elizabeth, New Jersey to observe social distancing guidelines will incorporate sensors and fever-detecting cameras that will monitor if people are sick or failing to social distance on the trails and in the parks of
29 Mar 2020
Saudi Arabia appears to be exploiting weaknesses in the global mobile telecoms network to track its citizens as they travel around the US, according to a whistleblower who has shown the Guardian millions of alleged secret tracking requests.
Data revealed by the whistleblower, who is seeking to expose vulnerabilities in a global messaging system called SS7, appears to suggest a systematic spying campaign by the kingdom, according to experts.
The data suggests that millions of secret tracking requests emanated from Saudi Arabia over a four-month period beginning in November 2019.
The tracking requests, which sought to establish the US location of Saudi–registered phones, appeared to originate from Saudi’s three biggest mobile phone companies.
The whistleblower said they were unable to find any legitimate reason for the high volume of the requests for location information. “There is no other explanation, no other technical reason to do this. Saudi Arabia is weaponising mobile technologies,” the whistleblower claimed. The data leaked by
31 Jan 2020
After 195 US citizens were repatriated from Wuhan, China in January they were placed in quarantine without warning in a cordoned-off section of the Air Force Research Base in California's Mojave Desert. The legal position of this and other similar quarantines is unclear, as the Centers for Disease
06 Mar 2020
Despite warnings that airport screening will only delay but not stop disease outbreaks, in early March US vice-president Mike Pence pledged "100% screening" on direct flights from Italy and South Korea to the United States. Source: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/why-airport-screening-wont
16 Sep 2019
Bethany Christian Services, an international pregnancy support and adoption agency, is launching a programme with Copley Advertising to send targeted ads to individuals visiting Planned Parenthood clinics, abortion clinics, methadone clinics and high-risk areas (AHPA). The targeting will be done
A 17-year-old Palestinian resident of Lebanon, Ismail B. Ajjawi, was deported shortly after he arrived at Boston Airport, where he was due to start attending Harvard University the following week. Immigration officers subjected him to hours of questioning — at one point leaving to search his phone
In November 2018 reports emerged that immigrants heading north from Central America to the US border are more and more often ensuring they are accompanied by children because "family units" are known to be less likely to be deported, at least temporarily, and smugglers charge less than half as much
03 Oct 2018
The 90-year old suspect when to his stepdaughter's house at San Jose, California for a brief visit. Five days later, his stepdaugter's body, Karen was discovered by a co-worker in her house with fatal lacerations on her head and neck. The police used the data recorded by the victim's Fitbit fitness
16 Nov 2017
In 2017, US Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that it would seek to use artificial intelligence to automatically evaluate the probability of a prospective immigrant “becoming a positively contributing member of society.” In a letter to acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary
09 Jan 2019
The US government created a database of more than 50 journalists and immigrant rights advocates, many of whom were American citizens, associated with the journey of migrants travelling from Central America to the Mexico-US border in late 2018. Officials from Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
29 Apr 2019
A private intelligence company, LookingGlass Cyber Solutions, used social media to monitor more than 600 “Family Separation Day Protests” held across the United States on June 30, 2018, to oppose the Trump administration’s policy family separation policy. The policy was part of a “zero tolerance”
10 Apr 2019
An investigation by Bloomberg, disclosed that thousands of Amazon employees around the world are listening in on Amazon Echo users.
14 Nov 2018
In yet another murder case, a New Hampshire judge ordered Amazon to turn over two days of Amazon Echo recordings in a double murder case in November 2018. Prosecutors believe that recordings from an Amazon Echo in the Farmington home where two women were murdered in January 2017 may yield further
