Speed Read

Arizona Lawmakers Who Pushed 'Stop The Steal' Face Scrutiny For Presence At U.S. Capitol Riot (AZ Central, Jan 14, 2021)
Amid the pictures of rioters jammed on the steps of the U.S. Capitol is one that appears to show former Arizona lawmaker Anthony Kern. He is captured in a throng of people dressed in MAGA hats and holding flags in support of President Donald Trump. Behind him, at the top of the steps, a woman in a bright red Trump sweatshirt holds her fist high. The picture, shared widely on social media, shows the former Republican state representative dressed in a suit, gray scarf and red tie. He is looking across the crowd directly toward the camera.
 

US Criticizes China’s AI Tech, But Uses Facial Recognition On Capitol Rioters (Global Times, Jan 14, 2021)
Western hypocrisy and double standards, which usually point the finger at China's information security and the application of AI technology, have been thoroughly exposed, with the US dealing with Capitol Hill rioters. Despite its frequent defamation against China's use of technology in protecting public security, the US authority did not mind screening its own citizens with Clearview AI after the riot. The facial information app had "a 26 percent increase of searches," Clearview AI's chief executive Hoan Ton-Tha was quoted by the New York Times as saying. US law enforcement was indentifying and seeking the Capitol Hill rioters through facial recognition, US media said. It forms a sharp contrast to US politicians who have been relentlessly attacking Chinese AI firms by accusing them of violating human rights and infringing on privacy, an industry representative from China's facial recognition industry said.
 

Local Officials React To Gov. Baker’s Support Of Facial Recognition To Arrest Rioters (WWLP, Jan 14, 2021)
Local officials are speaking out after Governor Charlie Baker said he supported the use of facial recognition software to arrest rioters after the attack on Capitol Hill. Facial recognition software has been controversial here in Massachusetts, with opponents arguing that the technology often misidentifies people of color. In Springfield, there has been a moratorium on the use of facial recognition software. State Representative Orlando Ramos sponsored the moratorium with the Springfield City Council.
 

A New Stanford Study Uses Facial Recognition To Figure Out If You’re Liberal Or Conservative (Gizmodo, Jan 14, 2021)
Today in terrible ideas: an AI system that claims to be able to accurately predict your political affiliation using…your face. Yes, really. Stanford researcher Michal Kosinski published his research (which you can read here) in the journal Nature earlier this week. You might remember Kosinski’s name from spearheading a similar study back in 2017 that claimed to accurately detect a person’s sexuality based on the way their facial features were aligned. At the time, civil rights groups and fellow academics universally dunked on these findings, calling Kosinski “reckless”for publishing it.
 

The Promise And Peril Of Facial Recognition (Wall Street Journal, Jan 14, 2021)
Federal, state and local law-enforcement agencies are using facial-recognition technology to identify the members of the mob that assaulted the U.S. Capitol last week. Elsewhere, facial recognition and artificial intelligence are increasingly being used for nefarious purposes—including by China to persecute minorities and to identify Hong Kong dissidents. We represent Clearview AI, the U.S. facial-recognition startup that became controversial a year ago when its existence came to light in the media. Clearview AI maintains a database of billions of publicly posted photographs that have been lawfully downloaded from the Internet, where users posted them on public websites, including social media. Clearview AI downloads photographs from the public internet that are available to any user from any computer around the world without the consent of the person photographed.
 

Tech Companies Join Effort Focused on Covid-19 Vaccine Records (Wall Street Journal, Jan 14, 2021)
The companies and organizations, including the Mayo Clinic, are behind the Vaccination Credential Initiative, which aims to ensure consumers can access their vaccination records as the economy opens back up and daily life returns to more normal conditions following the pandemic.

 

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