“Google received 48,941 requests for data from 83,345 accounts and produced user information for 65 percent of requests. About half the requests come from the US government. Other major sources of requests include Germany, France, and the UK.”
“The U.S. Federal Communications Commission said it had approved the application of Alphabet Inc—the company that runs Google—to provide the service in emergency circumstances.”
“Wikileaks founder Julian Assange tweeted a screenshot of Paul’s ‘Liberty Report’ page showing that his videos had been labeled ‘not suitable’ for all advertisers by YouTube’s content arbiters. Assange claims that Paul was being punished for speaking out about President Donald Trump’s decision to increase the number of US troops in Afghanistan, after Paul published a video on the subject earlier this week.”
“Tens of thousands of kids are abducted in China every year and are either sold to foster parents or to more sinister individuals who’d use them for prostitution or child slavery. Baobeihuijia was created to reunite families torn apart by those abductions. For years, its volunteers would painstakingly compare images uploaded by parents against those uploaded by people looking for their families or by concerned citizens one by one. This March, though, Baidu offered the group its cross-age facial recognition technology, which it’s been testing since November last year.”
Read more: https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/10/baidu-ai-facial-recognition-finds-abducted-son/
“Last month, the Department of Justice charged a Lithuanian man for fraud, aggravated identity theft, and money laundering after documents revealed he scammed two major tech companies for over $100 million by masquerading as a Taiwanese electronics manufacturer. A Fortune report this week identified those two affected companies as Facebook and Google.”
Read more: http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/28/15468828/facebook-google-phishing-scam-rimasauskas
“Facebook is not allowed to tell their users that law enforcement is taking their data. And Facebook is not allowed to challenge these orders on behalf of their users. So in true kangaroo court fashion, the only people able to challenge the government are those forbidden from being told that the government is investigating them. Well isn’t that convenient for prosecutors. How are gag orders even Constitutional? You would think things like free speech and the right to know your accuser might cover that. But again, the government plays by no rules.”
“Google’s neural networks have achieved the dream of CSI viewers everywhere: the company has revealed a new AI system capable of ‘enhancing’ an eight-pixel square image, increasing the resolution 16-fold and effectively restoring lost data. The neural network could be used to increase the resolution of blurred or pixelated faces, in a way previously thought impossible; a similar system was demonstrated for enhancing images of bedrooms, again creating a 32×32 pixel image from an 8×8 one.”
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/08/google-ai-system-pixelated-faces-csi
“A U.S. judge has ordered Google to comply with search warrants seeking customer emails stored outside the United States, diverging from a federal appeals court that reached the opposite conclusion in a similar case involving Microsoft Corp. U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Rueter in Philadelphia ruled on Friday that transferring emails from a foreign server so FBI agents could review them locally as part of a domestic fraud probe did not qualify as a seizure.”
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-usa-warrant-idUSKBN15J0ON
“These are the only two public affidavits uncovered so far, but it’s entirely possible that more have been filed under seal. Business records of this kind are also frequent targets for national security requests, a gag-ordered subpoena that some judges have criticized as unconstitutional. The company’s most recent transparency report lists just over 12,000 US government requests in the first half of 2015, 78 percent of which produced some user data, although the majority of those requests are typically for Gmail inbox content. The company does not break out location requests individually.”
http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/1/11824118/google-android-location-data-police-warrants
“Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Sen. Burr, R-N.C. — eager to do something about ISIS’ social media prowess, whether or not it actually makes sense — have reintroduced a previously rejected provision that would force technology companies to report to the government any instances of ‘terrorist activity’ that they notice online. The measure was stripped out of the 2016 intelligence authorization bill in late September; now it’s being proposed as standalone legislation. The proposed bill is ‘modeled on existing law requiring companies to report child pornography,’ according to a press release sent out by Feinstein’s and Burr’s offices.”
https://theintercept.com/2015/12/17/senators-want-social-media-firms-to-hunt-for-terrorists/