Tag: consent

Apple’s Siri accused of eavesdropping on users – Politico

French prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into Apple over allegations that its voice assistant Siri collected and analyzed user recordings without proper consent. The probe has been entrusted to France’s cybercrime agency, the Paris prosecutor’s office has told Politico and Reuters.

The investigation follows a complaint filed in February by a French NGO, based on testimony from whistleblower Thomas Le Bonniec, a former employee of an Apple subcontractor, who says he listened to thousands of Siri recordings as part of quality-control work in 2019.

Le Bonniec reportedly worked for Globe Technical Services in Ireland, where he reviewed and annotated audio clips to help improve Siri’s accuracy. He told Politico that the material sometimes revealed “intimate moments and confidential information,” which could be used to identify users.

The whistleblower has welcomed the probe, saying it should allow “urgent questions to be answered,” including how many recordings were made since Siri’s launch and where the data is stored.

An Apple representative in France told Politico that the company “has never used Siri data to create marketing profiles, has never made it available for advertising and has never sold it to anyone for any reason whatsoever.” 

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Witness Alleges Hospital’s ‘Egregious’ Breaches of Standard of Care Killed Teen

Witness testimony continued this week in the wrongful death trial of Grace Schara, a 19-year-old with Down syndrome who died in a Wisconsin hospital days after being admitted for a COVID-19 infection. Grace’s sister and expert witnesses testified that doctors violated the standard of care and principles of informed consent.

Grace’s family sued Ascension St. Elizabeth Hospital in April 2023 and filed an amended complaint in July 2023, alleging the hospital’s COVID-19 treatment protocols directly resulted in Grace’s death in October 2021, a week after admission.

The trial began last week at the State of Wisconsin Circuit Court for Outagamie County. The lawsuit names several defendants, including some Ascension doctors and nurses and the Wisconsin Injured Patients and Family Compensation Fund.

Grace’s older sister, Jessica Vander Heiden, testified Tuesday that she was unaware that the hospital had placed a “do not resuscitate” (DNR) order in Grace’s chart until shortly before her death and that, in Grace’s final moments, hospital staff refused to intervene and did not honor her family’s repeated requests to revoke the DNR.

Expert witnesses for the plaintiffs testified that there were multiple violations of the standard of care by Ascension doctors and nurses.

Dr. Gilbert Berdine, an associate professor of medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, said that this was the first malpractice case where he testified as an expert witness for plaintiffs and explained why he chose to do so.

“The breaches of the standard of care were egregious, and I could not live with myself without answering the call to review and give advice on this case,” Berdine said.

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Federal Prosecutors Are Starting To Sound Like Campus Activists About Sex and Consent

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is now embracing ideas about coercion and consent that rose to prominence on college campuses during the Barack Obama administration.

That’s the implication of the OneTaste case, in which a jury has returned a guilty verdict against Rachel Cherwitz and Nicole Daedone, who stood accused of a conspiracy to commit forced labor during their time with the sexual and spiritual self-help organization.

I have written many words about this case already, and I’m going to try to refrain from rehashing all of the details in today’s newsletter. (If you’re new to the case and want to dive deep, here you go. If you want a couple of overviews of how the trial played out, see here and here.)

What I want to focus on right now is the larger implications of this case. They’re not pretty.

From College Campuses to #MeToo to the DOJ

If these ideas about coercion and consent didn’t start on the college campuses of the 2010s, that’s at least when they became fully institutionalized —adopted as not just the framework favored by activist students and women’s studies professors but by college administrators and the Title IX offices they were beholden to. There was affirmative consent, sure, but also a broader suspicion of consent as a worthwhile standard, or at least a willingness to dismiss it for more arcane ideas about sexual permissibility.

Suddenly it wasn’t enough to say no and it wasn’t even enough to say yes—one had to consider a complex set of power dynamics, alcohol consumption levels, subtle nonverbal cues, and so on, to determine if consent counted. It stopped just short of taking astrological signs into account.

We went from a reasonable corrective (acknowledging that sexual assault needn’t necessarily involve force or violence) to women getting support for claims of sexual coercion and violation even when they seemed to willingly go along with sexual activity at the time but later said that they weren’t enthusiastic enough about it and a partner should have known that and stopped. Basically, it was only consensual if a woman felt deep down in her heart, during and after, that everything had been OK.

We saw this idea migrate from campus newspapers and Title IX offices to the broader world during the #MeToo movement. It’s perhaps best exemplified by a story about the actor Aziz Ansari. A young woman went to dinner with him, then back to his house, and later excoriated him in Babe magazine for not reading her cues about not wanting to fool around and allegedly pressuring her to do so. The piece called it sexual misconduct and a violation. But when the woman explicitly told Ansari no, he stopped, per her account of things. And when she wanted to go, she left.

The Babe article provoked a huge debate about whether this sort of thing—which in another era we might have just called a bad date or caddish behavior—was a form of sexual assault and where responsibility lies here. Are sexual partners supposed to be mind readers? Do women have any responsibility for explicitly making their wishes known?

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T-Mobile Faces Backlash for Auto-Enabled Screen Recording in T-Life App Without User Consent

T-Mobile is facing renewed backlash over its T-Life app, this time for quietly introducing a screen recording feature that is automatically activated on some devices. The tool, labeled “Screen recording tool,” has been discovered by users in the app’s settings, prompting immediate concerns about transparency and user consent.

Described as a means of gathering behavioral data to help enhance the app’s functionality, the tool is being deployed without upfront notification in many cases.

Though T-Mobile insists it does not collect personal data and only monitors activity within the app itself, the feature’s default-on status has unsettled many customers. The company told CNET, “This tool records activities within the app only and does not see or access any personal information,” and noted that users can deactivate it under the Preferences section.

While this type of telemetry is not uncommon in the tech world, the method of deployment here has caught attention. Unlike the app’s pre-existing Screen Share function, which allows support reps to view a user’s screen during troubleshooting, but only with explicit approval, this newly introduced screen recorder operates passively in the background.

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Famous journalist Glenn Greenwald mired in sex tape scandal that he says was released by ‘political enemies’

Journalist Glenn Greenwald angrily lashed out at his political enemies after a sex tape showing him in a compromising position spread on social media. 

In a post to X on Friday morning, Greenwald said the clips were published without his ‘knowledge or consent’, and that he planned to take legal action. 

The 58-year-old, who is also a lawyer, added that the leaking of the videos was done so by ‘political enemies’ to ‘advance a political agenda’.

‘Last night’s videos were released online depicting behavior in my private life. Some were distorted and others were not. 

‘They were published without my knowledge or consent and its publication was therefore criminal. 

‘Though we do not yet know exactly who is responsible, we are close to knowing, and the motive was a maliciously political one,’ he said. 

He added that he carries ‘no embarrassment or regret’ about the acts depicted in the videos. 

‘The videos depict consenting adults engaged in intimate actions in their private lives. 

‘They all display fully consensual behavior, harming nobody. 

‘Obviously it can be uncomfortable and unpleasant when your private behavior is made public against your will – that’s why the behavior is private in the first place – but the only wrongdoing here is the criminal and malicious publication of the videos in an attempt to malign perceived political enemies and advance a political agenda.

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House Passes Bill Stripping States’ Right to Regulate AI—After FDA OK’s Use of Your Blood and Genetic Data Without Consent

The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday passed the 1,116-page “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” that removes all 50 states’ right to regulate artificial intelligence (10) for the next ten years.

The only Republican Representatives to vote ‘no’ were Thomas Massie (KY) and Warren Davidson (OH).

Every other GOP member voted to block your state from regulating AI.

The bill reads: “No State or political subdivision thereof may enforce any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models… during the 10-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act.” —Sec. 43201(c)(1)

Developed by the House Budget Committee, the legislation prohibits all states from imposing “any substantive design, performance, data-handling, documentation, civil liability, taxation, fee, or other requirement” unless the federal government already does—meaning if the feds don’t regulate it, no one can.

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‘Snooping Around’: Government Officials Under Fire for Bypassing State Constitution

‘It makes it very dangerous when you’re hunting with rifles and people aren’t wearing colors that make them easy to see.’

A court is being asked to act against state officials who bypass the requirements of their own state constitution.

The situation is that while the Alabama Constitution “makes it clear that if the government wants to come searching on your property, they need a warrant based on probable cause,” agents from the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources simply cite a statute to ignore that requirement.

The Institute for Justice now is working with three Alabama residents to sue over the practice that has agents invading and searching private property not only without a warrant, but without consent.

The plaintiffs are Killen residents Dalton Boley and Regina Williams and Muscle Shoals resident Dale Liles, who all took action after facing “multiple” privacy intrusions by game wardens.

None ever has been charged with hunting violations, “yet game wardens have snooped around on their properties without warrants on multiple occasions. That’s because of an Alabama statute that allows game wardens to ‘enter upon any land … in the performance of their duty.’ Whether it’s a posted field or residential yard, the statute gives wardens broad power to roam around private property without any warrant,” the IJ said.

But, IJ lawyer Suranjan Sen explained, “The Alabama Constitution makes it clear that if the government wants to come searching on your property, they need a warrant based on probable cause, and game wardens are not exempt from the Constitution.”

Williams owns 10 acres in Killen and had used it for decades, but as she aged she gave her neighbor, Boley, and his family permission to use it.

Then the game wardens arrived.

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You Want To Vaccinate My Child? Just Sign This Form

I have yet to meet a Physician that will sign this form now downloaded by hundreds of parents. The reason they won’t sign is two-fold: First, they do not want to place themselves in a vulnerable position of being negligent for not providing informed consent to thousands of other parents; and second, many of them realize after their own extensive research that the risks far outweigh any benefits when it comes to vaccination.

It’s been over a year since hundreds of parents have downloaded this form and there are still no reports of any signatures. Many physicians won’t even look at the form while they dismiss a parent’s anti-vaccination stance as ridiculous. The behavior is a clear indication of a very misinformed Physician who does not have his or her patient’s best interests at heart. They are not willing to inform their patients of the risks, only the benefits they feel are acceptable. They are not open-minded to any other side of the debate except their own bias view passed down through the medical system.

Then are those Physicians who have questioned the vaccination schedules and will pursue their own research. Many of them are now awakening themselves thanks to ongoing research and pressure from parents and even other colleagues to look at other perspectives besides their own indoctrination. If you are pressured by any Physician to vaccinate, please download and print this form (and send us a Physician signed copy if possible). Assertively state to your Doctor that it is the only way you will be fully informed to consider vaccination and that an analysis of the risks and benefits will better allow you to evaluate the decision.

100% of Physicians approached with this form have so far declined to sign it.

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North Carolina family can sue over COVID-19 vaccine administered without consent, court rules

A North Carolina mother and her son can sue a public school system and a doctors’ group for allegedly giving the boy a COVID-19 vaccine without consent, the state Supreme Court ruled.

The ruling handed down Friday reverses a lower-court decision that a federal health emergency law prevented Emily Happel and her son Tanner Smith from filing a lawsuit.

Both a trial judge and the state Court of Appeals had ruled against the two, who sought litigation after Smith received an unwanted vaccine during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

Smith was vaccinated in August 2021 at age 14 despite his opposition at a testing and vaccination clinic at a Guilford County high school, according to the family’s lawsuit.

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The Compromised FDA Knows Exactly What It’s Doing

The sneaky bastards at the FDA did this a year ago, right under our noses. In January 2024, the FDA finalized a rule permitting Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) to waive or even alter informed consent requirements for clinical investigations deemed “minimal risk.” TTR guest author Jon Fleetwood, as always, brings us this news in his excellent reporting. Read his entire article here.

IRBs. Informed Consent. What does it all mean? If you don’t do research, you likely won’t know.

What is an IRB?

An Institutional Review Board (IRB) is a panel of individuals who review and oversee research studies that involve human participants. The IRB ensures that the studies are ethical and that they comply with all regulations. The IRB’s primary function is to protect the rights and welfare of the human research participants, making sure they are treated fairly, ethically and safely.

Anyone doing research must have an IRB, and that not only applies to direct human research (meaning the human is actually being given a drug or using a device), but also for indirect studies where the patient isn’t “touched” so to speak or actively involved. A direct example would be a clinical trial where a new drug is being tested. The human participants actually enroll in the trial and are given test doses of the medication. Even if a human participant is given a placebo, that research must be covered by an IRB to ensure the patients’ physical and psychological well-being. An example of an indirect study is one in which a company or other research entity is just using data from patients, with no direct patient interaction. In some cases an IRB is still needed to use data that may potentially identify who the subjects are.

The bottom line is that an IRB is needed for any drug, device assessment, survey or other study. And this is what makes the FDA’s ruling so unbelievable. Fleetwood says the implications are staggering, and he is absolutely right:

“Under this waiver, any person’s health data, biospecimens (such as blood or tissue samples), or medical records can be accessed and used for FDA-regulated research if it meets vague and highly subjective criteria.”

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