Further Reading, Other Developments, and Coming Events (14 October)

Further Reading

•  “The Man Who Speaks Softly—and Commands a Big Cyber Army” By Garrett Graff — WIRED. A profile of General Paul Nakasone, the leader of both the United States’ National Security Agency (NSA) and Cyber Command, who has operated mostly in the background during the tumultuous Trump Administration. He has likely set the template for both organizations going forward for some time. A fascinating read chock with insider details.
• “Facebook Bans Anti-Vaccination Ads, Clamping Down Again” by Mike Isaac — The New York Times. In another sign of the social media platform responding to pressure in the United States and Europe, it was announced that anti-vaccination advertisements would no longer be accepted. This follows bans on Holocaust denial and QAnon material. Of course, this newest announcement is a classic Facebook half-step. Only paid advertisements will be banned, but users can continue to post about their opposition to vaccination.
• “To Mend a Broken Internet, Create Online Parks” By Eli Pariser — WIRED. An interesting argument that a public online space maintained by the government much like parks or public libraries may be just what democracies across the globe need to roll back the tide of extremism and division.
• “QAnon is tearing families apart” By Travis Andrews — The Washington Post. This is a terrifying tour through the fallout of the QAnon conspiracy that sucks some in so deeply they are marginally connected to reality in many ways.
• “AT&T has trouble figuring out where it offers government-funded Internet” By John Brodkin — Ars Technica.  So, yeah, about all that government cash given to big telecom companies that was supposed to bring more broadband coverage. Turns out, they definitely took the cash. The broadband service has been a much more elusive thing to verify. In one example, AT&T may or may not have provided service to 133,000 households in Mississippi after receiving funds from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Mississippi state authorities are arguing most of the service is non-existent. AT&T is basically saying it’s all a misunderstanding.

Other Developments

• The California Attorney General’s Office (AG) has released yet another revision of the regulations necessary to implement the “California Consumer Privacy Act” (CCPA) (AB 375) and comments are due by 28 October. Of course, if Proposition 24 passes next month, the “California Privacy Rights Act” will largely replace the CCPA, requiring the drafting of even more regulations. Nonetheless, what everyone thought was the final set of CCPA regulations took effect on 14 August, but in the notice from the Office of Administrative Law was notice that the AG had withdrawn four portions of the proposed regulations. In the new draft regulations, the AG explained:
  • Proposed section 999.306, subd. (b)(3), provides examples of how businesses that collect personal information in the course of interacting with consumers offline can provide the notice of right to opt-out of the sale of personal information through an offline method.
  • Proposed section 999.315, subd. (h), provides guidance on how a business’s methods for submitting requests to opt-out should be easy and require minimal steps. It provides illustrative examples of methods designed with the purpose or substantial effect of subverting or impairing a consumer’s choice to opt-out.
  • Proposed section 999.326, subd. (a), clarifies the proof that a business may require an authorized agent to provide, as well as what the business may require a consumer to do to verify their request.
  • Proposed section 999.332, subd. (a), clarifies that businesses subject to either section 999.330, section 999.331, or both of these sections are required to include a description of the processes set forth in those sections in their privacy policies.
• Facebook announced an update to its “hate speech policy to prohibit any content that denies or distorts the Holocaust.” Facebook claimed:
  • Following a year of consultation with external experts, we recently banned anti-Semitic stereotypes about the collective power of Jews that often depicts them running the world or its major institutions.  
  • Today’s announcement marks another step in our effort to fight hate on our services. Our decision is supported by the well-documented rise in anti-Semitism globally and the alarming level of ignorance about the Holocaust, especially among young people. According to a recent survey of adults in the US aged 18-39, almost a quarter said they believed the Holocaust was a myth, that it had been exaggerated or they weren’t sure.
• In a 2018 interview, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg asserted:
  • I find that deeply offensive. But at the end of the day, I don’t believe that our platform should take that down because I think there are things that different people get wrong. I don’t think that they’re intentionally getting it wrong…
  • What we will do is we’ll say, “Okay, you have your page, and if you’re not trying to organize harm against someone, or attacking someone, then you can put up that content on your page, even if people might disagree with it or find it offensive.” But that doesn’t mean that we have a responsibility to make it widely distributed in News Feed.
  • He clarified in a follow up email:
    • I personally find Holocaust denial deeply offensive, and I absolutely didn’t intend to defend the intent of people who deny that.
    • Our goal with fake news is not to prevent anyone from saying something untrue — but to stop fake news and misinformation spreading across our services. If something is spreading and is rated false by fact checkers, it would lose the vast majority of its distribution in News Feed. And of course if a post crossed line into advocating for violence or hate against a particular group, it would be removed. These issues are very challenging but I believe that often the best way to fight offensive bad speech is with good speech.
• The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued an evaluation of the Trump Administration’s 5G Strategy and found more processes and actions are needed if this plan to vault the United States (U.S.) ahead of other nations will come to fruition. Specifically, “report examines the extent to which the Administration has developed a national strategy on 5G that address our six desirable characteristics of an effective national strategy.” The GAO identified the six desirable characteristics: (1) purpose, scope, and methodology; (2) problem definition and risk assessment; (3) goals, subordinate objectives, activities, and performance measures; (4) resources, investments, and risk management; (5) organizational roles, responsibilities, and coordination; and (6) integration and implementation. However, this assessment is necessarily limited, for National Security Council staff took the highly unusual approach of not engaging with the GAO, which may be another norm broken by the Trump Administration. The GAO stated “[t]he March 2020 5G national strategy partially addresses five of our desirable characteristics of an effective national strategy and does not address one, as summarized in table 1:
  • The GAO explained:
    • According to National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) officials, the 5G national strategy was intentionally written to be at a high level and as a result, it may not include all elements of our six desirable characteristics of national strategies. These officials stated that the 5G implementation plan required by the Secure 5G and Beyond Act of 2020 is expected to include specific details, not covered in the 5G national strategy, on the U.S. government’s response to 5G risks and challenges. The implementation plan is expected to align and correspond to the lines of effort in the 5G national strategy. NTIA officials told us that the implementation plan to the 5G national strategy would be finalized by the end of October 2020. However, the officials we spoke to were unable to provide details on the final content of the implementation plan such as whether the plan would include all elements of our six desirable characteristics of national strategies given that it was not final. National strategies and their implementation plans should include all elements of the six desirable characteristics to enhance their usefulness as guidance and to ensure accountability and coordinate investments. Until the administration ensures that the implementation plan includes all elements of the six desirable characteristics, the guidance the plan provides decision makers in allocating resources to address 5G risks and challenges will likely be limited.
• The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) wrote the European Commission (EC) to make the case the United Kingdom (UK) is not deserving of an adequacy decision after Brexit because of institutional and cultural weaknesses at the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The ICCL made the case that the ICO has been one of the most ineffectual enforcers of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), especially with respect to what the ICCL called the largest data infringement under the GDPR and the largest data breach of all time: Real-Time Bidding. The ICCL took the ICO to task with having not followed through on fining companies for GDPR violations and having a tiny staff dedicated to data protection and technology issues. The ICCL invoked Article 45 of the GDPR to encourage the EC to deny the UK the adequacy decision it would need in order to transfer the personal data of EU residents to the UK.
• In an unrelated development, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) wrapped up its investigation into Facebook and Cambridge Analytica and detailed its additional findings in a letter to the Digital, Culture and Media and Sport Select Committee in the House of Commons. ICO head Elizabeth Denham asserted:
  • [w]e concluded that SCL Elections Ltd and Cambridge Analytica (SCL/CA) were purchasing significant volumes of commercially available personal data (at one estimate over 130 billion data points), in the main about millions of US voters, to combine it with the Facebook derived insight information they had obtained from an academic at Cambridge University, Dr Aleksandr Kogan, and elsewhere. In the main their models were also built from ‘off the shelf’ analytical tools and there was evidence that their own staff were concerned about some of the public statements the leadership of the company were making about their impact and influence.
  • From my review of the materials recovered by the investigation I have found no further evidence to change my earlier view that SCL/CA were not involved in the EU referendum campaign in the UK -beyond some initial enquiries made by SCL/CA in relation to UKIP data in the early stages of the referendum process. This strand of work does not appear to have then been taken forward by SCL/CA
  • I have concluded my wider investigations of several organisations on both the remain and the leave side of the UK’s referendum about membership of the EU. I identified no significant breaches of the privacy and electronic marketing regulations and data protection legislation that met the threshold for formal regulatory action. Where the organisation continued in operation, I have provided advice and guidance to support better future compliance with the rules.
  • During the investigation concerns about possible Russian interference in elections globally came to the fore. As I explained to the sub-committee in April 2019, I referred details of reported possible Russia-located activity to access data linked to the investigation to the National Crime Agency. These matters fall outside the remit of the ICO. We did not find any additional evidence of Russian involvement in our analysis of material contained in the SCL / CA servers we obtained.
• The United States Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a joint cybersecurity advisory regarding “recently observed advanced persistent threat (APT) actors exploiting multiple legacy vulnerabilities in combination with a newer privilege escalation vulnerability.” CISA and the FBI revealed that that these tactics have penetrated systems related to elections but claimed there has been no degrading of the integrity of electoral systems.
• The agencies stated:
  • The commonly used tactic, known as vulnerability chaining, exploits multiple vulnerabilities in the course of a single intrusion to compromise a network or application. 
  • This recent malicious activity has often, but not exclusively, been directed at federal and state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) government networks. Although it does not appear these targets are being selected because of their proximity to elections information, there may be some risk to elections information housed on government networks.
  • CISA is aware of some instances where this activity resulted in unauthorized access to elections support systems; however, CISA has no evidence to date that integrity of elections data has been compromised.
• Canada’s Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien released the “2019-2020 Annual Report to Parliament on the Privacy Act and Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act” and asserted:
  • Technologies have been very useful in halting the spread of COVID-19 by allowing essential activities to continue safely. They can and do serve the public good.
  • At the same time, however, they raise new privacy risks. For example, telemedicine creates risks to doctor-patient confidentiality when virtual platforms involve commercial enterprises. E-learning platforms can capture sensitive information about students’ learning disabilities and other behavioural issues.
  • As the pandemic speeds up digitization, basic privacy principles that would allow us to use public health measures without jeopardizing our rights are, in some cases, best practices rather than requirements under the existing legal framework.
  • We see, for instance, that the law has not properly contemplated privacy protection in the context of public-private partnerships, nor does it mandate app developers to consider Privacy by Design, or the principles of necessity and proportionality.
  • The law is simply not up to protecting our rights in a digital environment. Risks to privacy and other rights are heightened by the fact that the pandemic is fueling rapid societal and economic transformation in a context where our laws fail to provide Canadians with effective protection.
  • In our previous annual report, we shared our vision of how best to protect the privacy rights of Canadians and called on parliamentarians to adopt rights-based privacy laws.
  • We noted that privacy is a fundamental human right (the freedom to live and develop free from surveillance). It is also a precondition for exercising other human rights, such as equality rights in an age when machines and algorithms make decisions about us, and democratic rights when technologies can thwart democratic processes.
  • Regulating privacy is essential not only to support electronic commerce and digital services; it is a matter of justice.

Coming Events

• The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) and the Computer Emergency Response Team for the EU Institutions, Bodies and Agencies (CERT-EU) will hold the 4th annual IoT Security Conference series “to raise awareness on the security challenges facing the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem across the European Union:”
  • Artificial Intelligence – 14 October at 15:00 to 16:30 CET
  • Supply Chain for IoT – 21 October at 15:00 to 16:30 CET
• The House Intelligence Committee will conduct a virtual hearing titled “Misinformation, Conspiracy Theories, and ‘Infodemics’: Stopping the Spread Online.”
• The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will hold an open commission meeting on 27 October, and the agency has released a tentative agenda:
  • Restoring Internet Freedom Order Remand – The Commission will consider an Order on Remand that would respond to the remand from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and conclude that the Restoring Internet Freedom Order promotes public safety, facilitates broadband infrastructure deployment, and allows the Commission to continue to provide Lifeline support for broadband Internet access service. (WC Docket Nos. 17-108, 17-287, 11- 42)
  • Establishing a 5G Fund for Rural America – The Commission will consider a Report and Order that would establish the 5G Fund for Rural America to ensure that all Americans have access to the next generation of wireless connectivity. (GN Docket No. 20-32)
  • Increasing Unlicensed Wireless Opportunities in TV White Spaces – The Commission will consider a Report and Order that would increase opportunities for unlicensed white space devices to operate on broadcast television channels 2-35 and expand wireless broadband connectivity in rural and underserved areas. (ET Docket No. 20-36)
  • Streamlining State and Local Approval of Certain Wireless Structure Modifications – The Commission will consider a Report and Order that would further accelerate the deployment of 5G by providing that modifications to existing towers involving limited ground excavation or deployment would be subject to streamlined state and local review pursuant to section 6409(a) of the Spectrum Act of 2012. (WT Docket No. 19-250; RM-11849)
  • Revitalizing AM Radio Service with All-Digital Broadcast Option – The Commission will consider a Report and Order that would authorize AM stations to transition to an all-digital signal on a voluntary basis and would also adopt technical specifications for such stations. (MB Docket Nos. 13-249, 19-311)
  • Expanding Audio Description of Video Content to More TV Markets – The Commission will consider a Report and Order that would expand audio description requirements to 40 additional television markets over the next four years in order to increase the amount of video programming that is accessible to blind and visually impaired Americans. (MB Docket No. 11-43)
  • Modernizing Unbundling and Resale Requirements – The Commission will consider a Report and Order to modernize the Commission’s unbundling and resale regulations, eliminating requirements where they stifle broadband deployment and the transition to next- generation networks, but preserving them where they are still necessary to promote robust intermodal competition. (WC Docket No. 19-308)
  • Enforcement Bureau Action – The Commission will consider an enforcement action.
• On October 29, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will hold a seminar titled “Green Lights & Red Flags: FTC Rules of the Road for Business workshop” that “will bring together Ohio business owners and marketing executives with national and state legal experts to provide practical insights to business and legal professionals about how established consumer protection principles apply in today’s fast-paced marketplace.”
• The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee will reportedly hold a hearing on 29 October regarding 47 U.S.C. 230 with testimony from:
  • Jack Dorsey, Chief Executive Officer of Twitter;
  • Sundar Pichai, Chief Executive Officer of Alphabet Inc. and its subsidiary, Google; and 
  • Mark Zuckerberg, Chief Executive Officer of Facebook.

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