AI Regulation by the Australian Government

?? Edwin Kwan, Sydney, Australia ↗
Artificial intelligence technologies could be classified by risk, as government consults on AI regulation – ABC News
Safe and responsible AI in Australia
Rapid Response Information Report: Generative AI

A positive development for the evolving digital ecosystem

?? Julie Chatman, Washington, DC ↗
CISA Asks Manufacturers to Prioritize Cybersecurity in Product Design – Infosecurity Magazine
Shifting the Balance of Cybersecurity Risk: Principles and Approaches for Security-by-Design and -Default

Alexa and COPPA

?? Katy Craig, San Diego, California ↗
FTC and DOJ Charge Amazon with Violating Children’s Privacy Law by Keeping Kids’ Alexa Voice Recordings Forever and Undermining Parents’ Deletion Requests
Amazon to Pay $25 Million to Settle Children’s Privacy Charges – The New York Times

This Day in Tech History 

?? Marcel Brown, St. Louis, Missouri ↗
http://thisdayintechhistory.com/06/04/
http://thisdayintechhistory.com/06/05/

Pokie Huang:

Hey, it’s 5:05 on Monday, June 5th, 2023. From the Sourced Podcast Network in New York City, this is your host, Pokie Huang. Stories in today’s episode come from Edwin Kwon in Sydney, Australia, Julie Chatman in Washington, DC., Katy Craig in San Diego, California, Marcel Brown in St. Louis, Missouri. Let’s get to it.

Edwin Kwan: 

This is Ewin Kwan from Sydney, Australia. The Australian federal government has outlined its intention to regulate artificial intelligence. It’s saying that there are gaps in the existing laws and that the new forms of AI technology will need safeguards to protect society. The National Science and Technology Council release advice as well as a discussion paper on AI. They said that while the full risks and opportunities of AI were difficult to predict, in the near term, generative AI technologies will likely impact everything from banking and finance. To public services, education, and creative industries. The industry and Science Minister has outlined two goals for the government.

The first is to ensure that businesses can confidently and responsibly invest in AI technologies. 

The second is to ensure that there are appropriate safeguards, in particular for high risk tools. The federal government has proposed a three tiered system that will classify AI tools as low, medium, or high risk, with increasing obligations for high risk classifications, as a possible response.

An example of a high risk tool could be an AI surgeon, and it would require peer reviewed impact assessments, public documentation, meaningful human interventions, recurring training, and external auditing. The government is also concerned about ensuring that any regulation helps to develop the industry rather than stifle it.

It is calling for meaningful participation from both government and industry to establish flexible guardrails as generative AI technologies evolve.

Julie Chatman: 

Here is a positive development for the evolving digital ecosystem: Several cybersecurity organizations, including the FBI, NSA, and CISA as well as cybersecurity authorities from multiple countries, such as Australia, Canada, the UK and Germany have collaborated to publish guidelines for manufacturers on prioritizing cybersecurity during product design to create secure-by-design and secure-by-default products. 

Secure-by-design focuses on making security a core business goal right from the beginning of the development process, while secure-by-default products are designed to be secure right out of the box with minimal configuration changes. By embedding these principles, manufacturers can reduce customer incidents that arise from misconfigurations and slow patching.

This initiative aligns with the Biden Administration’s national Cybersecurity Strategy and it aims to promote building security into the software development lifecycle. 

If you want to learn more, visit 505updates.com for a transcript of this recording and a link to CISA’s publication titled “Shifting the Balance of Cybersecurity Risk: Principles and Approaches for Security by Design and Default.”

Katy Craig: 

Amazon is forking over a whopping 25 million in civil penalties to settle federal charges. Why? Well, they got caught violating the Federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act or COPPA. 

This is Katy Craig in San Diego, California. 

The Federal Trade Commission busted Amazon for collecting sensitive data from kids, stuff like their exact locations and voice recordings. They held onto that info for their own business purposes. And that’s a big time no-no according to COPPA. 

Even when parents specifically asked Amazon to delete their children’s conversations with Alexa those transcripts were still hanging around in Amazon’s databases. 

COPPA clearly states that online services targeting kids under 13 need parental consent before collecting personal data. And parents should have the power to delete their children’s data. But Amazon seemed to miss the memo on that one.

The FTC’s Samuel Levine, the head honcho of the Bureau of Consumer Protection, didn’t hold back. He called out Amazon for misleading parents, hoarding those recordings indefinitely, and ignoring deletion requests. Levine said they flat out violated the children’s online privacy law and put profits over protection.

Amazon denies any wrongdoing. They claim they built Alexa with privacy protections and customer control. They even say they worked hand in hand with the FTC before bringing Alexa to their children’s content service. 

Stay tuned as this case heads to a federal court for approval. 

This is Katy Craig. Stay safe out there.

Marcel Brown: 

This is Marcel Brown, the most trusted name in technology with your technology history for June 4th and June 5th. 

June 4th, 1977. The VHS video cassette format is introduced as Vidstar in North America at a press conference before the Consumer Electronic Show starts in Chicago. VHS or Video Home System, was based on an open standard developed by JVC in 1976. As compared to the Sony Betamax format it would compete against, VHS allowed longer play times, faster rewinding, and fast forwarding. 

June 5th, 1977. The original Apple II computer goes on sale. The Apple II featured a 1 MHz MOS 6502 processor, an integrated keyboard, a built-in BASIC programming environment, 4K of memory, expandable to 48K, a monitor capable of color graphics, a sound card, and 8 expansion slots. To include all these features in one discrete unit was highly innovative in the reason it is considered the first practical personal computer. However, in the spirit of the original computer hacker, the Apple II was also available as a circuit board only, without keyboard, power supply, or case. A couple of years later, the combination of the Apple II series and the first “killer app” of the business world, the VisiCalc spreadsheet program, popularized personal computers among business users. This sudden success of the “home computer” in the business world surprised established technology companies and eventually led IBM to scramble to develop their IBM pc.

That’s your technology history for today. For more, tune in tomorrow and visit my website ThisDayInTechHistory.com.

Pokie Huang: 

That’s it for today’s open source and cybersecurity updates. For direct links to all stories and resources mentioned in today’s episode, go to 505Updates.com, where you can listen to our growing library of over 100 episodes. You can also download the transcript of all episodes for easy reference.

5:05 is a Sourced Networks Production with updates available Monday through Friday on your favorite audio streaming platform. Just search for “It’s 5:05!”. And please consider subscribing while you’re there. 

Thank you to Edwin Kwan, Julie Chatman Katy Craig, Marcel Brown for today’s contributions.

The Executive Producer and the editor is Mark Miller. The sound engineer is Pokie Huang. Music for today’s episode is by Blue Dot Sessions. We use Descript for spoken text editing and Audacity to layer in the soundscapes. The show distribution platform is provided by Captivate.fm. This is Pokie Huang. See you tomorrow… at 5:05.