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yesEmily BirnbaumNone
November 9, 2020
Zoom will implement new security practices as part of a proposed settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, the agency announced on Monday.
"Zoom has agreed to a requirement to establish and implement a comprehensive security program, a prohibition on privacy and security misrepresentations, and other detailed and specific relief to protect its user base, which has skyrocketed from 10 million in December 2019 to 300 million in April 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic," the FTC said in a press release.
The FTC accused Zoom of deceiving customers when it falsely promised end-to-end encryption and "secretly" installed a web browser called ZoomOpener.
Under the proposed settlement, Zoom will undergo third-party audits of its security program every year.
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Emily Birnbaum
Emily Birnbaum ( @birnbaum_e) is a tech policy reporter with Protocol. Her coverage focuses on the U.S. government's attempts to regulate one of the most powerful industries in the world, with a focus on antitrust, privacy and politics. Previously, she worked as a tech policy reporter with The Hill after spending several months as a breaking news reporter. She is a Bethesda, Maryland native and proud Kenyon College alumna.
Power
Google wants to help you get a life
Digital car windows, curved AR glasses, automatic presentations and other patents from Big Tech.
A new patent from Google offers a few suggestions.
Image: USPTO
February 28, 2021
Mike Murphy ( @mcwm) is the director of special projects at Protocol, focusing on the industries being rapidly upended by technology and the companies disrupting incumbents. Previously, Mike was the technology editor at Quartz, where he frequently wrote on robotics, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics.
February 28, 2021
Another week has come to pass, meaning it's time again for Big Tech patents! You've hopefully been busy reading all the new Manual Series stories that have come out this week and are now looking forward to hearing what comes after what comes next. Google wants to get rid of your double-chin selfie videos and find things for you as you sit bored at home; Apple wants to bring translucent displays to car windows; and Microsoft is exploring how much you can stress out a virtual assistant.
And remember: The big tech companies file all kinds of crazy patents for things, and though most never amount to anything, some end up defining the future.
<h3>Alphabet</h3><p><a href="https://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?PageNum=0&docid=10929982&IDKey=D2992D61B62A%0D%0A&HomeUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO2%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526p%3D1%2526u%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsearch-bool.html%2526r%3D13%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526co1%3DAND%2526d%3DPTXT%2526s1%3Dgoogle.ASNM.%2526OS%3DAN%2Fgoogle%2526RS%3DAN%2Fgoogle" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Making selfies look better</strong></a></p><p>Perhaps even before our lives were dominated by video calls, you might've noticed when someone just couldn't figure out where to place their camera. Generally, anything below eye height is going to lead to some unflattering angles, but if you're also on a phone, holding your device up that long can get tiring. Google is apparently trying to solve this with AR: According to this patent, it's looking into using the depth sensors found on the front of many smartphones to re-create your face in video calls at a more flattering angle, to reduce what the pattern calls "the big nose effect." I'm here for this concept, but also Google's depiction of what it's trying to eliminate:</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="1">
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</div></p><p><img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/lYYEYZ52NjuL8M2BnrKVI80huN6UBNYEl1sFEScg5s5MdKrv8n2pBlI3tqXw3ooNJh8h2fWLTeTQaI4TrETMRu-E8ld49QGy3U783TOD8k8WMIR0lPZBAlCih9p3NU4U2sOEqtuI"></p><p><a href="https://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?PageNum=0&docid=10929885&IDKey=AFA7541891BF%0D%0A&HomeUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO2%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526p%3D1%2526u%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsearch-bool.html%2526r%3D16%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526co1%3DAND%2526d%3DPTXT%2526s1%3Dgoogle.ASNM.%2526OS%3DAN%2Fgoogle%2526RS%3DAN%2Fgoogle" target="_blank"><strong>Jamming more ads into Maps</strong></a></p><p>Google Maps has become increasingly beset with ads in recent years, with promoted pins and locations on various instances of Maps. But this patent, which determines how Google goes about valuing ads in Google Maps — it, shockingly, has a lot to do with location — shows that the company might be looking at turning every part of the world into a digital version of Times Square, by displaying ads in-between the streets on a map. Hopefully it doesn't feel the need to run ads in <em>all</em> these potential slots at once, as that might make it rather difficult to navigate: </p><p><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/JcWTDCLxLAIEnhwl__JCNqeGm5ivedVoZVx_t83zGUntlZdU2H3CeQm9L3RC7QEZ_Cbb1n8B-bq_B-UJoATR2JiehxRwlA_O9GgO2BcEsph9C2cMPihvsdIWJlG9iJfvo4hTmLG9"></p><p><a href="https://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?PageNum=0&docid=10929486&IDKey=8946337F7961%0D%0A&HomeUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO2%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526p%3D1%2526u%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsearch-bool.html%2526r%3D23%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526co1%3DAND%2526d%3DPTXT%2526s1%3Dgoogle.ASNM.%2526OS%3DAN%2Fgoogle%2526RS%3DAN%2Fgoogle" target="_blank"><strong>Outsourcing having a life to AI</strong></a></p><p>It's tough to do things, I know. Many days, even before the pandemic, I was content to just sit on the couch all day watching TV and ordering takeout. But Google is apparently looking into outsourcing to a virtual assistant the task of making sure you actually get your butt off the sofa. The patent outlines an assistant that could suggest things to do, as well as where and when to do them, based on the user's preferences. It could also suggest things to do that your friends or other users have enjoyed doing. Some of the suggestions aren't exactly things I'd consider a hobby, though: choosing "fight off a cold" as an activity is a really odd way to want to pass the time. <img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/uHktu_DhtqRY9P68bJLJeoFceXUWTrtEeTN7xB6hiBFWxiCY5FDqrZW0zGkqlssZ481nmrNba9nGYXrsdfEk0eTsG64QXV37qaAfQ51BYGhs5DlwKuNJiA2WI5uGtQaLcOS_INsS"></p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><h3>Amazon</h3><p><a href="http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=27&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=amazon.ASNM.&OS=AN/amazon&RS=AN/amazon" target="_blank"><strong>Searching using loyalty programs</strong></a></p><p>When you search for things online, you're generally only shown the prices for things that everyone sees. But if you're a member of a loyalty program, you might often get discounts or other benefits that could make some products cheaper or more attractive. Amazon's patent outlines a search engine that can store which loyalty programs you're a part of, and show any deals associated with that membership that businesses might be running. This could be useful for finding deals at partners of loyalty programs that you might not be aware of, but if you're already loyal to one hotel or airline brand, you're probably going to search them first before doing a general search. </p><p><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/XSeV507IoB60vuP-AKADzUQH3OCfoDarf4Ahdgo0kNH-YxVe6qj-MRv9dfGECwElzPftQ3dJfMBeJq5fEEaqcAR6cyprVeBF99cienf2ipJGV35gR5LrTL8RVSOqAHqtqKrMX6Et"></p><p><a href="https://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?PageNum=0&docid=10929810&IDKey=0F7C251F2619%0D%0A&HomeUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO2%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526p%3D1%2526u%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsearch-bool.html%2526r%3D23%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526co1%3DAND%2526d%3DPTXT%2526s1%3Damazon.ASNM.%2526OS%3DAN%2Famazon%2526RS%3DAN%2Famazon" target="_blank"><strong>Indoor drones</strong></a></p><p>Amazon has been making waves for years about using autonomous drones for delivering orders, but to date, it hasn't gotten much traction. It seems, according to this patent, to be turning its attention at least partly to a less-regulated bit of airspace: indoors. The patent explains how autonomous drones, fitted with cameras and sensors, could be used to inspect inventory stored in the bins in the company's massive, high-ceilinged warehouses. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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</div></p><h3>Apple</h3><p><a href="https://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?PageNum=0&docid=10928697&IDKey=B939F26801A6%0D%0A&HomeUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO2%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526u%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsearch-adv.htm%2526r%3D51%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526d%3DPTXT%2526s1%3D%252522apple%252Binc%252522.ASNM.%2526p%3D2%2526OS%3DAN%2F%252522apple%252Binc%252522%2526RS%3DAN%2F%252522apple%252Binc%252522" target="_blank"><strong>Smart tinted windows</strong></a></p><p>This feels like a concept you'd see in sci-fi films set in a future where people have time to kill in the back of a self-driving car. Instead of staring at their phones, the sunroof and windows tint black, and news programs or views of scenic landscapes would replace whatever dystopian cityscape the car is driving through. It seems that Apple is looking into turning this into a reality, by creating see-through glass panes embedded with LEDs and other light sources that could change the color of the glass and allow information to be displayed on it. Pair that with the AR maps it was working on from <a href="https://www.protocol.com/alphabet-eat-balloons" target="_self">last week</a>, and you could have a whole new way of looking at driving on your hands. </p><h3>Facebook</h3><p><a href="http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=29&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=facebook.ASNM.&OS=AN/facebook&RS=AN/facebook" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Curved-lens AR glasses</strong></a></p><p>This feels a little bit like the walking-around version to Apple's patent above. Most AR headsets use cameras to portray information on flat surfaces in front of your eyes. If you're like me and wear giant glasses that make you look like an owl, that might be fine, as your entire field of view is covered by lenses, but this patent explores adding AR to the periphery as well. The glasses in the patent have lenses that curve around the side of the frames so that they can overlay information on your peripheral view, which could make the experience of augmenting reality feel a little less jarring. That said, you would have to go out in public wearing something that looks like this: </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="4">
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</div></p><p><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/YQudRSE9rpgmW6sFYiOU7-fK_tijuGQMxUhPKBq9cQWjmapgqPuV-K2FKAb-C_mlGqBmzOeFisYN3K2JLXqjzmvJzsHuEwfPo-_-CiIodnZg-alfFF1wsw74xVkb5nNaTx-pU71_"></p><h3>Microsoft</h3><p><a href="http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=36&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=microsoft.ASNM.&OS=AN/microsoft&RS=AN/microsoft" target="_blank"><strong>Automatic presentation controls</strong></a></p><p>If you've ever watched a presentation from a major tech company and wondered how they nailed the timing on slide changes so well … it's probably because they've rehearsed it a thousand times and have someone whose job it is just to press forward on the slide at the right time. But if you don't have that luxury at your disposal, you might find the ideas in this patent helpful. Microsoft is exploring presentation software that would be able to listen for cues in your speech to detect that you've gotten to the end of one slide, and move you automatically on to the next. It also suggests doing a training run, where the user runs through their presentation, manually clicking where they want to change slides, and the system would record that and do it automatically when they go to present. I'm not sure about having to have something listen to me at all times to get this to work, but it'd make presentations a lot less awkward than the "please can you click to the next slide, no, not the last slide, the next one" that often happens. </p><p><a href="https://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?PageNum=0&docid=10931607&IDKey=7B2CDAAF4E95%0D%0A&HomeUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO2%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526p%3D1%2526u%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsearch-bool.html%2526r%3D19%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526co1%3DAND%2526d%3DPTXT%2526s1%3Dmicrosoft.ASNM.%2526OS%3DAN%2Fmicrosoft%2526RS%3DAN%2Fmicrosoft" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Getting angry at virtual assistants to get results</strong></a></p><p>Stressing other people out when you're in charge is a very easy, albeit not very amenable, way to get stuff done. If you're having a conversation with someone and they stress to you, "I <em>need</em> you to get this back to me by end of day," and you know that they are ultimately the person who could end your employment, you're very likely going to get it back to them soon, unless you don't want to work there anymore. It's a lot harder to convey emotion and stress like that to a digital assistant, but this patent is exploring being able to understand human intonation and emotion in requests, such as a user stressing that they need to get a meeting scheduled with someone by the end of the week, which the AI would interpret as it being an urgent meeting when looking for time to schedule. Hopefully when the robot uprising comes, they'll not be too annoyed at us taking them for granted as digital PAs. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="5">
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Mike Murphy ( @mcwm) is the director of special projects at Protocol, focusing on the industries being rapidly upended by technology and the companies disrupting incumbents. Previously, Mike was the technology editor at Quartz, where he frequently wrote on robotics, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics.
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The future of computing at the edge: an interview with Intel’s Tom Lantzsch
An interview with Tom Lantzsch, SVP and GM, Internet of Things Group at Intel
February 28, 2021
Saul Hudson has a deep knowledge of creating brand voice identity, especially in understanding and targeting messages in cutting-edge technologies. He enjoys commissioning, editing, writing, and business development, in helping companies to build passionate audiences and accelerate their growth. Hudson has reported from more than 30 countries, from war zones to boardrooms to presidential palaces. He has led multinational, multi-lingual teams and managed operations for hundreds of journalists. Hudson is a Managing Partner at Angle42, a strategic communications consultancy.
February 27, 2021
An interview with Tom Lantzsch
Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Internet of Things Group (IoT) at Intel Corporation
Edge computing had been on the rise in the last 18 months – and accelerated amid the need for new applications to solve challenges created by the Covid-19 pandemic. Tom Lantzsch, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Internet of Things Group (IoT) at Intel Corp., thinks there are more innovations to come – and wants technology leaders to think equally about data and the algorithms as critical differentiators.
In his role at Intel, Lantzsch leads the worldwide group of solutions architects across IoT market segments, including retail, banking, hospitality, education, industrial, transportation, smart cities and healthcare. And he's seen first-hand how artificial intelligence run at the edge can have a big impact on customers' success.
Protocol sat down with Lantzsch to talk about the challenges faced by companies seeking to move from the cloud to the edge; some of the surprising ways that Intel has found to help customers and the next big breakthrough in this space.
What are the biggest trends you are seeing with edge computing and IoT?
A few years ago, there was a notion that the edge was going to be a simplistic model, where we were going to have everything connected up into the cloud and all the compute was going to happen in the cloud. At Intel, we had a bit of a contrarian view. We thought much of the interesting compute was going to happen closer to where data was created. And we believed, at that time, that camera technology was going to be the driving force – that just the sheer amount of content that was created would be overwhelming to ship to the cloud – so we'd have to do compute at the edge. A few years later – that hypothesis is in action and we're seeing edge compute happen in a big way.
<p>The last 18 months have been a wild time to be in technology. We've seen edge compute come to life to help businesses adapt during the pandemic. At the same time, we are also seeing how 5G is going to drive up interest, especially from a networking perspective, rather than a use-case perspective. We also see lot of people that are focused on their data, but the <em>algorithms</em> that companies train with the data are going to be their critical assets. It doesn't matter what company or what industry; <em>this</em> will really become the differentiator for many companies.</p><p>And particularly amid the backdrop of the pandemic, we've seen how companies are using technology to either bring workers back in safely or <a href="https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/corporate-responsibility/covid-19-response-sensormatic-article.html" target="_blank">serve their customers in new ways</a>, <a href="https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/customer-spotlight/stories/brentwood-academy-customer-spotlight.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">educate children in new ways</a> -- all things that have accelerated the digital transformation that had been underway. I recently read a <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/how-covid-19-has-pushed-companies-over-the-technology-tipping-point-and-transformed-business-forever" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">McKinsey survey</a> that reported on the "speedup in creating digital or digitally enhanced offerings. Across regions, the results suggest a seven-year increase, on average, in the rate at which companies are developing these products and services."</p><p>And based on what we're seeing at Intel, those are lifesaving and industry saving investments happening today – completely re-designing the way that <a href="https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/corporate-responsibility/covid-19-response-mic-article.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">patients are treated</a>, and businesses operate.</p><h4>What are you particularly expecting to see this year?</h4><p>What I find most interesting is the work that combines IoT with networking capabilities – and I think this is going to be a year of expansive exploration and working with our customers to put these two things together to solve real business challenges.</p><p>When we first started the integration of networking technology and operational technology capabilities and layered that across the industry verticals, we could count the amount of interested customers and opportunities on one hand. Last year, it was five times that many and this year we see that number increasing significantly already. So, we're excited to see the industry continue to build excitement to scale those types of deployments.</p><h4>What role does AI play at the edge and in what way is Intel involved?</h4><p>An AI use case recently grabbed my attention: employees in a restaurant being screened by a device that checks temperature while the employees are washing their hands – and provides a determination on whether they'd done it adequately before they report to work. I have seen other applications using similar technology in the <a href="https://marketplace.intel.com/s/offering/a5b3b000000TiMSAA0/using-ai-to-make-construction-site-safer?language=en_US" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">construction industry</a>, where an AI algorithm scans to see if employees have their helmet, goggles, vest and other safety equipment on properly to determine if they are ready to work. And the best part is – that the employer can see aggregate data on these interactions to determine if more training on handwashing or helmet wearing is needed.</p><p>At Intel, in addition to providing the fundamental base technology to enable these applications, we work with a lot of third-party developers to create these applications. And we help the developers scale them across multiple industries with our salesforce. So, we may not make the scan technology that determines if you have the right gear on, but we orchestrate that coordination across our ecosystem with all of our partners to effectively put it into a <a href="https://marketplace.intel.com/s/?language=en_US" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">catalog</a> so that if customers are interested in that sort of application, we can provide them with different parties to make that happen.</p><h4>Is there a problem with fragmentation in the market and how can that be solved?</h4><p>It's very fragmented. I gave just two examples of totally different workers coming to work in different industries and I can give you five more that are different again. Although the base technology that Intel creates to enable this type of innovation is very horizontal in nature, the reality is that bringing those to life must be very "vertically-centered" and very "use-case centered" – and must take into account, geography. The two employee use cases I cited look very different if you are talking about employees in North America, India or Germany. So, all in all, this is a holistic ecosystem challenge – and an ecosystem solution.</p><p>At Intel, we're in a unique situation to orchestrate these solutions. </p><p><cite class="pull-quote">People tend to think of Intel as providing the technical footprint that enables edge computing – but we also have the developer reach – and we can use our ecosystem and scale to help our end customers get access to the best solutions.</cite></p><h4>What sort of challenges do customers face when they're attempting to adopt edge computing?</h4><p>There are two common challenges. One is the technical question of 'Who can I work with?' A customer may have a chip focus but actually, it's a more complex question than a chip. We like that complexity, because we can be an adviser to them and <a href="https://marketplace.intel.com/s/partners-by-industry?language=en_US" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">bring to the table partners</a> that they can work with to solve that complexity leveraging our technical knowledge and ecosystem network. </p><p>The second thing that companies struggle with is the challenge of how to fund getting into this space – even if the business case warrants the investment. The world has changed. Companies don't want to write a big capital check for these types of investments – they want a pay-as-you-go model, like you see with the cloud. We've been working with customers to find a way to make that happen – and I think that is going to be a bigger part of the conversation moving forward.</p><p>You can see it across almost every aspect of technology now. We rent compute more than we buy compute. Evidenced by the success of AWS, companies can rent compute from Amazon instead of building their own data center – and there are many benefits to that approach. In the old world, even for this video conference that we're having today we would have installed capital to do this. Now it's just a service. And I think that edge as a service is right around the corner.</p><h4>Do you have an example of that?</h4><p>A customer in Mexico wanted to deploy outdoor WiFi and add security features into it. So, it was an edge-based computing issue that was part connectivity. But there was actually way more to it than just installing it. We not only helped to solved the technological challenge creatively and coordinated the <a href="https://marketplace.intel.com/s/partners-by-industry?language=en_US" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">ecosystem of providers</a> to solve this, but we also found a way so that the customer could get into this market with a service-based model without needing to outlay a lot of capital.</p><p>Other semiconductor companies would have a difficult time partnering on both sides of that challenge, but Intel can do it because we have the scale.</p><h4>How do businesses identify which functions they do want to perform at the edge versus in the cloud?</h4><p>It really comes down to a question of what you're trying to do and how you do it at the lowest cost, highest quality and standard in computability.</p><p>If you have an application and it can perform what you need it to do in the cloud, you'll probably run it there. The cloud is a great thing - there's infinite compute and lots of choice in a well-understood developer environment.</p><p>But there are many things you can't or shouldn't do in the cloud for certain reasons. Take the camera example from earlier. Say you have eight high-density cameras, and you want an action on them immediately. You may not be able to afford the latency that comes with going up into the cloud. Or it may be a financial challenge – that its actually more expensive to send that data to the cloud over and over again, and it makes sense to invest in compute at the edge. There are nuances in the decision-making. It really comes down to what you want the application to do, how quickly and how much it should cost.</p><h4>How does Intel help developers to learn, to build and then test their solutions at the edge?</h4><p>To enable what we know to be interesting and challenging use cases at the edge, required us to change our focus on who these developers are and what they care about. We learned that they <em>really</em> don't care about what hardware they're running on. The modern developers are fairly well extracted from the hardware – they just assume the compute is going to be available for them to do their work.</p><p>To make sure we can deliver on that, we typically target developers by specific capability. The most advanced case that we've been studying on the edge recently is focused video and specifically, video inferencing and AI inferencing. We created a tool called <a href="https://software.intel.com/content/www/us/en/develop/tools/openvino-toolkit.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenVINO</a>, which was developed in a way that developers didn't have to care about the hardware it runs on. It's a model optimization technology that enables them to easily scale out to different hardware platforms. That's proven to be an interesting value proposition to these developers.</p><p>Our goal with <a href="https://software.intel.com/content/www/us/en/develop/tools/openvino-toolkit.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenVINO</a> is democratize AI activity and inference at the edge. We want to make it simple -- to put these tools in the hands of non-data scientists and make it work. As a part of that process, we're also creating an environment where they can develop anyplace, anytime, anywhere they want to be. We're so proud of our <a href="https://software.intel.com/content/www/us/en/develop/tools/openvino-toolkit.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenVINO</a> community and are constantly working to grow the community and release new features and capabilities to edge developers.</p><h4>What's the possible next breakthrough that you see for Intel in edge computing and the IoT space?</h4><p>I'm looking forward to the big breakthrough when we show integrated 5G, Virtual Private Network and the edge workloads all in one unit. More to come.</p>
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Saul Hudson has a deep knowledge of creating brand voice identity, especially in understanding and targeting messages in cutting-edge technologies. He enjoys commissioning, editing, writing, and business development, in helping companies to build passionate audiences and accelerate their growth. Hudson has reported from more than 30 countries, from war zones to boardrooms to presidential palaces. He has led multinational, multi-lingual teams and managed operations for hundreds of journalists. Hudson is a Managing Partner at Angle42, a strategic communications consultancy.
Policy
Here are Big Tech’s biggest threats from states
The states are moving much quicker than Congress on privacy, taxes and content moderation.
Virginia is expected to be the second state to pass a comprehensive privacy law.
Photo: Ron Cogswell/Flickr
February 19, 2021
Emily Birnbaum ( @birnbaum_e) is a tech policy reporter with Protocol. Her coverage focuses on the U.S. government's attempts to regulate one of the most powerful industries in the world, with a focus on antitrust, privacy and politics. Previously, she worked as a tech policy reporter with The Hill after spending several months as a breaking news reporter. She is a Bethesda, Maryland native and proud Kenyon College alumna.
February 19, 2021
When critics say that Virginia's new privacy bill is "industry-approved," they're not totally wrong, said David Marsden, the state senator who has been working for months to shepherd the law through the state legislature.
It was an Amazon lobbyist who originally presented Marsden with the text of the bill, which hews closely to the failed Washington Privacy Act, versions of which have been pushed by Microsoft across the country.
<p>"Amazon gave us the first cut of a draft to look at that was based on other work," Marsden said. </p><p>An Amazon spokesperson called the text a "starting point." "It was an example of strong legislation and, like many other stakeholders, we consulted with the Senator as he refined his bill," the spokesperson said. </p><p>Marsden and Virginia delegate Cliff Hayes held meetings with other large tech companies, including Microsoft; financial institutions, including Capital One; and non-profit groups and small businesses, who all wanted desperately to have a hand in shaping the legislation. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="1">
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</div></p><p>But Marsden said he didn't hear much from consumer advocacy groups. That is, until this week, when it became clear that Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam <a href="https://www.rollcall.com/2021/02/16/virginia-set-to-become-second-state-to-pass-data-privacy-law/#:~:text=Gov.%20Ralph%20Northam%20expected%20to,and%20exempts%20many%20small%20businesses&text=Virginia%20is%20set%20to%20become,to%20pass%20data%20privacy%20legislation.&text=The%20law%20would%20exempt%20health,collected%20for%20assessing%20credit%20worthiness." rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">intends to sign the legislation</a> after it passes the Virginia General Assembly, and a barrage of organizations including the U.S. Public Interest Research Group and Electronic Frontier Foundation came out aggressively against the bill, calling it "<a href="https://uspirg.org/resources/usp/group-letter-opposing-weak-industry-backed-privacy-bill-virginia" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">weak</a>" in a flurry of letters and public statements. </p><p>Marsden concedes there's some truth to their concerns. "If it has a business focus to it, it's because the folks who put it together, they're the ones who showed up," he said. </p><p>Ed Mierzwinski, a senior director at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, said he and other national consumer and privacy groups didn't find out about this bill until a few weeks ago. Mierzwinski said the groups sent a letter to Marsden and other lawmakers on Feb. 4 raising concerns with the bill. "We're disappointed that he didn't reach back to us," Mierzwinski said.</p><p>The showdown in Virginia is only the latest battle in the influence war between Big Tech and their critics playing out in states across the country. Players on all sides are seeking to push their agenda on privacy, taxes, content moderation and AI through unpredictable and malleable state legislatures, with less-resourced advocacy groups fighting to keep up with tech giants' expansive lobbying efforts. All of it is happening in the void of any federal action from Congress.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><p>"Now, when I talk to state lawmakers or state staff members and say, 'Hey, it's a really bad idea to have a state patchwork of laws,' I just hear silence from them because they're like, 'Well, Congress still hasn't done anything,'" said Billy Easley, a senior tech policy analyst with Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity, which advocates against state-level legislation on privacy and speech. </p><p>As the Virginia case highlights, it's hard to predict where the next serious legislation will emerge. But Protocol compiled a list of the tech-related state efforts to watch most closely this year. </p><h3>The Washington Privacy Act </h3><p>Washington's tech-friendly privacy legislation has <a href="https://www.govtech.com/policy/Why-Did-Washington-States-Privacy-Legislation-Collapse.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">failed to pass</a> for the past two years amid disagreements over whether individuals should be allowed to sue tech companies for privacy violations and whether the bill should address concerns around facial recognition technology. But its supporters are more gung-ho than ever that this could be the year that Washington finally pushes through the privacy bill, which has spawned copycats across the country.</p><p>Washington State Sen. Reuven Carlyle <a href="https://www.geekwire.com/2021/washington-state-finally-pass-data-privacy-laws-bill-backed-tech-industry/#:~:text=The%20Washington%20Privacy%20Act%20grants,personal%20data%20under%20the%20legislation." rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">told Geekwire</a> last month that he believes the bill has a substantially higher chance of passing following years of negotiations with tech companies, consumer groups and discussions with the Washington attorney general's office.</p><p>"Washington is absolutely there," said Tom Foulkes, who leads state policy for BSA, also known as The Software Alliance, which has been working on the Washington legislation.</p><p>The Washington Privacy Act would give consumers the right to access, correct and delete data that companies hold on them, while opting out of particular forms of data collection and sale. It does not include the right for individuals to sue companies. Instead, it grants that authority to the attorney general. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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</div></p><p>Tech companies including Microsoft and Amazon have made it clear that they would prefer Washington's model over California's complex approach, which includes the right for individuals to sue over data breaches, if they have to choose. But the companies are still pushing for federal privacy legislation. </p><h3>New York privacy legislation</h3><p>The New York legislature can be hard to predict as it's very dependent on which bills congressional leadership and the governor will get behind their proposals. But this year's legislative session <a href="https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/new-york-legislature-introduces-ccpa-6501577/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">started off with a flurry</a> of privacy and <a href="https://www.technologylawdispatch.com/2021/01/privacy-data-protection/new-york-proposes-a-new-biometric-privacy-act/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">biometrics-related legislation</a> from the House and Senate, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo is proposing a comprehensive law to provide New Yorkers with "<a href="https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-announces-proposal-safeguard-data-security-rights-part-2021-state-state" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">transparency and control</a>" over their personal data.</p><p>"New Yorkers appreciate the value and convenience that technology has afforded their lives, but progress does not need to come at the expense of basic privacy," Cuomo <a href="https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-announces-proposal-safeguard-data-security-rights-part-2021-state-state" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">said in a statement</a>. "New York will act to pass a strong privacy law that safeguards New [Yorkers'] personal information and continues to encourage innovation."</p><p>The <a href="https://www.law.com/newyorklawjournal/2020/09/02/inside-the-proposed-new-york-privacy-act/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">New York Privacy Act</a>, which was set aside last year as the legislature focused on COVID-19, appears poised to make a comeback. It would create extensive new requirements for businesses to obtain consumers' consent before processing their data. It also includes a private right of action, which tech companies lobby aggressively against.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="4">
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</div></p><h3>New York antitrust legislation </h3><p>New York State Sen. Mike Gianaris believes that New York could become the first state to update its antitrust laws to rein in Big Tech this year. Gianaris made a name for himself through strident opposition of Amazon's plans to build a second headquarters in New York — plans the ecommerce juggernaut eventually scrapped.</p><p>After his battle with Amazon, he said he began researching ways to keep the tech giant's "incredibly powerful and unaccountable position from hurting people and other businesses." </p><p>"I had very up-close and personal experience with them," Gianaris said. </p><p>Gianaris' <a href="https://www.nysenate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/michael-gianaris/wake-landmark-federal-hearings-senate-deputy-leader" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">21st Century Antitrust Act</a>, which was introduced last summer on the heels of the House Judiciary Committee's congressional hearing with the tech CEOs, would allow the state to sue companies for "abusing" their dominance.</p><p>Right now, New York state law requires two parties to conspire to manipulate the market. But many of the monopoly concerns around Big Tech revolve around the companies' efforts to buy up rivals and muscle into new markets.</p><p>Adopting an abuse of dominance standard, he said, "opens the door to a lot more enforcement ability, particularly against Big Tech, which transcends so many different markets." </p><p>Gianaris said his office consulted with Attorney General Letitia James, who has publicly supported the bill, as well as anti-monopoly groups like the American Economic Liberties Project and Zephyr Teachout, a key antitrust advocate. </p><p>He said the tech companies initially ignored his legislation when it came out last year, but as it's become clear that the legislature might have interest in moving it forward, he's heard more pushback from the major tech trade groups. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="5">
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</div></p><h3>Online ad taxes </h3><p>Maryland last week sent shockwaves through the industry when it approved the country's first tax on Big Tech's ad revenue. The law's supporters have claimed that it's an effort to get the tech companies to pay their fair share in taxes, while the companies have <a href="https://internetassociation.org/news/statement-on-gov-hogans-veto-of-the-digital-sales-tax-bill/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">threatened</a> that they will ultimately pass the new costs onto Maryland's businesses and individuals buying digital ads. </p><p>"The intentionally equivocal claim that internet companies need to 'pay their fair share' is useful only to politicians pushing a political agenda, not to the development of sound public policy," said Robert Callahan, who heads state government affairs for Internet Association. "It is also detached from reality. The internet industry is providing enormous economic benefits to states like Maryland, whether or not companies are actually headquartered there."</p><p>A group of tech industry trade associations and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce <a href="https://internetassociation.org/news/statement-on-md-digital-ad-tax-litigation/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">sued</a> Maryland on Thursday, claiming that the new tax is unconstitutional and violates federal law. </p><p>Other states will watch the litigation in Maryland closely as they weigh whether to move forward with their own digital ad taxes. Lawmakers in Indiana and Connecticut have proposed similar taxes.</p><p>Gianaris, who is also supportive of a New York bill that would impose similar taxes on digital ads, said New York could renew its push if Maryland succeeds. "If their effort gets upheld, we'll move quickly to do the same here in New York," he said. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="6">
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</div></p><h3>Florida's privacy and speech bills </h3><p>Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at a <a href="https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2021/01/14/desantis-top-legislative-priority-stopping-censorship-of-conservatives-online/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">press conference this month</a> said that taking on Silicon Valley will be "the most important legislative issue that we're going to have to get right this year and next year." He's <a href="https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2021/02/15/gov-desantis-offers-new-details-in-plan-to-take-on-big-tech/#//" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">since laid out</a> a series of proposals, including privacy legislation and a proposal to ban companies from "deplatforming" political candidates. </p><p>While other lawmakers have promoted privacy bills as an effort to protect consumer privacy, DeSantis has explicitly tied his state's privacy legislation to the populist battle against companies including Facebook and Google. "Big Tech platforms have created a surveillance economy, which enriches those platforms by free-riding on consumer data," DeSantis <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/tech-and-telecom-law/florida-governor-backs-data-privacy-bill-akin-to-california-laws" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">said at another press conference</a> this week. "Worse, Big Tech platforms have made privacy an illusion. The truth is Floridians' most intimate information is collected, analyzed and sold to the highest bidder."</p><p>He has also <a href="https://reason.com/2021/02/04/florida-gov-ron-desantis-wants-100000-fines-for-social-media-companies-that-deplatform-politicians/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">proposed legislation</a> to fine social media companies for deplatforming politicians, a clear rebuke over Twitter, Facebook and YouTube's decisions to bar President Trump from their platforms. </p><p>Lawmakers in red states have increasingly proposed legislation aimed at social media's "censorship" of right-wing voices, and that effort has only intensified in the wake of the companies' decision to kick off Trump, Easley said. </p><p>"I think it's least 50 to 50 or 60 to 40 that some of these bills pass," Easley said, pointing to Florida's effort as a prime example. But he predicted that those efforts will get tied up in court as companies argue over the First Amendment and the role of Section 230.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="7">
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Emily Birnbaum ( @birnbaum_e) is a tech policy reporter with Protocol. Her coverage focuses on the U.S. government's attempts to regulate one of the most powerful industries in the world, with a focus on antitrust, privacy and politics. Previously, she worked as a tech policy reporter with The Hill after spending several months as a breaking news reporter. She is a Bethesda, Maryland native and proud Kenyon College alumna.
Transforming 2021
Blockchain, QR codes and your phone: the race to build vaccine passports
Digital verification systems could give people the freedom to work and travel. Here's how they could actually happen.
One day, you might not need to carry that physical passport around, either.
Photo: CommonPass
February 23, 2021
Mike Murphy ( @mcwm) is the director of special projects at Protocol, focusing on the industries being rapidly upended by technology and the companies disrupting incumbents. Previously, Mike was the technology editor at Quartz, where he frequently wrote on robotics, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics.
February 23, 2021
There will come a time, hopefully in the near future, when you'll feel comfortable getting on a plane again. You might even stop at the lounge at the airport, head to the regional office when you land and maybe even see a concert that evening. This seemingly distant reality will depend upon vaccine rollouts continuing on schedule, an open-sourced digital verification system and, amazingly, the blockchain.
Several countries around the world have begun to prepare for what comes after vaccinations. Swaths of the population will be vaccinated before others, but that hasn't stopped industries decimated by the pandemic from pioneering ways to get some people back to work and play. One of the most promising efforts is the idea of a "vaccine passport," which would allow individuals to show proof that they've been vaccinated against COVID-19 in a way that could be verified by businesses to allow them to travel, work or relax in public without a great fear of spreading the virus.
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</div></p><p>But building a system that everyone agrees with — and can access — is no small task. There are several companies working on competing projects to verify vaccinations. But beyond that, there are more than a few hurdles that could prevent vaccine passports from succeeding, from antiquated medical records systems to interoperability issues and privacy concerns. Here's how they could actually succeed. </p><h3>Competing projects, similar standards</h3><p>Pretty much since the first blockchain white paper, people have been looking for perfect examples of where a distributed, immutable ledger could be valuable. There's obviously the push to use it for currencies, and companies have tried to use it for things like tracking <a href="https://www.protocol.com/ibm-blockchain-supply-produce-coffee" target="_self">food production</a> and <a href="https://www.govtech.com/products/Blockchain-Voting-Debate-Heats-Up-After-Historic-Election.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">voting</a>, but there are few use cases that have truly taken off, at least so far. "We've been working on this since 2014; we never thought that health care would be the kind of the use case that we take this mainstream," Jamie Smith, the senior director of business development at Evernym, a company focused on using the blockchain as a basis for verifying identities, told Protocol. </p><p>Smith said Evernym had been discussing its concepts with automakers, retailers, telcos, governments, loyalty companies and banks prior to the pandemic. One of those companies was IAG, the airline group that owns British Airways, which had been interested in the idea of contactless travel based on a single identity credential that follows you from the airport check-in to your gate. With the pandemic, that morphed into thinking about ways to verify that passengers have had negative COVID tests, and eventually, that they've received a vaccine. "From our perspective, it was a really easy lift to see," Smith said. "We're doing contactless travel, and we just added verifiable credentials for test results."</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><p>It's a similar genesis for IBM's Digital Health Pass initiative, which leader Eric Piscini said started about two years ago as a way to store people's entire health records in a safe, accessible platform. It also relies on the blockchain for its immutable record of proof, and both Evernym and IBM are part of an open-standards group called the Good Health Pass Collaborative, which aims to bring private credentialed vaccine records to business and people around the world. Companies are working on their own implementations of the standards, but Evernym's Smith said the data is meant to be portable from one passport to another. </p><p>Most of the companies working on passports say their systems are private by design, especially given that they're mainly working off the same open standards. In most cases, the health information only ever remains on a user's phone, but where it asks to verify that the user's information meets a system's standards — such as whether this person has had two COVID vaccines and should be allowed into an office — that information is recorded on a blockchain. "You can, using blockchain technologies, verify that someone has been tested recently, without having access to the underlying data," Piscini said. "I don't know any other technology where you can do that."</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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</div></p><p>Similarly, the nonprofit Commons Project's CommonPass, backed by the likes of Oracle, Microsoft and Salesforce, started out as a project to bring an analog to Apple Health for Android. JP Pollak, a senior researcher at Cornell and founder of the Commons Project, first launched CommonHealth to bring the sort of data and insights that Apple Health offers to iPhone owners to Android users. Last summer, the group started building an app that could take health data and privately share it with others — in that case, it was to help truckers stuck at the borders in <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/opinions/digital-technology-re-opening-africa" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">East African countries</a> who couldn't easily prove they'd taken COVID tests. This morphed into vaccine credentialing, with the group now working to pull together the various data streams needed to get a project like this off the ground. </p><p>"Health care institutions, EMR vendors, retail pharmacies, state vaccine registries, all issuing people a digital verifiable credential of their vaccination record that they could then use in the app of their choice, to be able to get access to various kinds of services," Pollak said. CommonPass is also working with the Mayo Clinic, as well as Epic Systems and Cerner, two of the largest EMR vendors. </p><h3>Something for everyone </h3><p>With so many competing efforts to become the world's digital vaccine passport, it might seem that the country is heading for some sort of VHS versus Betamax format war for proving everyone has had COVID vaccines. But given that so many of the efforts are using the same standards, and in many cases, looking to embed their tech in someone else's app rather than their own, the race might be less about the best tech winning, and more about various approaches working in different situations. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="4">
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</div></p><p>"The intent is not to be the only company; we don't want to be the proprietary platform that everybody has to use because they have no choice," IBM's Piscini said. "That's not who we are right now: That's the IBM from 30 years ago, not the IBM of today."</p><p>For IBM, though, the selling point is that the company already works with so many other massive companies. Why look elsewhere for a vaccine passport solution if your airline booking system is already powered by IBM? "We believe our network is going to be more valuable than any other because of our scale and our ability to integrate the platform with CRM systems, building systems or stadium systems — we can do that every day," Piscini said.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTY2NTc3NS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMTM1MjYyM30._ykxxCyx3_wDbZrYgCcmK0QT2Ue1tZFdP5pf60kOmPU/img.jpg?width=980" id="c81c9" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3967636652192acfdaad341861263bc8" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">IATA's digital passport app.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Photo: IATA</small></p><p>For other companies, it's about securing new partnerships with major players in the hopes of finding that scale. Evernym, for example, is working with International Air Transport Association, the airline industry's trade association, on an air travel-specific app called Travel Pass. IATA is working with airlines and local governments to ensure it has the latest requirements to feed the app's rules engine. "It will say, 'Hey, you're flying JFK to Heathrow, you need a PCR test 48 hours in advance before you can land,'" Evernym's Smith said. "And of course, those policy changes are changing every day." Qatar, Emirates and Etihad Airways are all <a href="https://simpleflying.com/qatar-iata-travel-pass-launch/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">expected</a> to start trialing the app in the next few weeks.<br></p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="5">
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</div></p><p>In other instances, the technology will live inside other companies' existing apps; why make someone download yet another app and add another hurdle to compliance? Instead, the experience will be rather like adding a loyalty account or TSA PreCheck number when booking a flight. Airlines and other venues restricting access will require uploading negative test results or vaccine records using one of these services. "You're going to be using the United or the Delta app, and they'll be using our solution or somebody else's, but you will do it via their app," IATA's Travel Pass lead, Alan Murray Hayden, told Protocol.</p><p>The World Health Organization is also working on its own offering, and recently convened the <a href="https://www.who.int/groups/smart-vaccination-certificate-working-group" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Smart Vaccination Certificate Working Group</a>. It's built upon the WHO's nearly century-old notion of the "yellow card" vaccination record, which first was used to document that travelers had been inoculated against diseases such as cholera and yellow fever. Evernym Chief Trust Officer Drummond Reed is part of the working group; he said there should be more to share in the coming months. </p><h3>What could go wrong?</h3><p>It's entirely possible that as more people start to get vaccinated, vaccine passports start to become the norm. You walk to work — still masked, of course — scan a QR code reader in the lobby, and are let in. You go out for lunch, and your loyalty card app has a discount for in-store shoppers verifying they're vaccinated. Your concert ticket is also tied to health pass information that you shared earlier in the day with Ticketmaster. But there are more than a few hurdles ahead of the companies rushing to turn these concepts into realities. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="6">
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</div></p><p>First off, there's the … reality … of the real world that any digital system has to contend with. For anyone without access to the internet, digital vaccine credentials will prove difficult to acquire, though all the companies Protocol spoke with said they would offer a paper-based QR code for people who don't have smartphones. But there's also the issue of having to corral so many different stakeholders into one system, especially when some health care providers are still reliant on antiquated database systems or <a href="https://www.protocol.com/manuals/health-care-revolution/electronic-health-records-after-coronavirus" target="_self">even paper records</a>. "The amount of inefficiency in the system is tremendous," IBM's Piscini said. </p><p>But in the U.S. at least, all vaccinators are required to report COVID-19 vaccines to their state. Piscini said that even for people who just received a paper copy of their vaccine records, systems like IBM's can likely link up to the state's immunization registry and allow people to import records to a vaccine passport.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTY2NTc4My9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNzg3MTM2M30.RZtqR7F_FuXK1S24V6jVaqUZ0xOSG-gCwj00xU3fxcM/img.png?width=980" id="b0bd3" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="11d8002d92c0cd6ef39b12fc7b8dccf8" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">How CommonPass's app shows your records. </small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Image: CommonPass</small></p><p>And states are willing to help out, Pollak said, adding that CommonPass has started working with Hawaii to roll out its offering for would-be tourists. "We're seeing a lot of state governments stepping up and doing a really good job with this," Pollak said. "It would be surprising if there wasn't a coordinated federal effort very soon." That being said, while <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/iceland-covid-passports-canada-1.5904828" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">many countries around</a> the world are committing to working on vaccine passports, getting a straight answer out of the U.S. government on what it's doing has proven difficult. The State Department, which maintains America's traditional, analogue passports, referred me to Homeland Security, which referred me to the White House. The acting director and chief of staff of the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy, Kei Koizumi, told Protocol that "OSTP can't discuss projects we are working on before they are publicly announced."</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="7">
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</div></p><p>But even with systems in place at a federal level, there's still a fair amount of education that needs to happen before people will trust systems like these. "There's a substantial gap in understanding and knowledge of how these systems work, and people's views, in terms of who should get access to which data," Pollak said. </p><p>"We assume there's a Facebook Borg in the sky, monitoring every interaction," Smith said. "The emergence of verifiable credentials breaks down that mental model, where actually it becomes more like decentralized bits of paper that I can carry around, and no one's to know that I've been sharing this information."</p><p>"Our belief is that if you do the right thing, from a platform point of view, protecting your privacy, and giving you control and access to the platform to everybody who wants to use it," Piscini said. "I think those are very basic things that allow the core of the platform that we build to generate adoption by the individuals."</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="8">
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</div></p><p>Even with a system that works, there may still be holdouts to this potential new normal. "Some people are saying, 'I will never get vaccinated,'" Piscini said, "and I don't know if the airlines are going to say, 'Well, maybe you will never fly again.'"</p>
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Mike Murphy ( @mcwm) is the director of special projects at Protocol, focusing on the industries being rapidly upended by technology and the companies disrupting incumbents. Previously, Mike was the technology editor at Quartz, where he frequently wrote on robotics, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics.
Protocol | China
Here’s who has the ear of China’s most active cyber regulator
Alibaba and Huawei are dominating — while other big companies like ByteDance are sitting on the sidelines.
TC260's proposed standards have influence throughout Chinese government.
Image: Yuichiro Chino/Getty Images
January 27, 2021
Clara Wang is a Researcher - Data Scientist for Protocol | China. Previously, she worked as a data scientist for the Biden campaign and at Civis Analytics, and she spent a summer working for the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution. She has conducted research on data privacy, misinformation, and information control in the digital age, and she is completing her Master's in Economics at the Yenching Academy program at Peking University.
January 27, 2021
Protocol | China tracks major Chinese standards and regulations with the power to affect your business.
China's economy is projected to be the world's largest by 2028, and Beijing is betting heavily on the power of technology to get it there. But China needs to build and sustain public trust in tech platforms if it wants a future with smart cities that run on the cloud, wide adoption of digital currency and increasing reliance on electronic devices that collect vast amounts of personal data. So it's hastily assembling a regulatory framework, and the organization doing much of this building is the National Information Security Standardization Technical Committee (also known as Technical Committee 260 or TC260). Despite its wonky name, it wields extraordinary power over Chinese cyberspace; as of December, it has issued more than 300 standards related to information security and cybersecurity, and it has about 700 more in the works.
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</div></p><p>TC260 isn't an enforcement body, but its influence is visible throughout Chinese government. For example, in October 2020, it released an updated <a href="https://www.tc260.org.cn/upload/2020-09-18/1600432872689070371.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">personal information security</a> standard with recommended practices for data governance and security. About three weeks later, the government released a draft of its updated <a href="https://www.newamerica.org/cybersecurity-initiative/digichina/blog/chinas-draft-personal-information-protection-law-full-translation/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Personal Information Protection Law</a> for public consultation, and two days after that <a href="http://www.cverc.org.cn/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">China's National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center</a> published a <a href="https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1681330813286436015&wfr=spider&for=pc" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">list</a> of over 20 mobile applications in violation of existing personal information protection laws and urged users to be wary of downloading these apps. The list mostly includes Chinese apps, but also named <a href="https://www.amazon.cn/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Amazon</a>, a sign that foreign companies operating in China could also be swept up in coming regulatory crackdowns. <br></p><p>Multinationals have to ensure their technologies align with standards to pass regulatory checks if they want to maintain their operations in China.</p><p>This is surely one reason why dozens of foreign companies sit on TC260's working groups, as do hundreds of Chinese ones; these companies nervously await each new release, and often task their lawyers or outside firms with quick guidance. </p><p>TC260 is also more transparent than a typical Chinese government entity. The identities of its 81 committee members and corporate participants in its working groups are all public, as are the names of the companies and individuals credited with input on each of TC260's regulations. Protocol has collected and analyzed all information released by TC260 to unpack which companies have the regulator's ear.</p><h3>Chinese tech giants: Who's primus inter pares?</h3><p>China's largest technology companies have a large footprint. Among 81 committee members, Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent and Huawei (the "BATH") are all represented, as are Lenovo, ZTE and JD. Committee membership on TC260 is valuable, as committee members get the final say on standards coming out of various working groups, and they can vote to send standards back to a working group for revision. The committee member from Huawei also wields influence as the team lead for the working group looking at communication security standards, meaning that they can impact that group's standard setting deliberations. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><p>But even though all these large technology companies have representation on TC260's committee or one or more of TC260's working groups, not all of them play an active role in drafting TC260 standards and regulations. Instead, Huawei and Alibaba are preeminent among them. Both have their fingerprints on more than 20 released national standards.<br></p><p><img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/CFpu8Uv-fjBPB8ML89ue6q8ZGyAm0U0-RtcqQmjpZ43HbbhofJNVhzjEVz-DC41ea8VNZw_5yrQncPARaxoJ_H6cmoANypmZnszdb3OuYMgFkeZDrvZ4GUFPGU09T6N7iPMkfnLC"> </p><p>China's big tech companies seem to have the greatest involvement in the Internet of Things. Of the 16 regulations that have been released or are currently in progress that relate to IoT, almost 50% of them have one or more BATH companies involved in drafting the regulation. As "smart" devices scale up into "smart" cities, IoT technology will play an even greater role in people's daily lives — from traffic congestion to water usage metrics — meaning that China's tech giants are helping to define standards that reach far beyond phone screens. </p><p>It's clearly an unequal bunch. Xiaomi and ByteDance sit on multiple working groups but are not credited with helping to draft a single standard or regulation. In fact, their peers may be using TC260 to undercut them. For example, a <a href="http://openstd.samr.gov.cn/bzgk/gb/newGbInfo?hcno=4568F276E0F8346EB0FBA097AA0CE05E" target="_blank">personal information security specification</a> that formally went into effect in October 2020 requires users be given a clear opt-out mechanism from their news filter bubbles so they can view generic, rather than tailored, content. While the specification impacts all the big technology companies that work with data, this new addition seems like it could be targeted at ByteDance's Toutiao product, which has dominated the personalized news space due to its <a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/library/3x-hidden-forces-behind-toutiao-china-s-content-king" target="_blank">novel, algorithmic recommendation system</a> that's juiced user engagement. Two contributors to that new regulation? Tencent and Alibaba, both ByteDance competitors. ByteDance itself is notably absent.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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</div></p><p>Huawei's prevalence in TC260 may give the company a greater say in the country's future technology infrastructure. Huawei has been involved with TC260 regulations and standards related to telecommunications, data security and cloud computing, which fundamentally impact many organizations that work with or transfer data. The telecommunications giant has also been involved with standards such as <a href="http://openstd.samr.gov.cn/bzgk/gb/newGbInfo?hcno=F665694F939CE7DF87D50741E39E6BDA" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">the "Framework of smart city security system"</a> which sets foundational standards for China's smart city ambitions. Huawei's 5G technology is likely to form part of the key infrastructure for China's smart cities, as it enables faster and more reliable data transfers. </p><p>Meanwhile, many of the policies Alibaba and its subsidiaries, such as Taobao and Ant Financial, have helped draft generally involve safety standards and regulations for big data, cloud computing and cloud security. While Alibaba is currently involved in 40 of the projects in progress (about 6% of the total), it's unclear whether Ant's recent regulatory troubles could threaten its future involvement in certain regulations. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="4">
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</div></p><h3>Enter the foreigners ... sort of</h3><p>While the standards that TC260 sets are unlikely to have the global impact of Europe's GDPR — which has <a href="https://www.crowelldatalaw.com/2019/06/at-the-gdprs-first-anniversary-the-impact-on-us-companies-grows/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">compelled American companies</a> to change their cybersecurity practices and pushed tech giants like Twitter and Facebook to look <a href="https://www.protocol.com/big-tech-policy-priorities-2021" target="_self">beyond America's borders to</a> identify important compliance hurdles — Chinese standards will immediately impact foreign companies operating in China. They may also indirectly shape the regulatory standards in regions where China has invested heavily, particularly Africa and South America, which have young populations and are ripe for technological and economic growth.</p><p>TC260's regulations may also help China further wall itself off from the international community. As China sets more stringent cybersecurity standards, many of which fail to align with international standards, companies may just choose to build operations around two incompatible systems — China's and the rest of the world.</p><p>TC260 started allowing foreign companies to join the ranks of its working groups in 2016. But unlike some big Chinese tech companies, the foreigners are mostly window dressing. Protocol took a deep dive into the composition of TC260's committee and working groups, as well as all of the regulations currently being researched, revised or already released by TC260. Foreign companies make up just 6% of the working group members for which data are available.</p><p>Foreign companies are most prevalent in three working groups: information security evaluation, information security management and big data security. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="5">
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</div></p><p> <img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/NzJjSDQ1Nf9FArVRzM5cvDxipjp2sLwOXVLeTIH2_OkC3scpHy4owGyElZa_8bNYTJxDI4K-SrRjbZzpD0kMj_laQ6si3_5w6yyIiS3n40DSQYupGZuHpouYq-JZC9cc2MV_TbMy"></p><p>Qualcomm stands out as the only foreign member in every single one of the working groups that allows public participation. Other big players in the technology space such as Intel, IBM, Siemens, Dell, Oracle, Apple and even Google — many of whose services are blocked in China — are repeat members. Many of these companies are the same ones <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-cybersecurity-regulations-rattle-u-s-businesses-11564409177" target="_blank">most likely to be hurt</a> by tough cybersecurity regulations.</p><p>But as shown by China's big technology companies, representation in a working group doesn't equal influence. When we look at the standards and guidelines currently being researched, developed and revised by TC260, and who's credited for them, the involvement of foreign companies barely registers. Just four regulations have been released with acknowledged input from foreign companies. Foreign companies can contribute to TC260 regulations by submitting comments when TC260 solicits public suggestions, but it's unclear whether TC260 members give much consideration to external submissions.</p><h3>Reading the tea leaves</h3><p>TC260 currently has more than 700 projects "in progress." In many of these, TC260 is continuing work related to topics it has repeatedly emphasized, particularly security standards for cloud computing, passwords and verification, and trusted computing systems. To read the tea leaves of what TC260's new areas of focus might be for future standards and regulations, we looked at the terms and phrases that appear in the titles of projects in progress, but not in the titles of regulations that have already been released. This allows us to isolate new topics or technologies that future TC260 standards may cover. Here's what comes up: </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="6">
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</div></p><p><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/uRNEZvLb8Wki0Noa42VwrXuuEa6HBRtWls6AENoOktwc1AdVi7C_igLnHivPl93pFla42yWagwoRqjKB8gS7bUtZDC_KAXOD_zBe0iQkXP0s1u8Tkfr1wilvwSDi6uoZ0CL1GMV1"></p><p>Many new projects revolve around TC260 tracking its current standards, streamlining its complex maze of rules and evaluating its standards against international ones. Currently, only about 15% of the standards released by TC260 align with global standards, creating a tangle of regulations for multinational companies that operate in both China's market and external markets. It looks like TC260 is trying to solve for that by adjusting its own standards, as well as proposing some of its standards for international adoption by the <a href="https://www.iso.org/standards.html" target="_blank">ISO</a>.</p><p>Some of the most prevalent new terms of note are "critical information infrastructure," "broadband," "metropolitan area network" and "malware," which suggest that TC260 is focusing its efforts on securing China's vast wireless network. As China's government shifts more critical functions to the digital sphere — from banking to education — the need to secure its digital space becomes increasingly pressing.</p><p>Some terms reflect new trends in China's tech space — "digital currency," "blockchain," "ecommerce system," "shopping" and "payments" — which all relate to China's digital economy and the country's efforts to develop a new <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-currency-digital-explainer/explainer-how-does-chinas-digital-yuan-work-idUSKBN27411T" target="_blank">digital currency</a> backed by the central bank. </p><p>Other new terms of note are "finger veins," "gait" and "face," all of which relate to technologies for personal identification. These may be used for surveillance purposes, for which China is <a href="https://www.chinafile.com/state-surveillance-china" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">notorious</a>, but they are also critical for fintech. After all, citizens may only be comfortable using a digital currency if highly accurate identification technologies can ensure that their money is securely tied to their identity. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="7">
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</div></p><p><em>This is the first in a series of Protocol | China analyses introducing our proprietary research methods. The methodologies above are also available for bespoke research.</em></p>
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Clara Wang is a Researcher - Data Scientist for Protocol | China. Previously, she worked as a data scientist for the Biden campaign and at Civis Analytics, and she spent a summer working for the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution. She has conducted research on data privacy, misinformation, and information control in the digital age, and she is completing her Master's in Economics at the Yenching Academy program at Peking University.
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